Lady Luck

Virginia Lottery’s eccentric spokeswoman began as ‘a bag lady with attitude’
-by Joan Tupponce

Lady Luck may have a big family but she definitely knows where her cousin Bad Luck is at the moment.

 

“He’s on Wall Street,” says the eccentric spokesperson for the Virginia Lottery. “I spend a lot of time doing things to undo his messes. He keeps me busy.”
 

The daughter of Dame Fortune, Lady Luck likes to spread luck throughout the world from her headquarters at the Lottery. She started on her mission in 1989 when Los Angeles-based actress Melanie MacQueen auditioned for the Earle Palmer Brown Advertising Agency, which came up with the concept for Lady Luck. “They wanted a character sort of like Mother Nature in the commercials,” MacQueen said by phone from L.A. “The actress that played Mother Nature actually auditioned for the part along with 200 actresses.”

 

MacQueen showed up for her audition wearing tennis shoes and a handkerchief hem dress with a pink sweater wrapped around her waist. “My agent described the character as a bag lady with attitude,” recalls MacQueen. “I came into the audition with an I-don’t-care attitude.” That characterization won MacQueen, a boomer herself, the title of Lady Luck, her longest-running role to date. The initial widespread advertising exposure made Lady Luck a recognized star. “I’ll get stopped on the street in Los Angeles by someone who recognizes me,” she says. “I did an episode of ‘America’s Most Wanted’ and at the screening in New York someone came up and yelled ‘It’s Lady Luck.’”

 

Lady Luck, who comes to Virginia for special events, is still the face of the Virginia Lottery. Does that translate into more sales of lottery tickets? MacQueen isn’t sure. “I can tell you that when I appeared at the State Fair of Virginia people hugged me and then said they were going to buy a ticket,” she says.

Comments

Add New Search RSS

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
UBBCode:	-color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."