Dave Thomas(1932-2002)
- Actor
Born during the Depression to a dirt-poor single mother in Atlantic
City. New Jersey, Dave Thomas was adopted as an infant by a traveling
construction worker and his wife. Moving out on his own at age 15,
Thomas held a succession of jobs in the food industry, starting out as
a busboy and working his way up. A fateful meeting in 1956 with Col.
Harland Sanders, founder of the Kentucky
Fried Chicken chain, led to Thomas' investing money in one of Sanders'
KFC franchises, which paid off handsomely and made him a millionaire by
the time he was 35. In 1969 Thomas decided to strike out on his own and
left KFC to start his own chain of fast-food restaurants, Wendy's
(named after his daughter, whose name was actually Melinda but whose
nickname was Wendy) Hamburgers, in Ohio. Eventually the chain grew to
more than 6000 restaurants, with annual sales revenue topping $6
billion. As successful as his business career was, however, Thomas was
even more famous for his appearances in the company's commercials,
where he came across as just a regular guy next door who got along with
everybody and was the kind of grandfather that everyone wished they'd
had--which, according to many who knew and worked with him, was exactly
how he was in real life. He never forgot how tough it was to be an
adopted kid, and founded the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption to
help both adopted children and the families who adopt them. He died of
liver cancer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2002.