Jimmy Dean Dead at 81

Jimmy Dean, country music legend, television host and sausage mogul/spokesman, has died at his home in Virginia.He was 81. Donna Meade Dean, his wife, reports that he’d had some health problems but had been functioning well.

A Texan by birth, Dean wrote the #1 Billboard hit “Big Bad John,” guest hosted “The Tonight Show,” and had his own ABC variety series, “The Jimmy Dean Show,” for three years in the mid-1960s. He also became a staple of the talk and game show circuits and did acting work in movies like Diamonds Are Forever and TV series like “Daniel Boone.”

In 1969, he launched the Jimmy Dean Sausage Company and starred in the popular pork product’s commercials for decades. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in February and was to have been inducted in October.