Unregistrable
Happy Trails and Green Fairways on the Good Ship Lollipop
Shirley Temple, Roy Rogers, and Arnold Palmer. Each an icon in his or her own right. The child star whose curls and dimples charmed generations as she sang and tap-danced her way through heaps of heart-warming matinee fodder. The handsome King of the Singing Cowboys whose exploits with his trusty horse Trigger and faithful wife Dale Evans made him the idol of American youth. And Arnold Palmer, the swaggering golf legend whose charisma helped propel professional golf into the major leagues.
What could these radically different celebrities possibly have in common?
After his celebrated championship career, Palmer went on to become golf’s most revered elder statesmen and a spokesperson for several products and companies. Rogers founded a chain of burger and roast beef fast-food joints, and had Trigger stuffed and mounted after he passed to the great prairie in the sky, while Temple, as Shirley Temple Black, became a diplomat. Not much common ground there.
But when you’re out to dinner with the family, the connection is inescapable. The little girls ask for a “Shirley Temple”—the name given decades ago to an alcohol-free cocktail featuring ginger ale, grenadine, and a maraschino cherry suitable for juvenile imbibers. The boys want a “Roy Rogers” to spare themselves the embarrassment of ordering a drink named after their sisters’ favorite child star. You, on the other hand, might order the ice tea/lemonade mixture universally known as an “Arnold Palmer,” especially if you’re the designated driver.
While the Shirley Temple and Roy Rogers drinks have been around for ages, the Arnold Palmer concoction is of more recent vintage. How did Arnold Palmer’s name become associated with that relatively obvious concoction? To answer that burning question, I telephoned Arnold Palmer Enterprises. Reaching a recorded message, I dutifully followed the instruction to leave my name, number, and a detailed message. To my surprise, a few weeks later, someone returned my call. Not Arnie himself, but a ranking officer in his formidable corporate army. Intrigued and bemused by my investigative zeal, Arnie’s spokesman explained that back in the day, after grueling rounds in the desert sun at the swanky Palm Springs Country Club, Palmer would indeed ask the bartender to serve up a tall glass of ice tea cut with lemonade. Arnie being the trendsetter that he was, other touring pros and patrons followed suit, and soon the combination became known simply as an Arnold Palmer.
I asked Palmer’s representative whether it bothered Arnold and his camp that his name was being used indiscriminately and without his control all across the country. The answer was as gracious and humble as Arnie himself. While it’s perhaps a source of some nuisance, how would it look if Arnold Palmer starting firing off cease-and-desist letters and lawsuits aimed at members of the public—HIS public—over a harmless soft drink? Instead of stirring up legal and PR trouble, and true to his classy image, Palmer opted to join and not fight the trend. He’s licensed the good folks at Arizona Tea to market his own version of the “Arnold Palmer Tee.” It comes in a container adorned with a variety of memorable pictures of Arnie across the various phases of his career, along with notes about his career highlights and records:
As Arnie showed during his illustrious playing days with his many “charges” up the leader board that thrilled the packed galleries known as “Arnie’s Army,” it’s usually best to take matters into your own hands.
Other than the Shirley Temple, the Roy Rogers, and the Arnold Palmer, there don’t appear to be other beverages that sport the name of a celeb. That said, if someone at a party offers you a Lindsay Lohan, it would probably be wise to stick to ice tea and lemonade.
