Police: TV pitchman Billy Mays found dead at home

[2NJSons_Mom]

Police: TV pitchman Billy Mays found dead at homeBy MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer Mitch Stacy, Associated Press Writer 1 min ago


TAMPA, Fla. – Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman known for his boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean, has died. He was 50.

Tampa police said Mays was found unresponsive by his wife Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m.

There were no signs of a break-in, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn't answer any more questions about how Mays' body was found because of the ongoing investigation. The coroner's office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

"Although Billy lived a public life, we don't anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days," said Mays' wife, Deborah. "Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times."

Born William Mays in McKees Rocks, Pa., on July 20, 1958, Mays developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other "as seen on TV" gadgets on Atlantic City's boardwalk. For years he worked as a hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.

After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s, Mays was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of cleaning products on the St. Petersburg-based Home Shopping Network.

Commercials and informercials followed, anchored by the high-energy Mays showing how it's done while tossing out kitschy phrases like, "Long live your laundry!"

Recently he's been seen on commercials for a wide variety of products and is featured on the reality TV show "Pitchmen" on the Discovery Channel, which follows Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs. He's also been seen in ESPN ads.

His ubiquitousness and thumbs-up, in-your-face pitches won Mays plenty of fans. People line up at his personal appearances for autographed color glossies, and strangers stop him in airports to chat about the products.

"I enjoy what I do," Mays told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview. "I think it shows."

Mays liked to tell the story of giving bottles of OxiClean to the 300 guests at his wedding, and doing his ad spiel ("powered by the air we breathe!") on the dance floor at the reception. Visitors to his house typically got bottles of cleaner and housekeeping tips.

Discovery Channel spokeswoman Elizabeth Hillman released a statement Sunday extending sympathy to the Mays family.

"Everyone that knows him was aware of his larger-than-life personality, generosity and warmth," Hillman's statement said. "Billy was a pioneer in his field and helped many people fulfill their dreams. He will be greatly missed as a loyal and compassionate friend."

[Kat_Gram]

I went to Toxic MZ and they said he was on an airplane that had a rough landing and items from the ceiling fell on to his head. He took a hard hit to his head. Reminds me of the Natasha Richardson death. Probably the same thing.

[2NJSons_Mom]

I went to Toxic MZ and they said he was on an airplane that had a rough landing and items from the ceiling fell on to his head. He took a hard hit to his head. Reminds me of the Natasha Richardson death. Probably the same thing.

Thanks, Kat_Gram.

  FAA -- Billy Wasn't Wearing a Seat Belt on Plane
Posted Jun 28th 2009 12:58PM by TMZ Staff

The FAA is already deflecting blame for the death of Billy Mays -- claiming the legendary TV pitchman wasn't wearing a seat belt when he took a shot to the head during a rough landing on a flight he was on yesterday.

Here's what we know -- Billy Mays was aboard US Airways Flight 1241 flying from Philadelphia, which landed roughly when the front tire blew out as it touched down. After the flight, Billy told FOX 13 in Tampa that something struck him in the head -- here's Billy's actual quote:

"All of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping. It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head."

We called the FAA for comment, and a spokesperson told us, "The passenger needs to wear a seat belt during landing and he didn't."

A spokesperson for US Airways did not want to comment until more information comes to light.

Billy posted about it last on his Twitter last night, saying, "Just had a close call landing in Tampa. The tires blew out upon landing. Stuck in the plane on the runway. You can always count on US Air."




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[SuzieQ]

How would wearing a seatbelt protect him from things falling from the ceiling (probably from the overhead compartments)?  I see the airlines and FAA are still staffed by idiots.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529329,00.html
RAW DATA: Billy Mays Biography
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Biography of Television Personality Billy Mays

Television pitchman Billy Mays has appeared on numerous commercials and infomercials promoting household products and gadgets. With his distinctive grin and booming voice, he has appeared on American television since the early 2000s, selling such products as cleaners (Kaboom! and Oxi-Clean), the Grip Wrench, Turbo Tiger vacuum cleaner, a hands-free cell phone device, and the Big City Slider Station. Because Mays and his ads were omnipresent, he had both fans and detractors who were quite sure of their opinions.

