Advertising icon Orville Redenbacher

One-time farm boy Orville Redenbacher found celebrity in his role as the spokesman for his own brand of dependable, fluffy popcorn.

Wealth came earlier, in the fertilizer business. His interest in developing a better variety of corn for making popcorn led him to begin marketing Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn in 1971.

Someone talked him into appearing in his company's TV commercials, and, like Colonel Sanders of KFC and Dave Thomas of Wendy's, he "fit the product" perfectly. He was a tall, thin, slightly corny older man with white hair parted in the middle, a bow tie, suspenders, heavy-rimmed eyeglasses, and a distinctly Midwestern manner. He looked like someone who would be named Orville. A glamour boy he was not, but he had good credibility. Prior to ending his long string of commercials in 1995, he sometimes brought his grandson Gary in to appear with him.

Redenbacher sold out to Hunt-Wesson in 1976, and the popcorn brand was bought in 1990 by ConAgra. Redenbacher himself died by drowning due to a heart attack he suffered while taking a whirlpool bath in 1995 at his California condo.