Dead Celebrity Alert

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Dr. Robert Cade, who invented the sports drink Gatorade and launched a multibillion-dollar industry that the beverage continues to dominate, died Tuesday of kidney failure. He was 80.

His death was announced by the University of Florida, where he and other researchers created Gatorade in 1965 to help the school’s football players replace carbohydrates and electrolytes lost through sweat while playing in swamp-like heat.

Now sold in 80 countries in dozens of flavours, Gatorade was born thanks to a question from former Gator Coach Dwayne Douglas, Cade said in a 2005 interview with The Associated Press.

He asked, “Doctor, why don’t football players wee-wee after a game?”

“That question changed our lives,” Cade said. …

The first batch was not exactly a hit.

“It sort of tasted like toilet bowl cleaner,” said Dana Shires, one of the researchers.

“I guzzled it and I vomited,” Cade said. … Read full obituary

Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop cosmetics store, has died after suffering a major brain haemorrhage. She was 64.

The businesswoman, dubbed the Queen of Green, died today at a hospital in southern England, with her husband and daughters by her side, the family said in a statement. …

Roddick was called the Queen of Green for her trailblazing environmentally-friendly, humane business practices that made her a leader in her native England and around the world.

Greenpeace executive director John Sauven called Roddick an “incredible woman” who would be “sorely missed”. …

Roddick opened her first Body Shop store in 1976 in Brighton, southern England, before fair trade and eco-friendly businesses were fashionable.

The Body Shop has grown into a global phenomenon with nearly 2000 stores in 50 countries. It became part of the French company L’Oreal Group last year, but remains independently run. … Read full obituary

Wall Street big shot Seth Tobias was mysteriously found dead yesterday in the swimming pool of his Florida mansion, police said.

Tobias’ wife found the well-regarded CNBC commentator’s body about 1 a.m., floating facedown in his pool in an exclusive section of Jupiter, Fla., near Palm Beach. …

Cops said an autopsy would be performed to determine how the brash moneyman died. “It’s unusual because of his age,” Pascarella said of the 44-year-old.

Tobias, who also had homes on E. 53rd St. and the Jersey Shore, ran the Circle T Partners hedge fund and managed $250 million in assets.

He was a familiar face on the financial network’s popular “Squawk Box” show, and his quotes appeared on a financial Web site yesterday even as cops probed his death. … Read full obituary

Jerry Ringlien, best known as creator of the “My bologna has a first name” campaign, died of a heart attack Monday in Wilkesboro, N.C. He was 77.

Mr. Ringlien worked at Oscar Mayer for 23 years, rising to VP-marketing. During that time he worked on the “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener” campaign and later revived the popular “wienermobile.” … Read full obituary

Jack Odell, a self-trained engineer whose daughter’s mischievous habit of taking spiders to school in a matchbox prompted him to make her a tiny steamroller as a substitute — an invention that led to Matchbox Toys, maker of 3 billion Lilliputian vehicles in 12,000 models — died on July 7 in London. He was 87.

His son-in-law Josh Walsh, who announced the death, said Mr. Odell had had Parkinson’s disease.

The steamroller, made of brass and painted shiny red and green, satisfied Mr. Odell’s daughter, Anne, and so impressed her friends that Mr. Odell raced to meet their demand. It seemed a dandy toy: just right for a child’s hand but hard to swallow, no batteries, violence-free, quiet and costing just pennies to make.

By the next year, 1953, the steamroller and vehicles like it were rolling off a production line in a small factory that Mr. Odell and a pair of partners had set up in a former London pub, The Rifleman. After the steamroller came a Land Rover, a London bus, a bulldozer and a fire engine. In 1954, the 19th vehicle in the series was rolled out: a dainty MG TD roadster, the first Matchbox car. The toys quickly spread to the United States where they typically sold for 49 cents. … Read full obituary

MILWAUKEE, June 26 (AP) — Ralph F. Stayer, the founder of a Wisconsin sausage company that helped popularize bratwurst in the United States, died Sunday in Florida. He was 92.

He died in his sleep at a nursing home, his family said.

