Ron White more interested in swilling than shilling

Comedian Ron White, exhaling cigar smoke, says it's understandable why a lot of corporations don't offer him endorsement deals.

Executives don't go looking for spokesmen by saying: "We were hoping for an overweight alcoholic that smokes and cusses. Do we have one of those? Let's call Ron and see if he's free," White jokes.

That's funny. But in reality, he's been offered "all kinds of endorsement deals from fruitcakes to wing nuts," he says.

White, 54, turns them down. He doesn't want to sell out.

"I'm not willing to drag my fans down a road I don't believe in. That's just my one little principle. I've only got one, and that's it," he says in his manly Texas drawl.

The closest he gets to endorsing anything is that cigar in his mouth. Swiss cigar maker Davidoff mails him boxes of Zino Davidoff Platinum Z-class stogies.

The boxes come with his face on them. The cigar band bears his signature. White helped pick the blend.

But Davidoff doesn't sell the Ron White Edition of Zino Davidoff to the public. His only task is to smoke the hell out of them.

"I do that with great pride," he says.

And if you're wondering what that Scotch is in his glass, it's Famous Grouse's Black Grouse, a smoky blend with hints of cocoa and spice.

He and his son Marshall (the son he calls "Tater Tot" onstage) got "addicted" to Black Grouse when they went to Scotland's Turnberry golf resort.

It's a hard Scotch to find, but "worth the search," he says without getting a penny to say so.

White still loves golf. He's a 14 handicap. He shot an 84 the last time he played the challenging Shadow Creek course in Vegas. He always starts sober at the first tee.

"That's the goal to begin with. But if I play poorly, I have a tendency to shift over to the weed-and-alcohol plan. I play just about the same on that."

If you go see White on Friday and Saturday at The Mirage -- where tickets have sold out for 40 straight shows -- you'll hear him do "pretty extreme" jokes about Tiger Woods.

In a bit of serendipity, he ran into Woods on a golf course one day and finally got Woods' reaction to his routine.

"He had seen it and said it was hilarious. So I'm like: Good, he's not gonna hit me," White says. "He was extremely nice and engaging."

In another routine onstage, White tells a funny story about losing a tooth at Bare topless pool. I won't spoil the joke but it's a true story.

As usual when they come to Vegas in the warm months, he and his wife, Margo Rey, went to Shadow Creek and then to Bare.

"Margo, my wife, likes to go to the nekkid pool," he says.

They "slammed a couple of bottles of champagne," he says. "It was for some reason to party big time, out of control."

Then he slipped on something.

"I broke a tooth off at the gum line four hours before the show. It looked a little unprofessional," he says.

This Friday and Saturday, White and Rey will again both be performing at The Mirage.

She's a 4½-octave, opera-trained singer-songwriter who sings jazz pop and can do vocals in six languages.

"I'll do my show at 10. Then she'll do her show at 12" at B.B. King's Blues Club, he says.

"When I hear her sing at full voice, it makes me cry," White admits in a Scotchy cigar voice.

"After people see her show, I get to spend the next hour hearing people saying, 'Well, we really liked you, but now we think you're a pimple on a fat man's ass.' "

A poster for Rey's B.B. King performances features a quote from White, saying, "Margo creates the sexiest music on the planet."

So you could argue he does endorse one thing -- his wife. But since she takes him to naked pools, she has earned it as clearly one of the great wives of America.

Doug Elfman's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.