Calvin Coolidge Worthington was born on 27 November 1920, in Shidler, Oklahoma USA, and was a car dealer, best known for his various television and radio advertisements for the Worthington Dealership Group. He also made several minor appearances in films. His iconic advertisements would always include a dog named Spot who was not really a dog, but appeared as a different animal in every commercial. All of his efforts have helped put his net worth to where it was prior to his passing in 2913.
How rich was Cal Worthington? As of early-2017, sources inform us of a net worth that was at $20 million, mostly earned through success in car dealerships. He was once the largest single owner of a car dealership chain, and also owned an advertising agency. All of these achievements ensured the position of his wealth.
Cal Worthington Net Worth $20 million
Cal grew up in a poor family and dropped out of school when he was 13 years old. Later, he would work as a water boy before joining the Civilian Conservation Corps two years later. At the start of World War II, he joined the US Army Air Corps and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, flying a B-17 Flying Fortress in the 390th Bomb Group for 29 missions over Germany. He was awarded the Air Medal five times and was also the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was discharged as a captain and his military career would later be covered in aviation magazines.
After leaving the Army, Worthington wanted to pursue a career as a commercial pilot, but his lack of education proved detrimental. He tried a gas station business but it was not successful, so he then started selling used cars, and after initial success decided to focus on that path. In 1949, he moved to Huntington Park and established a Hudson Motor Car dealership. He then went on to invest in television advertising, starting a television show entitled “Cal’s Corral”. Later, he would transition to dealing with Ford and focusing on a minute and a half commercials. He was saturating a lot of televisions stations with commercials, and eventually introduced the Spot gimmick as a rivalry to the Chick Lambert commercial “my dog, Storm”.
Throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, Cal’s commercials would play through numerous television stations. The animals that were featured as Spot would include a goose, lion, killer whale, rhinoceros, skunk, caribou and even a hippopotamus; he appeared in several films too, mostly in a small role. Some of the projects he was a part of include “Save the Tiger”, “Gone in 60 Seconds”, Into the Night”, and “Memento”.
For his personal life, it is known that Worthington was married four times, to Barbara (1942-79), Susan (1979-86), Bonnie (1995-2002), and lastly to Anna in 2011 – he had six children. He never actually owned a car, but used vehicles from his dealerships – in 2007, he mentioned that he never really liked cars but just wanted to fly. He passed away apparently of natural causes in September 2013 at the age of 92. His grandson Nick Worthington is now the General Manager of the Worthington automobile empire.
