Fast Food Star : Rodney Allen Rippy Hopes for Another Chance

He is not readily recognized. After all, he was only 3 1/2 years old in 1971, when he became a pint-sized television superstar hawking hamburgers for Jack in the Box, making scores of appearances on television talk shows and at public events.

But when he says his name and flashes that smile, people remember him immediately.

He is Rodney Allen Rippy.

Rippy, who will turn 23 in July, is 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighs 147 pounds--and he no longer travels in the show business fast lane. He lives in a modest one-bedroom apartment in Long Beach, drives a 1968 Chevrolet Camaro (for which he paid $2,000) and attends Cerritos College in Norwalk.

“People will ask me to introduce them to some of my movie star friends,” Rippy said with a chuckle. But he always declines. “I don’t know any movie stars.”

That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t like another chance at stardom. In hopes of reviving his acting career, he has had about 100 auditions in the last three years, has appeared on “Entertainment Tonight” and has been interviewed by People magazine.

Rippy said he is not discouraged by the rejections. “I still love the cameras,” he said. He hopes to land a movie role, preferably an action film, but he also would like to try comedy.

He said he does not know how much money he made during his years with Jack in the Box, but it does provide a modest income today. Proceeds from a trust fund provide a monthly allowance of about $1,500 for general expenses such as food, clothing and school supplies, and another $600 to cover the rent, he said. The trust is administered by his attorney, Irwin Chasalow, who said his client’s earnings are confidential.

A spokeswoman for Foodmaker Inc., owner of Jack in the Box, said it is difficult to tell how much money Rippy made because so much time has passed. “That was 15 years ago. The records are in the archives,” Jan McLane Rieger said.

But she added: “Rodney was the best thing that ever happened to us. He put us on the map.” In 1973, for example, the company’s sales increased 25% to about $165 million.

Rippy’s phenomenal run in commercials ended in the late 1970s. “I think they just decided to change their image. They even had a big promotional thing where they blew up the Jack in the Box clown and started with new commercials,” he said.

Rippy, who was born in Long Beach, got his big break when his mother, Flossie, took him to an audition in Burbank for a commercial. “The last instructions my mom gave me before the commercial started was to make sure I didn’t talk with food in my mouth,” he said.

“I took a bite of the burger and the man asked me how I liked it, and I said I couldn’t talk with my mouth full. My mom thought I had blown it, but they loved it. They called me the next day and I started doing commercials.”

In 1978, the family decided to leave Long Beach to return to the small town of Julian, N. C., to be near relatives. “Work had slowed by then. I have no regrets about leaving. I got a chance to meet my relatives,” he said.

His mother died in 1986 of cancer, and Rippy decided to move back to Long Beach in 1988. Most of his family, including his father, Fred, 56, remains in Julian.

When he returned to California, Rippy rehired Dorothy Day Otis, who was his agent when he was struggling to get his mouth around the chain’s jumbo hamburgers.

“He grew up with me. He was the cutest kid I’ve ever seen. We always stayed in touch,” Otis said.

“People ask me how I can accept these rejections and I tell them I’ve just got to keep on cruising,” Rippy said.