A Born Salesman

John Gilchrist, who in the 1970s played Mikey the reluctant cereal eater on Life's legendary spot, is now all grown up. Of course, he never strayed far from his roots, as he is now a salesperson for WKTU radio station in New York. Once a pitchman, always a pitchman.

"Selling is in my blood," says the 34-year-old, who appeared in the commercial alongside two of his real-life brothers.

Gilchrist vaguely remembers the filming of the Life commercial (he was only three at the time), but apparently the experience was enough to convince him that he was born to sell.

He went on to act in more than 250 advertising spots throughout his teenage years, and he is still collecting royalties from some of them. His six brothers and sisters also appeared in commercials, acting in more than 700 in the 1970s and 1980s. Eventually, Gilchrist's mother even opened a talent agency to handle children. Obviously the world of sales and marketing was innate to the Gilchrist family: he has a brother in sales for AT&T and a sister who is a salesperson.

After growing up in Westchester, New York, Gilchrist studied communications in college and has been working in advertising sales for more than six years. Of course, he was a natural at pitching products from the beginning. When you've done something since you could walk, you can bet that you're going to be good at it.

Gilchrist now, though, blames Mikey for his continued interest in sales. "Ever since I was little, I always had the desire to get out and talk to people," he says. "I'm a big people person. I entered sales as a result of dealing with people. Rather than pushing paper around on a desk, I'd much rather get out and talk to people, and develop one-on-one relationships."

Even through Gilchrist is now a grown man, new customer prospects still detect the boyish Mikey in his eyes. "I'll go on a sales call, and somebody I've never met will look at me strangely and say, 'Do I know you?'" he says.

And as any good salesperson will do, Gilchrist looks for anything to break the ice with a prospective customer. "The fact that I was Mikey isn't something I lead with, but if people look at me with a raised brow, I tell them who I am," he says. "It kind of breaks the ice."

In July Gilchrist began to get more raised eyebrows than in recent years, as Quaker Oats rereleased the Mikey commercials and began running online promotions with the old Mikey. "[The old spots] are definitely coming up a lot more in conversations these days," he says.

Why does Gilchrist think the legendary commercial is still popular today? "I think the commercial represented the all-American family," he says. "Every family has a finicky eater—people can relate to that."

Always the hawker, Gilchrist can't resist plugging Life cereal, even today. "We buy it all the time," he says. "I feed it to my two-year-old boy. He likes it." The kid's a chip off the old block.