Is there no end this week to the celebrity death parade? Popular and extremely effective television commercial pitchman Billy Mays was discovered dead this morning in his Tampa, Florida home. Mays was the co-star of Discovery's series The Pitchmen (along with Anthony Sullivan) and is remembered for his enthusiastic and bombastic ads for a variety of household products.From what the news reports are saying, and as you can read from Mays' own Twitter (his last), he was on the U.S. Air flight to Tampa that blew a tire on landing yesterday. Items were flying around the cabin, and Mays reported to a local TV station that he was hit hard on the head by something during the landing, but laughed it off. Coincidence? Sounds very possibly like a delayed reaction to a severe brain injury to me, much like Natasha Richardson's unfortunate accident. (Do read Mays' Twitters. They show a nice family man with a very friendly outlook on life. Really poignant to read them now.)
Billy Mays was clearly a memorable part of the current television landscape, and we offer our sympathy to his family, friends and fans.
I am truly sorry for his loss but I must admit that I usually put him on mute.
ReplyDeleteA sad loss for his family. Certainly not a loss fo the rest of us, who had to endure his brainless commercials shouting at us when he tried to trick poor people into sending their money, believing his fabricated success stories..
ReplyDeleteI wanted to post this update about Discovery's plans for their "Pitchmen" show and the results of his autopsy:
ReplyDeletehttp://adage.com/article?article_id=137653