Johnny Roventini the Phillip Morris Bellhop

THE BELLHOP FROM THE HOTEL NEW YORKER
THE "CALL FOR PHILLIP MORRIS" BELLHOP
Click Here to Hear His call (mp3 audio)

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SECOND PAGE ABOUT JOHNNY

CLICK HERE TO VIEW NEWEST BELLHOP IMAGES
THEY HAVE NOT BEEN FILED INTO CATEGORIES YET

CLICK HERE To Obituary of Albert Alteiri the 2nd Phillip
Morris Bellhop hired and discovered by Philip Morris
I have some photos of him as Johnny's stand in

CLICK HERE To Old Time Radio Commercials Page
about Johnny Roventini and His "Call for Philip Morris!!"

Johnny Roventini: Died Nov 30,1998 (was 88)/born Aug 15, 1910
Died in Suffern, NY at age 86 or 88??
His family said the cause was complications from a facial infection. . . His nephew, Philip Roventini, said his uncle,never more than a light social smoker, had not smoked at all inrecent years but had remained a company man, indifferent totobacco's link with health

Announcer, radio and TV ad pitchman
(diminutive pitchman) in the 30's and 40's

Discovered • 1933: ADVERTISING: Bellhop/Page boy/Bellboy
Johnny Roventini is discovered in the New Yorker hotel
and soon becomes the world's first living trademark--
The Philip Morris Bellhop,
his distinctive voice making the famous,
"Call for Philip Morris"

Johnny Roventini was forty-seven inches tall
and weighed fifty-nine pounds.

A letter to the Editor: written to the New York Daily News:
From: News and Views | Opinion : Regarding Bellhop Bellboy Johnny Roventini
Sunday, December 13, 1998

Johnny Remembered Brooklyn: Just a footnote on the passing of Johnny Roventini. He was better known as Johnny Philip Morris and lived on 76th St. in Bensonhurst. He was the most famous person in our neighborhood and, maybe at the time, in America. When we were teenagers and he was in his 40s, he would play stickball with us on 15th Ave. I would deliver prescriptions from my uncle's pharmacy to his elderly parents and he would offer a tip of $1 — this in the early 1950s. The irony of this story is that I grew up and became an anti-tobacco advocate. Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing Johnny smoke. Paulie Stingo

The theatre at 1697 Broadway in New York started life as Hammerstein's Theatre (named for Oscar Hammerstein II) in 1927. In short order, it became the Manhattan Theatre, then Billy Rose's Music Hall, then the Manhattan Theatre again. In 1936, CBS acquired it and dubbed it CBS Radio Theatre #3. Here, four years later, The Philip Morris Program is broadcast from there. This was an anthology series of sometimes turgid dramas, remembered mainly for its commercial spokesman. Johnnie (sometimes spelled Johnny) was the mascot for Philip Morris Tobacco -- a diminutive hotel bellhop who gave out with a distinctive cry, as if paging someone in a lobby, "Call for Philip Morris!" He pronounced it with a clipped delivery -- "Morris" sounded like "More-Ace" -- and people everywhere imitated it. The line was delivered by an actual bellhop, 4' tall Johnny Roventini. He billed himself, probably correctly, as "The World's Smallest Bellhop" and worked at the Hotel New Yorker until such time as the demand for personal appearances made that impractical. He later wandered through many programs that hawked Philip Morris products, and probably convinced a lot of people that smoking would stunt your growth. Mark Evanier LA CA

click here
for another article--New York Daily News About
Bellhop Bellboy Johnny Roventini:
From: New York Now | Cityscape |
Sunday, December 06, 1998
Sorry No longer online
but I made PDF file from the Page!!

