Steinbrenner as 'The Boss' became huge pop icon

Lee Bear, 74, hasn't been working much lately, with the recession blunting sales of mobile homes, which he used to drive cross-country for dealers.

But he remains, and perhaps always will, the man who inadvertently made George Steinbrenner a universal pop culture icon - known, maybe even loved, by millions.

Bear was "Steinbrenner" on "Seinfeld."

Bear was cast in 1994, and appeared in 10 episodes, but viewers neither saw his face or heard his voice. "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David supplied the staccato patter edged ever so slightly with madness. Bear's Steinbrenner usually just sat there, his hand occasionally waving about like a blunt force instrument, as his employee George Costanza (Jason Alexander) looked on in unabashed amazement mixed with terror.

Bear even met the Boss on set once. "He was a real nice guy," he recalled Tuesday.

Pop culture's embrace of Steinbrenner, of course, didn't begin or end with "Seinfeld." Steinbrenner hosted the 1990-91 season opener of "Saturday Night Live," even appearing in a few skits, including one as a convenience-store boss who couldn't fire anyone. "Where is it written if you don't get results right away, you fire people?" he asked. "What kind of asinine policy is that?"

There were a few ads too, where he appeared as himself - adidas, VISA, and most famous of them all, those for Miller Lite with Billy Martin that aired in the late '70s.

"As a longtime Yankee fan, I just loved the guy and to see him in those spots brought him down to our level as a human being," said Bob Tamburri, a principal of Raritan, N.J.-based ad firm Christensen Tamburri, and one of the architects of the long-running beer campaign. "He just came across as a real man, a guy you could go out and have a beer with."

But it was "Seinfeld" that essentially re-created Steinbrenner. He even told producers that the portrayal was accurate.

Peter Golenbock, veteran baseball writer ("The Bronx Zoo") and author of 2009's "George" said, "He was the sort of person who loved publicity, and having a narcissistic personality, didn't care whether it was positive or negative."

But, said Golenbock, he also realized that people saw him as "the kind of person who would allow himself to be lampooned, he must be a pretty good guy."

The irony (as Golenbock reported) is that Steinbrenner had no idea who Jerry Seinfeld was when he called for permission to use his name on the show.