Billy Mays is dead

[Exodus]

Originally Posted by Irukapooka

Geez it hasn't even been a week yet...

Ed Mcman (I think that's how it's spelled...gimme a break, I'm half awake)
Farrah Fawcett
Michael Jackson
Billy Mayes

You forgot David Carradine.

__________________
No, I don't like anime, Street Fighter, Japanese music or download video game music. Yes, I know, I'm weird.

[BigIg]

The real Billy Mays behind the pitchman - Jun. 29, 2009

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- As soon as I heard the sad and shocking news yesterday that TV pitchman Billy Mays had died at age 50, I thought back to the rainy Friday night in early February that I first met him.

I was working on a story about the infomercial business that was to focus on Mays and his buddy, fellow pitchman, and frequent collaborator Anthony "Sully" Sullivan. The next day the two would be shooting footage for their Discovery Channel reality show "Pitchmen."

Appropriately enough, I heard Mays before I saw him. I hadn't taken more than five steps into my hotel lobby in Burbank when his famous, thundering voice erupted about 30 feet to my left: "HI, BILLY MAYS HERE..." My head swiveled and, sure enough, there he was: Standing in the middle of the hotel bar, an imaginary cleaning product in his hand, his trademark dyed-black beard glistening, with a made-for-TV grin plastered on his face, Mays was entertaining a gaggle of admiring fans and soaking in the adulation of his audience.

In many ways, he was his cartoon-like TV persona. But he was much more than that, too. Not 30 minutes after I first saw Billy in the bar, he had already shown me pictures of his three-year-old daughter, given me much of his life history, and gotten close to tears recounting earlier career setbacks. In the time that I spent with Mays, I found him to be fun-loving, hard-working, big-hearted, amiable, funny, driven, and winningly genuine. He was certainly loud when he was "on" and he had a big ego. But he was also an emotional guy who was capable of quiet self-reflection and real sweetness. I couldn't help but like him immensely.

On Saturday, Mays was on a US Airways flight that blew out its front tires upon landing in Tampa and he told locals reporters that falling stuff, luggage perhaps, had hit him on the head. "But I got a hard head," he said. Typical Billy.

The medical examiner said on Monday that it wasn't head trauma that killed Mays. According to the preliminary results from the autopsy, there was evidence of heart disease.
More than just 'Yell and sell'

As much as the past few years had been great for Billy professionally, they had been tough on him physically. He had a hip replacement last year but suffered complications. A fall during a vacation in Italy led doctors to discover a staph infection and necessitated a five-hour follow-up operation. Billy told me that he had been "playing in pain" for the past three years, getting by on grit and painkillers. He was pushing to get through filming the first season of the reality show before undergoing a third operation on the hip. He was due to have the surgery this week.

His reality show was a big deal for Mays. After a quarter century of working Wal-Mart parking lots, state fairs, and home shows, he loved the validation that his recent fame represented. For a kid from the wrong side of the tracks in McKees Rocks, Penn., outside Pittsburgh, he felt like he had made it pretty good. But he never stopped being grateful, either. Whether on the set after taping a commercial or after interviews with reporters or after a photo shoot, he never seemed to forget to say thank you to everyone involved.

On a Tuesday a couple of weeks after I met Mays in Los Angeles, I went down to Tampa to watch Billy and Sully shoot a new "show" for the bathroom cleaning product Kaboom. For two days, Mays did lines over and over, apologizing to everyone when he flubbed something. "I don't want to be almost perfect," he said more than once. "I want to be perfect."

At one point Billy and I took a break and went for a drive in his Bentley. A leased $200,000 car was one indulgence that he felt he had earned. He worked out of his house as a "one-man band," serving as his own agent and secretary.

For 45 minutes we talked about everything from learning the art of pitching on the Atlantic City boardwalk to how he developed his famous voice. He had built a new house in South Carolina that was big enough to house a studio and had dreams of some day hosting his own radio show right from home. As we pulled back in to the studio parking lot, I asked him what he was hoping people would get out of the Discovery Channel show.

