Jimmy Dean Dies at 81

[sonnymax]

Star of Stage, Screen and Breakfast Table

By STEPHEN MILLER

Singer Jimmy Dean drew on his fame as a country-music and television star to create what became the biggest-selling breakfast sausage brand in the U.S.

Mr. Dean, who died Sunday at age 81, scored gold records with such songs as "Big Bad John," a spoken-word pieceabout a doomed miner, and "I.O.U.," a mushy tribute to his mother.

But it was the sausage business that made Jimmy Dean a familiar name in kitchens across the nation. Mr. Dean's homey, unscripted ads on TV and radio boasted about how his sausage was made "from the whole hog, not just the leavings." The business grew rapidly from Mr. Dean's home town of Plainview, Texas.

He told interviewers he got into meatpacking as a hedge against the unpredictability of a show-business career. "If you saw my act, you would have realized that diversification was imperative," he told the Washington Post in 1983.

Wal Street Journal

[paul secor]

I remember seeing him on TV in the 60's performing his hits. Had no idea that he had a somewhat more diverse show biz career.

I'm sure that Jimmy Dean's Pure Pork Sausages helped clog more than a few arteries over the years.

[clifford_thornton]

He told interviewers he got into meatpacking as a hedge against the unpredictability of a show-business career. "If you saw my act, you would have realized that diversification was imperative," he told the Washington Post in 1983.

[sonnymax]

I was too young to enjoy The Jimmy Dean Show, but I fondly remember his role as "Josh" the fur trapper on one of my favorite programs, Fess Parker's Daniel Boone.

[BruceH]

I only knew him from the rather annoying sausage commercials which my contemporaries and I grew up making fun of.

[Jazzmoose]

Uh oh. I just sat down to a very late breakfast of soft boiled eggs, an english muffin and...yeah, you guessed it.

[Free For All]

Uh oh. I just sat down to a very late breakfast of soft boiled eggs, an english muffin and...yeah, you guessed it.

There's a little bit o' Jimmy in every bite.

[.:.impossible]

I remember being on a flight back to VA from FL with him. I was in fifth grade. I had seen big hats before, but nothing like the hat Jimmy Dean was wearing. If the hat wasn't enough to draw the attention of every passenger on the airplane, the odor he left in the lavatory certainly was. Whoa. Still remember it every time I get on an airplane.

[AllenLowe]

1) he plays a villain in one of the later, Roger Moore, James Bond movies -

2) few people know this, but the flip side of Big Bad John was "I Won't Go Huntin' with you Jake, But I'll Go Chasin' Women."

I played that 45 a lot when I was a kid.

[Achtung Dr. Freud Calling]

Not a villain!!

[sonnymax]

Not a villain!!

And not a cigar!

Actually, the good doctor is correct. Dean's character, Willard Whyte, was not Bond's enemy, but an ally in Diamonds Are Forever.

[JSngry]

I remember being on a flight back to VA from FL with him. I was in fifth grade. I had seen big hats before, but nothing like the hat Jimmy Dean was wearing. If the hat wasn't enough to draw the attention of every passenger on the airplane, the odor he left in the lavatory certainly was.

Now that's a big bad john!

[BERIGAN]

My Dad has a tape somewheres where he recorded Jimmy Dean with the longtime St. Louis radio personality Jack Carney, back in the 70's on KMOX. I guess he had heard the two of them before...for some unknown reason the two of them made a great improv comedy team! Funny as hell. You would never guess it from the other stuff he was known for. Need to put that cassette on CD before it turns to magnetic dust.

Edited June 17, 2010 by BERIGAN

[Chuck Nessa]

Lowe used to date a woman named Grazie Mille!

[JSngry]

Was she thoroughly modern? I mean, thoroughly?

[AllenLowe]

well, there's also the great wheat beers of Germany - also known as:

[Achtung Dr. Freud Calling]

well, there's also the great wheat beers of Germany

To drink while eating a [Non-Jimmy Dean] pair of Weisswurst? With a copy of the Magna Carta and/or Hot Rod Magazine (with photo of a '32 Ford Roadster Coupe on the cover) at one's side to peruse while dining? I must try this new and exciting beverage Herr Lowe!! Will you invite me to your home?

[AllenLowe]

sure why not? The key's under the mat - I mean, what could happen?

Edited June 18, 2010 by AllenLowe

[Jim Alfredson]

Thread cleaned by me. Have a nice day!

[AllenLowe]