A model who was crowned Miss Sweden in 1961, she became best known for commercials that one observer said “replaced the ‘hard sell’ with the ‘sex sell.’”
A blond Swedish model named Gunilla Knutson holds a can of shaving cream to her cheek and gazes deeply into the camera. “Nothing takes it off like Noxzema medicated shave,” she says.
In a 60-second commercial from 1966 that rings with double entendre, the jazzy instrumental “The Stripper” plays as a man shaves his face in rhythmic strokes timed to the bump-and-grind of the music. When the camera returns to a tight close-up of Ms. Knutson (pronounced KUH-noots-son), she utters seven of the most famous words from that era of advertising.
“Take it off,” she says, before pausing slightly. “Take it all off.”
In another ad from the campaign, Ms. Knutson strips the rind from a lime, licks her thumb slowly and hums “The Stripper.”
“Men,” she says. “Noxzema shave cream now comes in lime, too. So take it off.”
Ms. Knutson, for whom the Noxzema campaign represented the peak of her fame, died on Feb. 3 in Ystad, Sweden, where she was born and where she had lived since leaving Manhattan a few years ago. She was 84. Her death was not widely reported at the time.
Her son, Andreas von Scheele, said she died in a hospital after dealing with multiple medical issues. He and her husband, Per von Scheele, are her only immediate survivors.
Gunilla Karin Maria Knutson was born on Nov. 14, 1940, to Einar and Sonja Knutson, who divorced when she was young.
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Source: Television - nytimes.com
