Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

This article is about Jimmy Dean, singer,
television performer, and sausage entrepreneur. 
You might be looking for James Dean.

----

Jimmy Dean (born Seth Ward on August 10, 1928  in
Plainview, Texas) is an United States|American
singer, actor, and businessman.

Ward became a professional entertainer after a
stint in the United States Air Force|U.S. Air
Force in the late 1940s using the stage name,
"Jimmy Dean."  He became the host of the popular
Washington D.C. TV program Town and Country Time
and, with his Texas Wildcats, became favorites in
the region. Both Patsy Cline and Roy Clark got
their starts with Dean, who eventually fired
Clark, his lead guitarist, for chronic lateness. 
He had his first hit, "Bummin' Around," in 1953.

Dean went on to New York in the 1950s where he
hosted another TV variety show for CBS and signed
with Columbia Records.  He became best known for
his 1961 song "Big Bad John" that went to Hot 100
No. 1 Hits of 1961 (USA)|No.1 on the Billboard
magazine|Billboard charts. The song won Dean the
1962 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western
Recording. He had several more Top 40 songs
including a Top 10 in 1962 with "PT 109", a song
in honor of PT-109 and John F. Kennedy. In the
early 1960s he also hosted the The Tonight
Show|Tonight Show on occasion and one night
introduced Roy Clark, with whom he'd remained
friendly, to a wider audience, something that
helped Clark enhance his career.

His mid-1960s American Broadcasting Company|ABC
television variety show was one of the first to
present country music entertainers with dignity
and class, on their terms.  Roger Miller, George
Jones, Charlie Rich, Buck Owens and others got
some of their first network TV exposure on the
Dean show, also best remembered for his regular
sketches with one of Jim Henson's long running
muppet, Rowlf the Dog. 

When the show ended, he began to dabble in acting
in the late 1960s, with his best-known role being
that of millionaire Willard Whyte in the 1971
James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever. Dean also
performed around the country and around 1969
founded the Jimmy Dean Sausage brand originally
called "Pure Pork Sausage."

Despite ups and downs (some revolving around his
problems with his partner-brother Don Dean), the
Jimmy Dean Sausage company did well, in part due
to Dean's own extemporized, good-humored
commercials.  Its success led to its acquisition
by Consolidated Foods, later renamed the Sara Lee
Corporation.  Over time, Dean remained involved in
running the company, though they eventually began
phasing him out of any management duties, a
traumatic period that took a toll on his health.

In January 2004, Dean said that the company Sara
Lee had dropped him as the spokesman for the
sausage brand.  In the fall of 2004, he released
his blunt, straight-talking autobiography, 30
Years of Sausage, 50 Years of Ham.  Today, Dean
lives in semiretirement with second wife Donna
Meade Dean, a former singer who helped him write
his book.

==External link==
*http://www.freeenterpriseland.com/BOOK/SAUSAGEKIN
G.html Why Jimmy Dean started making sausage, from
FreeEnterpriseLand.com
*imdb name|id=0212818|name=Jimmy Dean