Ron Popeil

Ron Popeil is a famed American inventor, pitchman, television star, and the creator of the television "infomercial". Born Ronald Martin Popeil in New York City on May 3, 1935, Ron had the quintessential rags to riches tale. His parents Samuel J. (Sam Popeil, a kitchen gadget inventor) and Julia (Schwartz) Popeil, divorced, and placed both Ron and his older brother, Jerry, in a boarding school at age three. Ron remained in a virtual orphanage until he was eight when his grandparents removed him to raise him in Miami, Florida. When he was thirteen Ron moved to Chicago to work in a factory managed by his father. At sixteen, Ron began to sell the very products his father's factory produced in the flea markets on Maxwell street in Chicago. Storing his goods and table in the back of grimy fish store. Ron would start his day there at 5 AM to set up and would gross as much as $500 per day; a huge success for a kid in the 1950's. By age 17, Popeil had amassed enough of a savings to move out o