Launched Selling Career

Mays was born on July 20, 1958 and grew up in Pittsburgh, where his father had a hazardous waste trucking company. He attended West Virginia University before dropping out and working for his father's company for a time. In 1983 Mays moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey, with a high school friend who was going to become a salesman there. He also took part in the selling game on the Boardwalk, hawking WashMatik (a bucket with a washer inside), the Ultimate Chopper, knives, mops, and other "As seen on TV" products. Mays told GG Rigsby of the Business Journal, "I was taught to pitch by a lot of old pitchmen. That's the kind of style I have."
Mays spent the next 12 years selling products at fairs, home shows, and auto shows all over the United States. Over the course of his travels, he met the founder of Orange Glo International, Max Appel. While the two were initially competitors for audiences at various events, Mays gave him a spare microphone after Appel's broke. This act of kindness launched their friendship, and Appel eventually hired Mays to be his company's national spokesman.

In the late 1990s Mays moved to Dunedin, Florida, where he based his own company, Mays Promotions Inc., which produced the ads in which he appeared. This one-man operation focused on Mays as the on-air talent selling the products, while he used other production companies in the Tampa Bay area to handle the rest of the projects. He pitched products made by a number of manufacturers on these self-produced spots, as well as on the Home Shopping Network.

Began Appearing in Commercials

Mays's first commercials began appearing in 1999 and were for products produced by Orange Glo. The family-owned Colorado-based company made Oxi-Clean, Orange Clean, Orange-Glo, and Kaboom!, and Mays contributed his own ideas about promoting the products. Mays eventually moved into promoting hardware products—-such as wrenches, vacuum cleaners, hands-free cell phone devices, car dent fixers, healthcare plans, and mini-burger makers—-that were developed by other companies. Because Mays was recognized as an effective pitchman, he was able to pick and choose which products he promoted. As his ads led to massive sales for the products he promoted, his deals often included receiving a percentage of the products' gross revenue. He eventually became a wealthy man.

As Mays continued to appear in ads throughout the early 2000s, he became well-known to his fans, who wanted his autograph, as well as to viewers who vowed never to buy his products because of what they deemed his annoying style. Several Web sites were set up decrying Mays and his selling style. Though Mays appeared on several talk shows and had his own reality show in the works, he was somewhat mortified by the attention directed at him. He told Mitch Stacy of the Associated Press State & Local Wire, "I'm a sensitive guy. I don't want to be brought down, so I just leave it at that. As long as there's good and bad, it evens itself out." Appel commented in the same piece, "He's grateful for where he is, and he's a true performer. He has a real sense of modesty. He's really a joy to work with. It's very rare for guys like that."

Source: "Billy Mays." Biography Resource Center Online. Gale, 2009.

[BooMonkey]

This is just so sad. I really liked him, he looked like a nice guy. 

[MuffyBee]

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20288327,00.html
Billy Mays Likely Died of Heart Disease
By Rennie Dyball
Originally posted Monday June 29, 2009 12:30 PM EDT

Pitchman extraordinaire Billy Mays died from a pulmonary embolism, according to the coroner in Tampa, Fla., who announced preliminary autopsy results at a press conference Monday. Evidence of heart disease was also found.

According to Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams, Mays "had an enlarged heart, a thickening of the wall of the ventricle which takes blood to the heart." Final results of the autopsy and cause of death will not be known for several weeks.

Mays, 50, the bearded man with the booming voice best known for his ubiquitous OxiClean ads died in his sleep in his Florida home over the weekend.

On Saturday, Mays was aboard a U.S. Airways flight that had a rough landing in Tampa. Mays told a TV crew that he bumped his head in the landing, fueling speculation that a possible injury could have lead to his untimely death. But the coroner says there was no evidence of head trauma. Internal and external injuries also did not exist.