"My hope and wish is that they get a peek into Billy Mays's life and they see that he's not just a guy who shouts," he said. "I'm not just a 'yell and sell.' I want the world to know that I'm a very generous guy. I'm a very humble guy. And I work hard."

He was all that and more. And for that he will be missed.

__________________

♫ From the outside, we all look like robots who've been programmed to ignore all our thoughts, until one day - he feels the remedy, with our eyes closed, we all begin to see. ♫

[Xblade]

Thousands of people die daily..............count your blessings and move on. -_0
Save your pmsing for when someone you actually know dies.

__________________

Originally Posted by Sonic2036

the PS3 needs to be a little more slimer??? the way I see it , its as big as a laptop lol
i remember psp slime was more slimey

V
l

[Squall-Leonhart]

*writes Xblade into deathnote*

__________________

VBA-M | Xtemu | NGOHQ | Post Impact Productions | TNHW | XBCD 0.2.6 | Satanic666's Emulator Compiles
Don't be a NOOB, READ THE NGEmu/EmuForums Rules of Conduct
Need Help with ePSXe? This is your first stop!.
If you don't post all the required information, you don't get help.
Everytime someone posts a romsite, God kills a beautiful woman.

[Xblade]

Originally Posted by Squall-Leonhart

*writes Xblade into deathnote*

You wouldn't be the first.


OH OH LET ME LET ME:

Xblade: Will die after someone inserts a copy of Final Fantasy XII into a Xbox 360. The 360 will catch am instant red ring because of its omnipotent allergy to sony products and explode which will send the Final Fantasy XII disc flying into Xblade's throat.

__________________

Originally Posted by Sonic2036

the PS3 needs to be a little more slimer??? the way I see it , its as big as a laptop lol
i remember psp slime was more slimey

V
l

---

Last edited by Xblade; June 30th, 2009 at 09:05..

[BigIg]

Originally Posted by Xblade

Thousands of people die daily

153,000 other people die per day. Billy Mays counts as 153,001 though since he's the coolest guy ever, this being more important than the other 153,000.

__________________

♫ From the outside, we all look like robots who've been programmed to ignore all our thoughts, until one day - he feels the remedy, with our eyes closed, we all begin to see. ♫

[RockmanForte]

Oh brother.. Not again!

__________________
I have:

Wii: Starfall, Neogamma R8 beta 11, and currently on 3.2u
PSP PHAT: 1001k [TA-081] Custom Firmware 5.50 GEN-D2(FULL)

CASE: EagleTech Sidewinder Gaming Tower Case w/420W Power Supply Black
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
CPU: Intel core 2 Duo Processor E8400 (2x 3.0GHz/6MB L2 Cache/1333FSB)
Processor Cooling: Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooling Fan System Kit Silent & Overclocking Proof
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT 512MB w/DVI + TV Out Video
Memory: 2048GB [1024GB X2] DDR2-800 PC6400 Memory Module Corsair-Value or Major Brand
Sound Card: 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard

[Noja87]

those other 153,000 suck. None of them tried to sell me Oxyclean on such a kick ass way as Billy. So he wins =P

[strike105x]

Originally Posted by RockmanForte

Oh brother.. Not again!

But of course again, needs more Billy advertising.

__________________

|Strike's Deviantart|Anime List|Important Notice|

[Xblade]

Originally Posted by Noja87

those other 153,000 suck. None of them tried to rip me off by advertising crappy products with criminally loud vocal cords.

Fixed.

__________________

Originally Posted by Sonic2036

the PS3 needs to be a little more slimer??? the way I see it , its as big as a laptop lol
i remember psp slime was more slimey

V
l

[bobrocks95]

Welcome to the list XBlade. You **** with Billy you **** with me.

__________________

Originally Posted by Halo 3: ODST review

The game's audio and sound were almost universally lauded. A significant departure from the consensus was offered by Kuchera, who wrote that the saxophone touches "[sound] like the softcore porn they show on Cinemax after midnight".