Orenthal James Simpson, celebrated football player and star of stage and screen died of prostate cancer this week at the age of seventy-six.
As a sportsman, Simpson was known for his remarkable speed. He played college football for the University of Southern California. In his senior year he was awarded the Heisman trophy, the first of many prestigious accolades conferred on him by the wise juries of the sporting world. He then played nine seasons for the Buffalo Bills, where he ruthlessly slashed his way through even the strongest defenses. In 1975, he led the league in points scored, puncturing his opponents again and again with merciless drives, often scoring even once the result of the game was certain.
Simpson parleyed his football career into television work, where he served as a longtime pitchman for Hertz Rental Cars. Although it was unusual at the time for a national company to attach itself to a black spokesperson, O.J. cut through racial barriers as easily as he cut through defensive lines. As his celebrity grew to encompass motion picture roles and additional spokesperson positions for companies such as Dingo boots, O.J. helped to prove that the restrictive color lines which once defined American life had, by the end of the twentieth century, become ill-fitting. After retiring from show business Simpson devoted himself to golf, where he once again distinguished himself athletically. Many admired the powerful, fluid swings which brought the metal in his hands into fatal contact with the small white ball.
Simpson is survived by his first wife, Marguerite L. Whitley and their two children. His second wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, died in 1994.