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For now, however, the ambition seems satisfied by the continuing frenzy of his work, by the attention his policy pronouncements are getting and by the downright amazing adoration he encounters all over the country. Lee Iacocca did not set out to become the object of a personality cult, but hey, what the hell? It is fun for him to be able to turn down a $300,000 TV commercial for Pepsi. "I took a powder," he explains. It pleases him to decline movie producers' serious offers to buy the rights to Iacocca. "The hell with the half-million advance," he says. At a safe distance, he even likes the loving mobs. On a damp evening last week in Rochester, he showed up to speak at a Xerox-sponsored lecture series that has drawn crowds of a few hundred. More than 3,000 came out to see Iacocca. After the crackerjack 45-minute lecture, they gave him a standing ovation. Later that night, stretched out on the plane back to Detroit, he was still impressed by all those fans who had paid to hear him speak. "Five and eight dollars a head," he mused. "And they didn't even get a drink."
FOOTNOTE: *There are, of course, hundreds of millions of copies of various versions of the Holy Bible in print. In addition, many dictionaries and cookbooks have sold millions.