Bill Porter, an Oregon door-to-door salesman who plied his trade for decades despite having severe cerebral palsy, and whose story inspired an Emmy-winning television film starring William H. Macy, died last Tuesday in Gresham, Ore. He was 81.

The cause was an infection, said Shelly Brady, his longtime assistant.

From 1962 until his death, Mr. Porter was a salesman for J. R. Watkins, a Minnesota purveyor of grocery, household and personal-care products. The telefilm of his life, “Door to Door,” was broadcast on TNT in 2002 to favorable notices.

The successful door-to-door salesman must be skilled at driving, walking and talking. Mr. Porter did the first of these not at all and the latter two only with great difficulty. But through a combination of persistence, gregariousness and charm, he was for many years Watkins’s top salesman in the region comprising Oregon, Washington, California and Idaho.