Mr. Stayer bought a butcher shop in 1945 and turned it into the million-dollar Johnsonville Sausage Company, said his son, Ralph C. Stayer, the company’s current chief executive. … Read full obituary

Warren E. Avis, a Michigan car dealership owner who, frustrated at waiting for taxis outside airports, founded a chain of car rental agencies and turned it into the nation’s second biggest, died yesterday at his home in Ann Arbor, Mich. He was 92. …

In 1946, when Mr. Avis opened his first Avis Airlines Rent-A-Car in Florida and Michigan, all his rival companies were in downtown garages. … Read full obituary

Helen Robson Walton, widow of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, died Thursday evening at her home, the company said in a news release. She was 87.

Walton was surrounded by family members when she died of natural causes, the company said. … Read full obituary

BERKELEY, Calif. — Ernest Gallo, who parlayed $5,900 and a wine recipe from a public library into the world’s largest winemaking empire, died Tuesday at his home in Modesto. He was 97.

“He passed away peacefully this afternoon surrounded by his family,” said Susan Hensley, vice president of public relations for E.&J. Gallo Winery.

Gallo, who would have been 98 on March 18, was born near Modesto, a then-sleepy San Joaquin Valley town about 80 miles east of San Francisco. He and his late brother and business partner, Julio, grew up working in the vineyard owned by their immigrant father who came to America from Italy’s famed winemaking region of Piedmont. … Read full obituary

ATLANTA — Garry Betty, the president and chief executive of EarthLink Inc., has died from complications of cancer, the Internet service provider said Wednesday. He was 49.

Betty joined EarthLink in 1996 and oversaw the company’s growth from a regional ISP with 500,000 subscribers to a national service provider with more than 5 million. He took a medical leave of absence in November. Atlanta-based EarthLink released no other information on his death. … Read full obituary

August 21, 2006 — Creighton Brown, a wellknown racing entrepreneur and a man who helped Ron Dennis win control of McLaren, has died of cancer. …

He … decided to go into business on his own and invested in farming and as his business empire grew so too did his involvement in motor racing and in 1972 turned his hobby into a business and started to race semi-professionally with commercial sponsorship, building several very successful Supersports cars. … Brown became a shareholder and director of the new McLaren International and would remain a McLaren director until 1992. During that period the team won 15 world titles. … Read full obituary

Alexander C. Cushing, the founder and chairman of Squaw Valley Ski Resort, died of pneumonia this weekend at his summer home in Newport, Rhode Island.

Cushing was 92.

He opened the resort in 1949 with one chairlift, a rope tow and a 50-room lodge. …

Ironically, Cushing acknowledged he was never much of a skier. … Read full obituary

Robert H. Brooks, who, as the self-styled “Worldwide Wing Commander” of Hooters restaurants, known for spicy chicken wings and spicier waitresses, took the company to 46 states and 20 countries, died on Sunday at his home in Myrtle Beach, S.C. He was 69.

The company announced the death. The Associated Press said an autopsy found he died of unspecified natural causes.

Mr. Brooks, who was raised as a Methodist on a tobacco farm lacking plumbing and electricity, might have seemed an odd sort to lead an empire based on hot pants and pitchers of beer. When he first invested in Hooters, he said he did not know that the name and owl-eyes logo were meant as a reference to the female anatomy. …

He proceeded to open Hooters franchises from San Diego to São Paulo to Shanghai, at 430 locations in all. He started a magazine, pro golf tour, stock car racing series, credit card and casino, all under the Hooters name. His boldest venture, Hooters Air, an airline with hostesses in the familiar orange shorts and white tank-tops, began flying two years ago, but was grounded by high fuel prices. … Read full obituary

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Kenneth Lay, the former chairman of Enron as well as a founder of the company, is dead, according to a report on CNBC. Lay was convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges by a federal jury in Houston on May 25 for his part in the high-profile collapse of Enron. CNBC said Lay died at his home in Aspen, Colo., of a heart attack. Jeffery Skilling, the ex-CEO of Enron, was also convicted in late May. The pair had yet to be sentenced for the charges, and each man was facing at least 20 years in prison. … Read full obituary

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Dallas, TX (AHN) — E. Pierce Marshall, who battled former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith for his father’s oil fortune for years, died unexpectedly Tuesday.

Marshall, 67 died of an aggressive infection on Tuesday but the family spokesperson would not release any further details, asking that the family receive the privacy they deserve. …

Marshall and Smith have been battled in court after oil tycoon, J. Howard Marshall II died in 1995. He married Smith the year before. … Read full obituary