Profile of the Day: Jimmy Dean

Jimmy Dean

On this day in 1928, American country music singer and businessman Jimmy Dean was born in Plainview, Texas to George Otto Dean and Ruth Taylor. His best known song was in 1961 called “Big Bad John”; the song won Dean the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording.

Dean was also a television host, he had a variety TV series called The Jimmy Dean Show which featured comedy, popular music artists and country music entertainers that helped bring country music into the mainstream. He gave puppeteer Jim Henson’s first big break on national television on The Jimmy Dean Show. After his television show ended in 1966 he became an actor. His most notable role was in the 1971 James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever, as Las Vegas billionaire Willard Whyte.

He founded the Jimmy Dean Sausage Company in 1969 with his brother Don. Due to Dean’s improvised good-humored commercials the company did well. The company was acquired by Consolidated Foods in 1984, later renamed Sara Lee Corporation and as of 2012 renamed as Hillshire Brands. Dean remained as a spokesperson for the company until 2004.

Dean was nominated for the Country Music Hall of Fame on February 23, 2010 and was scheduled to be inducted in October 2010, but he died on June 13, 2010. He was laid to rest in a piano shaped mausoleum on the grounds of his estate in Virginia overlooking the James River with an epitaph that reads “Here Lies One Hell of a Man” which was part of the lyrics from his uncensored version of the song “Big Bad John”.

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Image: Wikimedia Commons