Wilford Brimley

“The walrus that ate its oatmeal and told you to, too.”

92STACH SCORE

✂ Walrus Celebrity Era: 1980s Born 1934

Is this a Legendary Stach?

Stach Stats

Stash Power97

Ruggedness94

Curl Factor20

Legend Status88

Stats are for entertainment purposes. The mustache committee's decisions are final and occasionally arbitrary.

Style: Walrus
Peak Era: 1980s
Born: 1934
Fan Votes: 0 legendary · 0 meh

The Story

About Wilford Brimley

Anthony Wilford Brimley (1934–2020) was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and lived a genuinely rugged life before acting: he dropped out of high school, served in the Marine Corps, and worked as a ranch hand, blacksmith, and, by many accounts, a bodyguard for Howard Hughes. He drifted into films as a stuntman and horse wrangler, and friend Robert Duvall encouraged him to try speaking parts.

He was very good at them. The China Syndrome (1979), Absence of Malice (1981), The Thing (1982), Tender Mercies (1983), The Natural (1984), and Cocoon (1985) gave him a run of memorable roles as gruff, decent, plain-spoken men. He starred in the NBC family drama Our House (1986–1988) and played the menacing law-firm security chief in The Firm (1993).

To millions, though, he was the face of Quaker Oats ("It's the right thing to do") and, later, Liberty Medical's diabetes-supply commercials, whose pronunciation of "diabetes" turned him into an internet folk hero decades after the ads aired. He remained a working cowboy and cutting-horse competitor for much of his life.

The Verdict

Why the Stach Became Iconic

Brimley's walrus mustache is the textbook example of the style: enormous, gray, and completely covering the upper lip, so that the voice seems to emerge from the mustache itself. It made him look like everyone's grandfather when he was barely fifty.

That is the strangest part of the legend: he was just 49 when Cocoon was filmed, playing a retiree, and the mustache is why nobody questioned it. The internet later invented the "Brimley Line," tracking when actors reach the age he was in Cocoon. Few mustaches have their own unit of measurement.

On the Record

Appearances

The China Syndrome (1979)
Absence of Malice (1981)
The Thing (1982)
Tender Mercies (1983)
The Natural (1984)
Cocoon (1985)
Our House (1986–1988)
The Firm (1993)

Fun Facts

He was only 49 years old when Cocoon was shot; the "Brimley/Cocoon Line" tracks when other actors reach that age.
He was a real cowboy and competed in cutting-horse events for decades.
He served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1950s.
His long-running Quaker Oats commercials coined the line "It's the right thing to do."
He was an accomplished singer and recorded a jazz album, This Time the Dream's on Me, in 2004.