Farrah Fawcett swimsuit poster turned college dropout bros into multi millionaires
By ANISaturday, June 27, 2009
WASHINGTON - The Iconic Farrah Fawcett Red Swimsuit Poster turned the fortunes of two Ohio brothers as they went on to sell a record six million copies of the infamous picture of the late actress.
Shot in 1976, the picture turned college dropouts Mike and Ted Trikilis into multimillionaires, who run poster empire Pro Arts Inc.
The brothers were trying to make money selling black-light posters to hippies at Kent State, before the swimsuit poster turned them into celebrities in their own right.
It was early in the summer of 1976, that the brothers received a package containing 25 shots of Fawcett in a red swimsuit, one of which was marked as Fawcett’s favourite, and was eventually selected for the poster.
It featured gleaming white teeth, windblown hair, and her nipple, reports Fox News.
Once published, the poster became an instant sensation, and sales continued to increase exponentially over the following months.
Pro Arts did two million dollars worth of business that year, and, in 1977, the company turned over its inventory 24 times, selling three million copies of the poster in February and March alone.
The sales craze netted 6 million dollars in revenue, of which 1 million dollars was pure profit.
While Fawcett’s one-season run on ‘Charlie’s Angels’ earned her 5,000 dollars per episode, she pocketed 400,000 dollars in royalties from the poster. (ANI)
