WASHINGTON - Nobel-Prize winning Russian Author Alexander Solzhenitsyn signed an exclusive endorsement contract with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Industries today, agreeing to appear in commercials and print-ads promoting the drug Viagra. This is the first time in history that a Nobel Prize winner has agreed to become a spokesperson for a product prescribed to treat erectile dysfunction.
In a statement released through his publicist, Solzhenitsyn said he was looking forward to lending “his name, his legacy, his imposing moral, physical and literary stature, indeed his very soul, to helping the millions of men around the world who struggle to achieve an erection.”
Solzhenitsyn hasn’t done commercials on American television since he replaced Joe Dimaggio as a spokesman for “Mr. Coffee” during the mid-eighties. Since then, he has appeared in local Russian dinner theater, and managed a bed and breakfast in a suburb of St. Petersburg that attempts to recreate the Siberian Labor Camp experience for Western tourists.
Pfizer Chairmen George Van Epps said he was elated that Solzhenitsyn had agreed to the deal. “Alexander Solzhenitsyn has spent the better part of his life attempting to elevate the impotent, and through his literary works and in his public statements he has never ceased to confront the flaccid organs of Soviet power. It is indeed an honor for all of us here at Pfizer to be able to work with him.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The first ad featuring Solzhenitsyn is scheduled to appear during the 2007 Super Bowl.
