One of the best known personalities in TV advertising, Dick Wilson, who played "Mr. Whipple" in the Charmin commercials, passed away on Monday.

According to People, Wilson, who performed in over 500 commercials for Charmin toilet paper from 1964 to 1985, died of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif., his daughter Melanie Wilson told the Associated Press.

The 91-year-old performer "deserves much of the credit for Charmin’s success," as he made "Please don't squeeze the Charmin" a household phrase, the brand manager for Charmin said.

Having started his career early in his life, Wilson can be seen in many radio, television and film roles but his most famous act came later, as the grocer who asked shoppers "Please don’t squeeze the Charmin."

The spot was "one of the most enduring, rememberable" commercials ever, becoming an inspiration for modern television pitchmen such as the gecko that hawks insurance for Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s GEICO unit and the Aflac Inc. duck, said Brad Adgate, director of research at New York-based advertising agency Horizon Media Inc.

"You can recite these things a generation later and it speaks to how much money Procter & Gamble spent on Charmin and how memorable the commercials were,'' Adgate was quoted by Bloomberg as saying in a telephone interview. "It was always one theme about him scolding these housewives in the supermarket about squeezing the toilet tissue.''

Although Wilson was eventually replaced by cartoon bears, in 1999 Procter & Gamble brought him back for one last performance, which showed him coming "out of retirement" despite being advised otherwise, just to sell the toilet paper once more.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that the Mr. Whipple character, which Dick Wilson portrayed for so many years, is one of the most recognizable faces in the history of American advertising," Charmin brand manager Dennis Legault said in a statement.

"He is a part of the Charmin family, and he will be missed."