Jimmy Ray Dean

 Jimmy Ray Dean (August 10, 1928 – June 13, 2010)

Dean was a country music singer, television host, actor, and businessman. He was the creator of the Jimmy Dean sausage brand as well as the spokesman for its TV commercials. He was also a distant cousin of actor James Dean. He became a national television personality starting on CBS in 1957. He rose to fame for his 1961 country music crossover hit into rock and roll with "Big Bad John" and his 1963 television series The Jimmy Dean Show, which gave puppeteer Jim Henson his first national media exposure. His acting career included appearing in the early seasons in the Daniel Boone TV series as the sidekick of the famous frontiersman played by star Fess Parker. Later he was on the big screen in a supporting role as billionaire Willard Whyte in the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever (1971). In 1969, he founded the Jimmy Dean Sausage Company with his brother Don. The company did well in part because of Dean's own extemporized, humorous commercials.

The success of the company led to its acquisition in 1984 by Consolidated Foods, later renamed the Sara Lee Corporation. In the fall of 2004, he released his blunt, straight-talking autobiography 30 Years of Sausage, 50 Years of Ham. Dean lived in semi-retirement with his second wife, Donna Meade Dean, a singer, songwriter, and recording artist he married in 1991, who helped him write his book. Dean had three children, Garry, Connie and Robert, with his first wife Mary Sue . Dean died at the age of 81, on June 13, 2010, at his home in Varina, Virginia.