Billy Mays, King Of Clean, Found Dead In Home In Tampa
Billy Mays, TV pitchman for such well known products as Oxi-Clean, Kaboom, Orange Glo and many others, was found dead in his home in Tampa.
No word of foul play right now, but we will keep you updated as the news comes in from the autopsy report.
Tampabay.com reports:
TAMPA — Billy Mays, the TV pitchman whose trademark voice helped sell everything from cleaning supplies to baking soda, was found dead this morning by his wife at his Tampa home. No cause of death has been reported and no foul play is suspected, according to Tampa police.
Mays, 50, was pronounced dead at 7:45 a.m. at 2853 Bowen Daniel Dr., #1201. His wife, Deborah Mays, found him unresponsive this morning. The Medical Examiner’s Office will complete Mays’ autopsy by tomorrow afternoon.
“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 today. “Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times.”
Mays was a passenger Saturday of a 737 airplane that had a front tire blow out, said spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan. Mays and other passengers were interviewed by US Airways staff after the Philadelphia flight’s hard landing. Responders reported no injuries.
“Tampa Fire (Rescue) reported no injuries. Nobody asked for treatment,” Geoghagan said. “Some of the passengers said they had bruises.”
Mays was one of the stars of “Pitchmen,” a Discovery Channel documentary series that focused on Mays’ claim to fame: inventions and infomercials.
Although I myself and I assure many others, found his voice and yelling particularly annoying, this man became a multi-millionaire hawking cleaning products. He recently starred in an inventors show called The Pitchmen with fellow pitchman Anthony “Sully” Sullivan on the Discovery Channel. His TV ads sometimes appeared up to 400 times a week, and Billy was once quoted as saying:
“If I see myself one more time today,” he groans, sounding genuinely weary, “I’m going to pull my hair out.”
The Washington Post reported back in 2008 about Mays:
A college dropout who grew up in Pittsburgh, Mays lives with his wife and two kids in a five-bedroom house with a three-car garage for his Bentley, Mercedes SUV and Range Rover. His home office is the headquarters of Billy Mays Promotions, a one-man operation. Mays does overdubs in a mini-studio on the second floor and many of his tapings at a nearby production house owned by a friend.
If this sounds like the sweet, sedentary life, you’ve got the wrong impression. By all accounts, Mays is a tireless worker, ready to fly to any city for any shoot and then fly back for reshoots if necessary. Each of his “shows,” as he calls them, requires dozens and dozens of takes, mostly because Mays is prone to stumbles and miscues, many of which are memorialized on blooper reels posted to YouTube. The three-alarm volume is never turned down. “People used to tell him, ‘Billy, you’ve got to come off the gas a little, there’s no need to shout,’ ” says Anthony Sullivan, a friend, fellow pitchman and owner of a production company where Mays has shot commercials. “He’d say ‘No problem,’ but he couldn’t stop. He has one speed, 100 miles an hour — take it or leave it.”
There have been many parodies of people poking fun of Billy on YouTube. As they say, imitation is the best form of flattery.
Enjoy this “Billy Mays Gangsta remix“ of his commercials from YouTube.
Also leading to some unanswered questions about his untimely death, was a blow to his head during a particularly bad plane landing on Saturday. Reports state Billy had flown into Tampa on an US Airways flight from Philadelphia when a tire blew during landing, Billy had tweeted about this just after landing. From CNN:
According to a local Tampa TV station, Mays said: “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.”
According to TMZ, Billy hit his head on an overhead luggage compartment and his wife states that he was not feeling well Saturday night. While the Tampa Bay police department are saying there is no way to know exactly what killed Billy, they did caution the public to NOT jump to conclusions about the two incidents being related. All I can say to that is: Natasha Richardson.
While we certainly accept that we could be WAY off base, my instincts are telling me that Billy may have sustained a much more serious injury from hitting his head and we will likely discover the two were very much linked. There is already speculation going on about whether Mays was wearing his seatbelt. This has been a really sad week in the world of celebrities. Hopefully we will have no more bad news to report.
Our condolences to Billy’s family and friends.
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