The True Life Story And Tragic Death Of Billy Mays: King Of TV Commercials

From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, product pitchman Billy Mays was a ubiquitous presence on television, hawking household products and gadgets that he insisted would make viewers' lives cleaner, safer, and ultimately, happier. Mays had an outsized voice — somewhere between carnival barker and air raid siren — but an everyman's appearance and bearing, which made him both attention-grabbing and trustworthy, a winning combination for product makers and potential customers alike. That one-two punch boosted Mays into pop culture consciousness, a rare destination reserved for only a select number of product spokespersons (see: also Flo from Progressive Insurance, the Geico gecko, et al). Mays parlayed his talents on TV until his untimely death at the age of 50 on June 28, 2009.

Product pitchmen come and go, but Mays seems to remain evergreen, if the wealth of YouTube videos, memes, and other media devoted to his commercials is any indication. While they remember his voice, beard, and blue shirt and khaki pants outfit, they gloss over Mays' long path to stardom, as well as the tragedy of his passing. Let's unpack the legend of Billy Mays and look at how he became the King of TV Commercials, as well as how he remains in the public eye more than a decade after his death.

Working on the boardwalk taught Billy Mays invaluable skills that he would later parlay as the king of infomercials. He learned from veteran pitchmen the art of "ballying," or gathering a crowd to hear a sales pitch. Mays also learned how to spin his pitches to make potential customers want to buy his product. He'd announce an item's price at $29.99 but add that he had to sell them at $15 to 50 customers. "'But for the first 10 people, they cost one $10 bill. Now, who is first?' And then you just point to the nearest guy, the guy who seemed most eager, and say, 'You are number one,'" he told the Washington Post. "And that guy always went along with it. It was amazing. And then someone would raise their hand and say, 'I'm number two,' and pretty soon, you had 10 people handing you money." It helped that Mays had a powerful and durable voice that caught the attention of passersby.

Mays was soon selling products at state fairs and home shows across the United States. And it was at a home show in Pittsburgh that he made a crucial connection: Max Appel, creator of Orange Oil, a cleaning product that used orange oil instead of chemicals. When audio problems upended Appel's pitch, Mays lent him his microphone, which led to his first big break. Appel got a chance to promote Orange Glo on the Home Shopping Network (HSN), and he knew just the right pitchman. Mays debuted on HSN in 1996 and sold 6,000 units of Orange Glo at $18 apiece in just 11 minutes. That appearance marked the beginning of Billy Mays' ascendance to TV fame.

By the early 2000s, Billy Mays was a television staple, lending his big voice and presence to infomercials for products like Mighty Putty and Zorbees. His tenure with Appel ended in 2006 when the company sold OxiClean and its other products to Church & Dwight, the owners of Arm & Hammer, and reportedly left Mays out in the cold. Mays turned the tables on Appel, signing a deal to promote Church & Dwight's products while also producing infomercials through his own production company.

Initially, he took on all offers. "In the beginning, it was like, 'I'm going to show them!'" Mays said to Orlando Weekly. But he eventually pulled back on the reins, turning down products like a toilet seat that signaled if the seat was up or down with lights, or a singing birthday candle that lit up like a flare. Not every product he pitched was a winner: the Cargo Genie, which organized buyers' car trunks, and the collapsible Zip Wrench proved to be dogs. But OxiClean, Mighty Putty, and many more products were huge hits and typically paid Mays on average between $20,000 and $30,000 as well as a portion of the gross revenue. As a result, Mays was a wealthy man, though not off-the-charts rich. "There's this big lore about what I make, like, 'He's a billionaire!' But I'm not," Mays told Orlando Weekly before adding, "Sure, I make over a million dollars."

For the most part, Billy Mays handled gentle ribbing about his screen presence with good humor. He even participated in a comedy sketch (via Infomercial Hell) on a 2009 episode of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" which featured him as "Billy Shakespeare," who explained the Bard's plays with the same over-the-top delivery as his infomercials. Mays' son, Billy Mays III, also told participants in a 2013 Reddit AMA that his dad was a fan of JaboodyDubs, a YouTube parody page that redubbed Mays' infomercials with decidedly outrageous (and NSFW) language. "My dad wasn't very computer/internet-literate but he would always mention 'Jaboody Dubs' to people who were," he wrote.

