Oliver Belmont

popular name: Bill Graham

date_of_death: October 25, 1991

age: 60

cause_of_death: Helicopter crash

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: Even though Bill Graham didn't play an instrument or sing in a band, he's one of the most famous names in rock history. Bill Graham was a legendary impresario and rock concert promoter from the 1960s until his death in 1991 in a helicopter crash. Bill was the first and most successful of turning concerts and like events into a profitable endeavour for both the business and the artists. Graham had a profound influence around the world, sponsoring the musical renaissance of the '60s from the epicenter, San Francisco. Chet Helms and then Bill Graham made famous the Fillmore and Winterland Ballroom; these turned out to be a proving grounds for rock bands and acts of the San Francisco Bay area including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, who were first managed, and in some cases developed, by Chet Helms.

popular name: Barbara Hutton

date_of_death: May 11, 1979

age: 66

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: Barbara Woolworth Hutton was born in New York City on 14 November 1912, the daughter of Edna and Franklyn Hutton and the granddaughter of Frank Winfield Woolworth, founder of the phenomenally successful chain of retail "five and dime" stores named Woolworths. Her mother died when she was only four years old and, until his death in 1919, Barbara Hutton was cared for by her grandfather. Subsequently her life became even more unsettled as she was moved from one relative to another, her father always ready with material but not the emotional support and love for which she longed. This disorganised start to her life obviously had a strong impact on her as an adult. The only stable aspect of her lifeappears to have been the vast fortune she inherited from her grandparents and her mother: before she was in her teens, she had well over $28 million in trust, and this was to be nearly doubled by the time she came of age. She partied, travelled, and lived a life of excessive excitement and self-indulgence, but even after seven marriages, she was still the ‘poor little rich girl’ of Noël Coward’s 1920s song, never finding the contentment she craved. After a lifetime of society balls and parties around the world and seven failed marriages, Barbara, nearly blind at 66, died bedridden and alone of a heart attack in 1979 in the penthouse of The Beverly Wilshire Hotel. She had $3,500 in the bank.

popular name: Charles Louis Fleischmann

date_of_death: December 10, 1897

age: 62

cause_of_death: Paralysis

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: Charles Louis Fleischmann was a Hungarian-American who, along with his brother Maximilian and another partner, created America’s first commercially produced yeast, which revolutionized baking in a way that made today’s mass production and consumption of bread possible. It all began in 1870 when, at the instigation of his partner, Charles began to make yeast by a Hungarian method with which he had been long familiar. The patent for making compressed yeast from the froth or scum formed during the manufacture of malt or spirituous liquors was taken out, however, by his brother Henry, who assigned it to Fleischmann & Gaff in return for an annuity. This yeast was slow in finding a market, so that the partners nearly failed. As a last resort they put on a huge exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, at which spectators could see the yeast made, the dough set, and the bread baked, and could then adjourn to a restaurant and eat the bread. The exhibit was popular; the restaurant yielded a cash profit; and the advertising value of the enterprise was enormous. Thereafter there was no trouble in selling Fleischmann’s yeast. After Gaff’s death in 1879, Fleischmann bought his share in the business for $500, 000. His wealth grew rapidly. He became a director in some twenty-five Cincinnati enterprises and was president of a cooperage company, a large vinegar works in Illinois, a newspaper company, and the Market National Bank. He took a hand in civic affairs, was fire commissioner in 1890, was elected as a Republican to the state Senate in 1879 and again in 1895, and was a friend and adviser of William McKinley. Today Fleischmann's Yeast is the #1 seller of yeast and the #2 manufacture of vinegar in the world. Upon his death, he was laid to rest at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.