He was well known in the 1980s, with a reputation for poor taste even then. He first ran for President at 41 and was on the cover of Newsweek in 1987:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160312080447/http://europe.new...

Doonesbury and Bloom County, popular comic strips running in most newspapers, had arcs involving him, too:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160306081734/http://doonesbury...