However, Mays was not a fan of anyone he perceived as aping or mocking his style of pitching. Case in point: Vince Offer, the in-your-face pitchman for the ShamWow cleaning towel. In a 2009 radio interview (via Popular Mechanics), Mays declared that Offer was treading in his territory with the ShamWow and suggested a "pitch-off" to determine which of the two was the "ultimate pitchman." Undoubtedly, some of this animosity was borne from the fact that Popular Mechanics declared the ShamWow more capable of cleaning up messes than Zorbees. Nothing appears to have come of the "pitch-off," but as an episode of Mays' reality series "PitchMen" illustrated, Offer and the ShamWow were still sore points if mentioned in his presence.

Billy Mays' death on June 28, 2009, shocked fans and the media alike, and the days that followed the news were filled with speculation and supposition. Mays reportedly told his family on the evening of June 27 that he was feeling unwell and went to bed in his Tampa, Florida, home around 10 p.m. that evening. Mays' wife found him unresponsive the following morning and called Tampa police. First responders pronounced the 50-year-old Mays dead at 7:45 a.m. on June 28.

Initial reports suggested that an accident that occurred during a flight on June 27 may have contributed to Mays' death. He was struck on the head when a carry-on item fell from the overhead cargo space on a United Airways flight into Tampa International. At the time, Mays told the media that he had suffered no injury as a result of the accident, adding, NPR quotes, "I got a hard head."

An initial autopsy report on June 29, 2009, found that hypertensive heart disease was the cause of Mays' death. The condition, a complication of high blood pressure, increases the chance of heart failure in many cases, the Cleveland Clinic warns, and can prove fatal if the causes remain untreated. Mays was buried in his hometown of McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, on July 3, 2009. Pallbearers at the ceremony wore his traditional infomercial outfit of a blue shirt and khaki pants.

Many of the companies that featured Billy Mays in their infomercials pulled the spots from rotation on television after his death. Most notable among these was OxiClean and Orange Glo manufacturers Church & Dwight, though they did keep Mays' image on the OxiClean website as an homage to the pitchman. However, several other companies continued to air Mays' infomercials and even debuted new spots in the weeks that followed his death. In a 2009 interview on CNBC, Mays' lawyer, Roger Pliakas, said that networks wanted to wait for a statement from his family before airing any old or new spots, which they received in mid-2009. Their consent returned many of Mays' best-known infomercials to the airwaves, including spots for Mighty Putty and the Awesome Auger, as well as new spots for products like the Jupiter Jack, a wireless speakerphone, which Mays filmed shortly before his death.

Response to the new and revived ads were mixed. The CNBC piece quoted Remy Stern, author of the infomercial industry book "But Wait ... There's More!" who found Mays' posthumous return to the airwaves unsettling but completely understandable. "For the infomercial guys, any press is good press," he said. For others, Mays' spots were an unexpected windfall: Media Enterprises president Bill McAlister told CNBC that Mays' infomercial for the Superpack, a Mighty Putty-related product, had been seen 20 to 30% more times than views recorded before the pitchman's death.

For his own part, Billy Mays III has maintained his father's legacy through BillyMays.org, a website devoted to the seemingly countless pop culture representations of his father. Visitors will find a dizzying array of Mays imagery, from memes and fan artwork and even a Halloween costume (Mays III even hosted a contest for the best costume based on his father's look). Mays III, who also writes and records electronic music as Infinite Third, has lent his father's image to several products, including a T-shirt and pint glasses, which benefit various charities through their sales.

Mays III said that the inspiration for the charitable products was his father's own kindness; as he wrote on the site, his father often surprised fans by asking them about their own lives. "I view this mission as a continuation of my dad's kindness and generosity and hope it will inspire others to create a positive ripple from the grief of losing a loved one," he wrote.