The Real-Life Don Draper

Was apparently THIS GUY.

Years later, in Florida, after Dan lost his battle with cancer, I was cleaning out his old highboy chest and I found two rolls of nickels in a drawer. I had no idea what they were doing there—but I thought immediately of Vivian Hill, the woman who had introduced us back in 1965. I remembered how Vivian used to keep these rolls of nickels lined up in the crevices of her desk drawer and would often make bets with people. She’d say things like, “I’ll bet you two rolls of nickels that Procter & Gamble is going to move from this agency to that agency.” I was still in touch with her so I rang her up and said, “Vivian, the strangest thing happened. I opened up the drawer to Dan’s old highboy and I found two rolls of nickels, like the kind I would sometimes win from you.” And she started laughing.

I said, “Why are you laughing?”

“Didn’t he ever tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

So Vivian told me a little story about Dan, a story that I didn’t know: The morning after I had met Dan in 1965—the night we talked for five hours, then went out for hamburgers at the Wrigley Building—he had gone to visit Vivian and said that he wanted to buy the company. I knew that part, but I didn’t know the rest of it. He also told her, “Vivian, just for your information, within two years that woman is going to be Mrs. Daniels.” She bet him two rolls of nickels that he was wrong. The day after we were married, in 1967, she paid off the bet.

Dan kept the nickels.