"The news of Billy's death came as a total shock to me," Anthony Sullivan, his longtime friend and comrade on the Discovery Channel series Pitchmen told PEOPLE Sunday night. "I'm devastated."

[2NJSons_Mom]

Muffy's post is more current, it seems, but I was just about to post this anyway, fwiw.

Autopsy planned for TV pitchman Billy Mays
By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jun 29, 1:20 AM PDT
 
Television viewers knew him as the OxiClean guy: the bearded, boisterous pitchman on commercials airing hundreds of times a week nationwide. "Hi. Billy Mays here," he would begin, before showing off his latest cleaning product or gadget.

Family, friends and colleagues mourned Mays, 50, who was found unresponsive in his Tampa home Sunday, and awaited an autopsy to determine the cause of his sudden death.

Police said Mays told his wife he didn't feel well when he went to bed Saturday night. Earlier in the day, he said he was hit on the head when his airliner had a rough landing at Tampa Bay's airport.

But the airline said no passengers reported any serious injuries, and Mays himself cheerfully recounted the landing for a local TV station. His wife, Deborah, found him unresponsive Sunday morning.

Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said linking Mays' death to the landing would "purely be speculation." She said Mays' family members didn't report any health issues with the pitchman, but said he was due to have hip replacement surgery in coming weeks.

"Although Billy lived a public life, we don't anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days," Deborah Mays said in a statement. "Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times."

Billy Mays' face was easily recognizable, pitching OxiClean, that he said got out even the toughest of stains, and Orange Glo, which he said shined up any wood around your home. "I love beautiful wood," he tells customers.

There were no signs of a break-in at the home, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn't answer questions about how Mays' body was found because of the ongoing investigation.

U.S. Airways confirmed that Mays was among the passengers on a flight that made a rough landing on Saturday afternoon at Tampa International Airport, leaving debris on the runway after apparently blowing its front tires.

Tampa Bay's Fox television affiliate, WTVT-TV, interviewed Mays afterward.

"All of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping," MyFox Tampa Bay quoted him as saying. "It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head."

Laura Brown, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she did not know if Mays was wearing his seat belt on the flight because the FAA was not investigating his death.

U.S. Airways spokesman Jim Olson said there were no reports of serious injury due to the landing. "If local authorities have any questions for us about yesterday's flight, we'll cooperate fully with them," he said.

Born William Mays in McKees Rocks, Pa., on July 20, 1958, Mays developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other "As Seen on TV" gadgets on Atlantic City's boardwalk. For years he worked as a hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.

AJ Khubani, founder and CEO of "As Seen on TV," said he first met Mays in the early 1990s when Mays was still pitching one of his early products, the Shammy absorbent cloth, at a trade fair. He said he most recently worked with Mays on the reality TV show "Pitchmen" on the Discovery Channel, which follows Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs.

"His innovative role and impact on the growth and wide acceptance of direct response television cannot be overestimated or easily replaced; he was truly one of a kind," Khubani said in a statement.

After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s, Mays was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of cleaning products on the St. Petersburg-based Home Shopping Network.

Commercials and informercials followed, anchored by the high-energy Mays using them while tossing out kitschy phrases like, "Long live your laundry!"

Sarah Ellerstein worked closely with Mays when she was a buyer for the Home Shopping Network in the 1990s and he was pitching Orange Glo products.

"Billy was such a sweet guy, very lovable, very nice, always smiling, just a great, great guy," she said, adding that Mays met his future wife at the network. "Everybody thinks because he's loud and boisterous on the air that that's the way he is, but I always found him to be a quiet, down-to-earth person."

His ubiquitousness and thumbs-up, in-your-face pitches won Mays plenty of fans for his commercials on a wide variety of products. People lined up at his personal appearances for autographed color glossies, and strangers stopped him in airports to chat about the products.

