It's Not All In The Wrists

Hand Models Show Off Their Curves, Digits And Acting Abilities

(CBS)  "I live my life," she said. "Yes, I'm single in Manhattan, and I'm looking for a husband, so I can't do the glove thing! Ellen's married, so she can do that!"

And though you'd think being a hand model would be quite a conversation starter, Ambers keeps it to herself.

"Very rarely do I tell people what I do 'cause it's always, 'Oh you're a hand model, like George on "Seinfeld"?' It's like, 'Oh, you wear oven mitts?'"

Every hand model knows the "Seinfeld" episode in which George Costanza's modeling career is cut tragically short by grabbing a hot iron at the end.

"Better him than me!" laughs Leland Schwantes, a legendary real-life male hand model. In fact, he actually played actor Jason Alexander's hands in a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial.

Schwantes has been hand modeling for 30 years, with a career that even had a big break, as a talking hand for Ivory Liquid.

"And that sort of put me on the map," Schwantes said. "People actually started calling up, you know, 'Who was that guy and that girl who were doing this hands and stuff?'"

Hand stardom followed, with commercial after commercial. And while it's a safe guess that it's a younger hand holding an iPhone, Schwantes at 61 still makes his living off his hands - earning a thousand dollars a day making commercials.

"But if you're gonna do television, there's many things you have to be able to do. It's all about movement."

Precise, graceful movements … breaking a cookie just so … pouring ketchup on a hot dog … repeated over and over on a set as crowded and tense as an operating theater.

"It's not just his having very attractive hands," said commercial director Michael Somoroff.

"Really what makes the difference is Leland's ability to perform like any star."

Take squeezing a lemon:

"Well, a lemon squeezing isn't just a lemon squeezing," Somoroff explained. "If you don't know how to do it right, all the juice runs down your thumb instead of running over the food."

Or sliding a plate.

"Just making it smooth, trying to make it graceful," Schwantes said. "If in fact a plate can be graceful.

"That's what we're trying to do," he laughed. "Graceful plates!"

Graceful plates ... the hand next door … the ultimate nail. Let's give them a hand!