from www.backporch.fanhouse.com – Jonathan Goldsmith is not a household name. His Dos Equis beer commercials, however, have made him a familiar face. Spend a little time with the man behind the ads, and you learn there is a common bond between the character and the man himself.

The following is a list of some of his more memorable life experiences:

* Hand fed a 750 lb. tiger.

* Met Jackie Robinson.

* Changed his name and then changed it back (Goldsmith is his given name).

* Been shot by John Wayne.

Does this sound like the most interesting man in the world?

Goldsmith’s presence is felt immediately when he walks into a room.

Dressed in a black short and coat, he has an impossibly well kept gray beard and a perfectly matching head of hair. While he doesn’t speak with the same bravado and gusto of his television character, he is unmistakably smooth and confident, yet not arrogant. Well-spoken and elegant, full of levity and ease, commanding your attention, but not demanding it.

Goldsmith, 72, currently lives on a boat outside of L.A., a far cry from growing up Jewish in the Bronx. As a youth, his parents divorced, and he gravitated toward his father, a phys-ed teacher and sportsman himself who he says “once beat the fastest quarter-mile in New York.” Goldsmith describes him poetically as, “my hero.”

“Whenever I saw him, he’d take me to Madison Avenue,” Goldsmith says. “He knew Red Auerbach. (I) met all kinds of luminaries, met Jim Thorpe — unfortunately drunk in the street — Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige.”

Growing up in the 1940s and ’50s Bronx, Goldsmith is quick to point out that while there were plenty of gang fights, he never was involved. Instead, he’d think up an excuse.

“When you lie, you have to be very specific. (The kids) were going out with chains. The gang was called the Outlaws.”

While he wasn’t a belligerent youth, perhaps his time spent around gangs as a youth refined his career and helped shape his acting.

Goldsmith was cast in the role of bad guy over and again, and even developed relationships with members of the mob, notably, the legendary Eddie Egan, “the real Popeye Doyle,” (played by Gene Hackman in “The French Connection”), whom he describes as “a dear friend.”

“Through Eddie, I met a lot of the guys on both sides,” Goldsmith says. “I played heavies almost throughout my entire career. And gangsters and movie stars, like each other and respect each other. Eddie had a lot of friends on the other side, and he would bring me around. They wanted to meet me. I played them all the time.”

The success of the Dos Equis campaign has also brought many opportunities. Last season, he threw out the first pitch at a Dodgers game, an event he calls “overwhelming.”

Goldsmith, a lifelong Yankee fan, admittedly felt a little odd.

“I was waiting for Joe Torre to say something, and I said, ‘Don’t worry Joe, my heart’s still back in Yankee Stadium.’ I practiced and I practiced. I just had to throw a strike and I did. I felt like a gladiator. I’ve had Broadway openings and I wasn’t that nervous.”

Aside from Mr. Dos Equis, Goldsmith has starred in more than 350 television roles and acted alongside John Wayne in the 1976 film, The Shootist.

Wayne, he says, continually botched takes during the film, and shot him seven times in the head with a pellet gun. When the director saw the bruising, he doubled Goldsmith’s salary on the spot.

As for “the most interesting man in the world,” he says “the whole thing was improvisation.” His wife and manager, Barbara, convinced him to go to the first cattle call that brought several hundred hopefuls. Once he got the job, Goldsmith says “(he) created the character. (Dos Equis and I) originally created it together really.”

When told “the most interesting man” has more than 180,000 Facebook ‘likes,’ Goldsmith said, “I don’t even know what that is.” He says he knows what Facebook is, but Barbara is quick to point out just “barely.”

“The recognition is incredible,” Goldsmith said. “We were having lunch today. A well-dressed gentleman comes by, and he says, ‘If Bill Clinton and Robert DeNiro were there I would have kept going. Can I have a picture?’

“The nicest (compliment), a fellow says he was talking to his son and says ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’ and his son says, ‘be the most interesting man in the world.'”

Despite the abundance of catchy lines — “He learned how to play Chinese checkers … in Japan,” or “If he were to punch you in the face, you would have to fight off the strong desire to thank him,” — Goldsmith’s favorite tagline is one that aired on the radio — “He once warned a psychic.”

He is proud to have carried on the legacy of his father in terms of giving back to the community.

“From the time I was 18, I’ve worked with abused kids,” he says. “I teach in prison … but I’m involved with ‘Free Arts for Abused Children.'”

The Dos Equis spot where he steals the fox from the village? Well, that rings a bell in Goldsmith’s life as well. He remains steadfast in his commitment to “Saber Tigers,” an organization designed to save big and endangered cats.

This comes as no surprise. Goldsmith is one cool cat himself.

Follow Jordan Schultz on Twitter @206Child