"I enjoy what I do," Mays told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview. "I think it shows."

Mays liked to tell the story of giving bottles of OxiClean to the 300 guests at his wedding, and doing his ad spiel ("powered by the air we breathe!") on the dance floor at the reception. Visitors to his house typically got bottles of cleaner and housekeeping tips.

His former wife, Dolores "Dee Dee" Mays, of McKees Rocks, recalled that the first product he sold was the Wash-matik, a device for pumping water from a bucket to wash cars.

"I knew him since he was 15, and I always knew he had it in him," she said of Mays' success. "He'll live on forever because he always had the biggest heart in the world. He loved his friends and family and would do anything for them. He was a generous soul and a great father."

Besides his wife, Mays is survived by a 3-year-old daughter and a stepson in his 20s, police said.

__

Associated Press Writer Sarah Larimer in Miami and Ron Todt in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
http://tv.yahoo.com/contributor/2452757/news/urn:newsml:tv.ap.org:20090629:us_obit_billy_mays__ER:30020

[MuffyBee]

http://www.austin360.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/TV/US_TV_Billy_Mays.html
Billy Mays remains a TV pitchman, even in death
By FRAZIER MOORE
AP Television Writer

NEW YORK — Death won't still the voice of Billy Mays or his mighty powers of persuasion. Viewers will continue to find the boisterous, bearded TV pitchman hawking household products for the indefinite future. And at least one of his commercials is being introduced posthumously.

"Just stretch, wrap and it fuses fast," says Mays, demonstrating a product called Mighty Tape on a kitchen drain pipe in the new commercial. Moments later, he's seen, still wearing his signature sport shirt and khaki slacks but accessorized with scuba gear, as he repairs a hole in another diver's air hose underwater using Mighty Tape.
he commercial will begin airing July 20. Mays' advertising for other products in the Mighty brand line returned to the air earlier this week. The commercials were pulled after Mays' death June 28 of an apparent heart attack.

"Our feeling is, everyone wants to have Billy go on," said Bill McAlister, president of Media Enterprises, a sales and marketing company based in Trevose, Penn. "This is what he would have wanted."

Besides Media Enterprises, the 50-year-old Mays had worked with several other companies as the yell-and-sell spokesman for products with rousing names like OxiClean, Awesome Auger, WashMatik and Orange Glo.

It's not yet certain which among Mays' product pitches will continue to be broadcast, and for how long, said his attorney, Roger Pliakas.

"We're waiting to hear what the companies want to do," said Pliakis, who declined to specify the firms with which Mays was associated when he died.

"It's not a legal conversation but an informal conversation" with each company, Pliakas said. "We don't know all the specifics. We're just hoping it's all done in a tasteful manner."

On Thursday at 9 p.m. EDT, Discovery Channel will air a one-hour documentary, "Pitchman: A Tribute to Billy Mays." Mays had been featured in a 12-part series on the network called "Pitchmen."


In this image released by Discovery Channel, the late TV pitchman Billy Mays is shown in Santa Monica, Calif., on Feb. 8, 2009. On Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 9 p.m. EDT, Discovery Channel will air a one-hour documentary, 'Pitchman: A Tribute to Billy Mays.' Mays had been featured in a 12-part series on the network called 'Pitchmen.'

[KCJackie]

Autopsy: Cocaine a Factor in Billy Mays' Death
Posted Aug 7th 2009 4:33PM by TMZ Staff

A mighty shocking autopsy report concludes cocaine contributed to the sudden death of pitchman Billy Mays back in June.

The report, which was released today, lists "cocaine use" as contributing cause of death -- along with hypertensive and arteriosclerotic heart disease.

A Hillsborough County press release says "from the presence of metabolites of cocaine and the absence of cocaine itself, it was concluded that Mr. Mays used cocaine in the few days prior to his death but not immediately prior to death."

Mays died in his sleep on June 28 at his home in Florida.

