John O’Hurley has been in business with the real-life J. Peterman for more than 20 years.
The actor and National Dog Show host famously played Elaine Benes’ eccentric boss, Jacopo “J.” Peterman, owner of the J. Peterman catalogue, in Seinfeld. But while the character was fictional, the J. Peterman company and its catalogue were and still are very real.
“It is the most unusual catalog you’ll ever read,” O’Hurley, 70, told host Steve Kmetko on the most recent episode of the Still Here Hollywood podcast, comparing the catalogue to an Ernest Hemingway novel.
According to O’Hurley, John Peterman, who founded the actual J. Peterman Company in 1987, only learned that he was being parodied on Seinfeld through his own employees after the character first appeared in 1995. Rather than calling his lawyers, O’Hurley said, Peterman established a relationship with the Seinfeld team and the two became friends.
“Well, about a year and a half after Seinfeld ended, he was about to IPO the company, and everything went belly up on him,” the actor explained.
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The real J. Peterman Company filed for bankruptcy in early 1999 and was purchased by another company which also went bankrupt the following year. In 2001, Peterman was able to buy back the company’s intellectual property. That’s when he approached O’Hurley seeking an investment to help relaunch.
“Would you like to write me a really, really large check, and we’ll put the company back together again under our parallel strength?” O’Hurley recalled Peterman asking.
“So I wrote a really, really large check.” Since then, O’Hurley said, “I have been part owner of the J. Peterman catalog.”
“It still has been the greatest act of identity theft ever,” the actor joked. “And I’m not giving it back.”
O’Hurley remains the J. Peterman Company’s board of directors and continues to be something of a mascot.
“We’ll be walking down Madison [Avenue], and sure enough, some cop car will roll down a window and scream, ‘Hey, Peterman!’ ” he said. “And they’re not talking to [Peterman]. They’re talking to me. Now isn’t that bizarre?”
“All he did was just run a successful clothing catalog company, and for the rest of his life he will have lost his identity,” the actor joked.
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