Characters

Pete Campbell Played by Vincent Kartheiser

Pete Campbell
Pete Campbell Quotes »

Pete Campbell is a Partner working in Account Management at the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce advertising agency. He held a similar position at the original Sterling Cooper. A descendant of New York's venerable Dykeman family, Pete lives with his wife Trudy and their infant daughter in a Park Avenue apartment financed in part by her parents.

After discovering Don Draper's true identity, Pete attempts blackmail to gain a promotion at Sterling Cooper. The scheme fails, but Pete salvages his career when his father-in-law Tom, a salesman at Vicks Chemical, helps him land the Clearasil account. Tom later pulls the account when Pete refuses to consider adoption after Trudy has difficulty getting pregnant. Around this time, Pete learns that he fathered a child with co-worker Peggy Olson, who gave the baby away.

When Trudy finally does conceive, the prospect of fatherhood delights Pete. "It feels much different than I expected," he tells Trudy. "How would you know what this feels like?" she asks.

A few weeks later Pete plays hardball with Tom to get more Vicks business, but despite success bringing SCDP new business Pete feels underappreciated by the agency's other partners. Lane Pryce enrages Pete by brining back Ken Cosgrove, though after meeting with Ken, who assures him that he "can do as told," the two men work well together.

Relations with Don become more complicated when Pete has to drop a lucrative defense account so that Don's past won't be investigated for security clearance. Pete covers for Don and takes the blame for the lost business. When a bank subsequently requires SCDP's partners to provide cash collateral for a line of credit, Pete finds out Don has already paid his share.

Video: Pete Campbell for Season 4 »

Pete Campbell Quotes

“A man like you I’d follow into combat blindfolded, and I wouldn’t be the first. Am I right, buddy?”
Season 1, Episode 1: “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”
“I love you. I’m giving up my life to be with you, aren’t I?”
Season 1, Episode 1: “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”
“You know what? I have good ideas. In fact, I used to carry around a notebook and a pen, just to keep track. Direct marketing? I thought of that. It turned out it already existed, but I arrived at it independently. And then I come to this place, and you people tell me that I’m good with people, which is strange, because I’d never heard that before.”
Season 1, Episode 4: “New Amsterdam”
“You’re in the city now–it wouldn’t be a sin for us to see your legs. And if you pull your waist in a little bit, you might look like a woman.”
Season 1, Episode 4: “New Amsterdam”
Trudy: “I just don’t understand why the bear is talking.”
Pete: “The bear is not talking. It’s what the hunter imagines the bear to be thinking.”
Season 1, Episode 5: “5G”
“By the way…Matherton? He has the clap.”
Season 1, Episode 7: “Red in the Face”
“The president is a product. Don’t forget that.”
Season 1, Episode 10: “Long Weekend”
“What do people do? Is that what you would do?”
Season 2, Episode 2: “Flight 1″
“I’m a red-blooded American male!”
Season 2, Episode 4: “Three Sundays”
“Hell’s bells, Trudy!”
Season 2, Episode 12: “The Mountain King”
“If I’m going to die, I want to die in Manhattan.”
Season 2, Episode 13: “Meditations in an Emergency”
“Why does it have to be like this? Why can’t I get anything good all at once?”
Season 3, Episode 1: “Out of Town”
“My great-great-grandfather Silas Dyckman would have turned his boat around if he had known that the city would one day be filled with cry babies.”
Season 3, Episode 2: “Love Among the Ruins”
“Puerto Rican girls buy brassieres.”
Season 4, Episode 4: “The Rejected”
“Christ on a cracker!”
Season 4, Episode 5: “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword”
“Yes, Don saved the company. Now go get rid of half of it.”
Season 4, Episode 12: “Blowing Smoke”