One For The Road: Happy Birthday, Forrest Mars, Sr.
By Samantha Abernethy in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 21, 2012 10:45PM
Forrest Mars, Sr., was born on this date in 1904. Mars was a candy mogul, who is responsible for M&Ms and the Mars Bar. He joined his father in the candy business, which Frank C. Mars moved to Chicago in 1929. That manufacturing facility still exists. Forrest went his own way for a time, spending some time in England working with Nestle before coming back to his father's company.
Although Mars and Hershey are rivals now, but with the threat of sugar and chocolate rations in World War II, Mars joined forces with Hershey president William Murrie to create the M&M. Mars didn't just make sweets, either.
He also created Uncle Ben's rice and the entire idea of pet food. He was also a pretty strange guy. The New York Times wrote in his obituary:
Mr. Mars was often called a recluse, an eccentric or worse. When Fortune magazine named him to its Business Hall of Fame in 1984, it praised him as ''one of this century's most brilliant and successful entrepreneurs,'' and derided him as ''an irascible candymaker with a fetish for privacy'' and ''a driven personality given to terrifying outbursts of temper.''
Huh. Sounds a bit like Willy Wonka, eh? Here's a classic M&Ms commercial from 1979.