Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

O.J. Statues A Big Bust In Oregon Despite High Demand, Enterprise Firm Isn’t Sharing In The Profits

Eric Sorensen Staff writer

Bronze statues of O.J. Simpson are reportedly selling briskly, in spite of their $3,395 price tag, but an Enterprise, Ore., company slated to fill most of the orders is not seeing much of the action.

“We’re comparatively dormant compared to what we were expecting,” said Stephen Parks of Parks Bronze on Wednesday.

In fact, Parks is wondering just what is going on with the much-ballyhooed $85 million project, which is supposed to sell 25,000 20-inch statues of Simpson holding a football and wearing his No. 32 jersey.

While some of the work was to be farmed out to other foundries, much of the production was expected to take place in the northeast Oregon town and help a local economy hard hit by recent mill closings.

Parks, who designed the statue with input from Simpson, planned to be filling a 500-piece order by now. As it is, he’s produced three or four statues.

Meanwhile, the statue’s Los Angeles-based promoter, Lenward L. Holness II, said he has taken more than 1,000 orders and filled about half of them. The orders came so fast, he said, that he went elsewhere to have them done.

“I want to try to keep the bulk of everything in Enterprise,” he said. “But the orders have just been coming in. We didn’t anticipate them coming in so large, so quick.”

Holness said sales have gone up slightly with the start of Simpson’s trial.

Asked later in the day why Parks was getting so few orders, Holness modified his remarks.

“Not that we’re shopping for a better price - there’s just competition in the marketplace,” he said. “Let’s put it that way.”

While scores of promoters have rushed to cash in on Simpson’s likeness, the statue effort - which Holness says began before Simpson was accused of killing Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman - may be the most industrious yet.

It has garnered the kind of advertising that publicists love to say money can’t buy, being featured on news programs worldwide. Parks has been interviewed on German television.

Not that all the publicity has been good. The Home Shopping Network recently took pains to deny it was planning to sell statues of Simpson, although it could not be confirmed if they were the same statues being marketed by Holness.

For now, Parks said he has enough work - from 220 Donald Ducks to a 100-piece re-creation of the first newspaper cartoon - that he need not depend on the statue business.

“I’m happy for the lull that’s happened right now because we’re busy,” he said. “And I don’t want to mess up the regular clientele we have, because that’s the sure thing.”