J. Peterman calling

You can see debonair, silver-maned John O'Hurley in the flesh next week, when he dances across the stage of Detroit's Fisher Theatre reprising the role of Billy Flynn with the national touring company of the musical Chicago. But it's his image on that big flat-screen in your living room that truly has allowed him to waltz his way into our collective consciousness.

In fact, one could make the case (and I'm about to) that John O'Hurley is one of the most significant figures in contemporary American TV. He is, of course, best known for playing real-life retailer J. Peterman, whom he portrayed as a vacuous adventurer while bossing Elaine Benes on Seinfeld, generally acclaimed as the most popular sitcom of all time. But O'Hurley also:

• Was the first celebrity winner on the premiere season of ABC's Dancing With the Stars, now a TV phenomenon and an entertainment, tabloid and gossip news staple;

• Was, my personal survey says, the most effective and watchable of the succession of six men who have emceed Family Feud, now in its third decade on television and an American game show institution including the original host, kissing bandit Richard Dawson;

• Has hosted The National Dog Show Presented by Purina on NBC every Thanksgiving since 2002, making him part of the fabric of our national holiday.

What's more, O'Hurley took his portrayal of Peterman to the extreme in terms of art imitating life. Not only did he get to know the real J. Peterman, he ended up owning his company.

"I bought the company back in 1999 and we've owned it together since then," O'Hurley explains during a recent interview. "It's probably the greatest act of identity theft in popular culture."

Seinfeld used the J. Peterman name "without his knowing," says O'Hurley, 56. "In those days they literally did things and apologized for them afterward. So at the same time he was growing his business, he was caught in this tornado of media activity because all of a sudden he was this raving lunatic on the No. 1 show on television. He couldn't beat the exposure, but I don't know that it necessarily fit his brand at the time."

Indeed, the show might have unwittingly contributed to the company's downturn. "He went belly up six months after Seinfeld ended, and he called me," O'Hurley says. "It was a lot of fun to play him, and we got to know each other very well during the run of the show. We put the company back together again on our parallel strengths."

With the sitcom an enduring success in reruns, hardly a day passes that someone doesn't want O'Hurley to relive his impersonation of Peterman and the Seinfeld decade. He doesn't mind. "Gosh, no," he says. "I have more fun with that character and the resurrections of him. As advertising spokesman, on other shows. You know, a little bit of Peterman lives in a thousand different cartoon characters on TV right now. It's given me a way to play a characterization that occurred to me a long time ago."

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