TAMPA, Fla. — Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman whose boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean made him a pop-culture icon, has died. He was 50.
Tampa police said Mays’ wife found him unresponsive Sunday morning. It was not immediately clear how he died. He said he was hit on the head when an airplane he was on made a rough landing Saturday, and his wife, Deborah Mays, told investigators he didn’t feel well before he went to bed. Mays is also survived by a 3-year-old daughter and a stepson in his 20s, police said.
The coroner’s office expects to have an autopsy done by this afternoon.
U.S. Airways confirmed that Mays was among the passengers on a flight that made a rough landing Saturday at Tampa International Airport.
Tampa Bay’s Fox affiliate 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.”
Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said linking Mays’ death to the landing would “purely be speculation.”
Born William Mays in Mc Kees 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.
More recently he was featured on the reality TV show “Pitchmen” on the Discovery Channel, which follows Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs.
After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in the mid- 1990s, Mays was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of cleaning products on the Home Shopping Network. Appel’s business was based in Greenwood Village.
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!”
Sarah Ellerstein worked with Mays at the Home Shopping Network.
“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.
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 said in 2002. “I think it shows.”