CLICK HERE
Phillip Roventini's Web Page
Accountant CPA White Plains NY, New City NY
Nephew of Johnny Roventini

I AM INTERESTED IN COLLECTING OTHER STORIES
AND SHORT ARTICLES
ABOUT THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BELLHOP BELLBOY
JOHNNY ROVENTINI THE PHILLIP MORRIS BELLOP Bellman
SEND VIA EMAIL eztone@hotmail.com
OR SEND TO :

LD Pierce
PO 86
Gage OK 73843

Pages Updated Sept 30, 2003

Click here for LD's Genealogy Pages

Smoking and Cigarrette Notice

please note I do not Smoke and in fact have never smoked a cigarette!!
Constructing and Building this site in no way
condones the use of cigarettes or cigars!!
In Fact I am an avid anti-smoker.
I built this website in view of the fact that Johnny Roventini
and His Bellhop Call Routine became the greatest
Advertising Campaign in US history. He became a living Trademark.
In 1992 I visited Ocala Florida area for a few months (Beverly Hills)
and never dreamed Roventini was alive and well living in Ocala at that time!!
Boy that was a missed opportunity!!

No matter how cute an ICON he became
Smoking is Tragically hazardous to your health!!!
By the time the hazards of smoking outweigh
the (superficial satisfaction) benefits a person receives--
the people who smoke will already be
in the health care system with emphysema/lung disease and/or under
health care for chronic lung disease and heart trouble.

Go to any VA Hospital, any Retirement center for the Elderly
and you will see all the (almost) old people who smoked
their life away who are now hooked up to Oxygen 24 hours a day
and depending on breathing treatments with strong drugs
just to be able to breath a few more weeks/months.

Bill Wilson the Founder of Alcoholics Anonymous is a prime example:
He Survived Alcoholism to become sober and live 25 year sober life He
fought and survived 20 years of a very horrible depression
however in the end his chronic addiction to cigarettes killed him.
Cigarettes took his life at the very start of his Elder Statesman Career.
without the tobacco he could have lived another 10 15 years or more!!!

More Info About Bellhop 2007

A bellhop (also bellboy or bellman) is a hotel porter, who helps patrons with their luggage while checking in or out.

The job's name is derived from the fact that the hotel's front desk would ring a bell to summon an available employee, who would "hop" (jump) to attention at the desk in order to receive instructions.

Historically, this employee traditionally was a boy or adolescent male who may have been otherwise unskilled but able to carry luggage; hence the term bellboy. Today's bellman must be quick witted, a good conversationalist, charismatic, outgoing, and understand the basics of human psychology to better customize each guest's experience.^{[citation
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Often (s)he wears a uniform, like certain other page boys or doormen.

In many countries such as the United States, it customary to tip such an employee for his or her service.

This position can also be held by a woman today, with the progression of equality in the workplace. The term "bellhop" is much less gender specific than "bellman" or "bellboy".
Johnny Roventini -of Philip Morris fame-was the worlds Most famous bellhop.

Duties that are often included in this job are opening the front door, moving luggage, valeting cars, calling cabs, transporting guests, giving directions, basic concierge work, and responding to any of the guest needs.

Popular references

The 1929 Marx Brothers musical/comedy film, The Cocoanuts, featured an early, if unwitting, foreshadowing of gender equality in the job. The dialogue portion of the musical play featured a number of bellhops, all of them male. There were also a couple of chorus-line dance numbers featuring bellhops, all of them female. In case the viewing audience missed that subtlety, Groucho commented about it on-screen.

The bellhop task of paging guests was referenced in a famous and long-running series of radio and print advertisements for the Philip Morris tobacco company. The ads featured a young Johnny Roventi with a strong tenor voice announcing,
"CALL... FOR... PHILIP MORR-E-IS!"

In the video game Hotel Mario a species of Goomba appeared as an enemy character who was dressed as a bellhop.

In the popular children's television series, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody a character named Esteban works as a bellhop in the Tipton Hotel.

The cast members of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attractions at Disney theme parks are dressed as bellhops of The Hollywood Tower Hotel.

Bell Boy is a song by The Who released on their 1973 album Quadrophenia.

In their song "Orgasm Addict", The Buzzcocks refer to "butcher's assistants and bellhops, you've had them all here and there..."

The lead singer of American Rock band, The Killers, Brandon Flowers, was a bellhop at the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada before he joined the band.