UPDATE: Official documents show the following drugs were in Mays' system -- hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (painkiller), alprazolam (Xanax), nordiazepam (Valium), benzoylecgonine (byproduct of cocaine) and temazepam (anti-anxiety). Ethanol -- alcohol -- was also in Mays' system.

[Nut44x4]

Billy Mays: Wife wants 911 calls private
 Melanie Brooks     38 mins ago

Tampa, Florida - Deborah Mays never thought she'd make a call like the one she did on June 28, 2009.

Her beloved husband - celebrity pitchman Billy Mays - was not breathing.  She found him in bed inside their South Tampa home.  He had just flown in the night before from a trip.

Instantly, Deborah called 911.

She assumed, like many people, that the tragic and personal call she was about to make would be kept private.  After all, those were the final moments of her trying to save her husband's life.

Instead, the call would be made public. Deborah's heart was broken.

In an exclusive interview with 10 Connects, Deborah told us, "I was in a total state of shock, it was a private matter. It did not need to by played for all of America to hear."

Each time she heard it, she says, she grieved all over again.   

"It's an invasion of your privacy. What's gained from it? For the whole world to hear what you are going through, what's gained from it?" Deborah asked.

After experiencing what she calls the worst pain someone can go through, she says she had to hear her grief replayed over and over again in the media.

Deborah is one of many victims who are encouraging state lawmakers to ban the release of 911 calls to the public.

Right now, a group of lawmakers in Tallahassee is supporting a bill to block access to 911 recordings.  So far, it has passed a small hurdle in the Florida House of Representatives.

A vote of 8-5 was decided in the House Governmental Affairs Policy Committee to approve the bill on Wednesday.

Spring Hill Republican Representative Rob Schenck testified Wednesday, "It's not about any celebrity, it's not about any sensational news story you read about... it is purely about taking into consideration victims who make a 911 call -- guarding them from the fact that reliving that event over and over again that was already traumatic to them."

However, the bill is expected to see much opposition as it continues discussion in the Legislature.

Governor Charlie Crist has spoken out publicly against it, releasing this statement, "I'm concerned about it, I prefer transparency, openness in government.  It's the people's government, they have a right to see it all, and if there are issues of privacy for a minor, or something of that nature, it depends on what the final language turns out to be, but more likely than not, I can tell you I'm not favorably inclined toward the bill."

Ultimately, the bill would ban the release of any 911 calls that media use on-air and online.

The only information that would be provided is a transcript. It would become available after a 60-day waiting period. 

But, some argue against this bill. They say by releasing 911 calls, the system is kept in check. 

Many point to the tragic case of Denise Amber Lee, the young North Port mother who was kidnapped and murdered. A witness who saw the kidnapping happen called 911 immediately. But, help never came.   

Records indicate that the 911 dispatcher did not pass along the information to patrolling officers in the area in time.

Denise's body would be found naked, shot to death and buried in a shallow grave in a remote swampy area.

After an internal investigation was launched, information was released that the call was thought to be urgent, but things were busy that day, and the call slipped through the cracks.

More than a year later, dispatchers are now required to have more training. Those tapes ended up raising questions about how operators handle calls.

Barbara Peterson with the First Amendment Foundation says, "These tapes give us an opportunity to ensure that the emergency response system is working the way it should, and to deny access to that cuts off a huge opportunity to make sure that we're getting the kind of services that we should be getting."

Still for Deborah Mays, her wounds are reopened all over again when she hears that 911 call. 

Even Billy, she says, would have wanted it to be kept private.
http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=127226&catid=8

[MuffyBee]

Nut, I had made a thread in News of the Day http://scaredmonkeys.net/index.php?topic=7209.0

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/23/AR2010022303680.html
States eye ban on public release of 911 calls
February 23, 2010

When I go to the link from the Washington Post it now says:

"We are unable to locate the page you requested.
The page may have moved or may no longer be available"

It addressed a similar problem with 911 calls being released and families being distressed by that.