Ron Popeil

Popeil was born to a Jewish family in Manhattan in 1935, the son of Julia (née Schwartz) and Samuel Popeil. When he was six, his parents divorced and Popeil and his brother went to Florida to live with their grandparents. Popeil has a younger half-sister, musician and voice coach Lisa Popeil (b. 1956), from his father's second marriage. At age 17 in 1952, Popeil went with his grandparents to work for his father at his company's (Popeil Brothers) manufacturing facility in Chicago. His grandparents later returned to Florida and Popeil remained with his father.

When Popeil was 18, he attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and joined Alpha Epsilon Pi before withdrawing after six months.

After returning from college, Popeil continued to work and learn from his father, who was also an inventor and salesman of numerous kitchen-related gadgets, such as the Chop-O-Matic and the Veg-O-Matic. The Chop-O-Matic retailed for US$3.98 and sold over two million units.

The invention of the Chop-O-Matic caused a problem that marked the entrance of Ron Popeil into television. The Chop-O-Matic was so efficient at chopping vegetables that it was impractical for salesmen to carry all the vegetables needed for the demonstrations over the course of a day. The solution was to tape the demonstration. Once the demonstration was taped, it was a short step to broadcasting it as a TV commercial.

Popeil initially operated as a distributor of his father's kitchen products and later formed his own company, Ronco, in 1964. He continued as a distributor for his father and added additional products from other manufacturers. Popeil and his father became competitors in the 1970s for the same retail store business.

Popeil received the Ig Nobel Prize in Consumer Engineering in 1993. The awards committee described him as the "incessant inventor and perpetual pitchman of late night television" and awarded the prize in recognition of his "redefining the industrial revolution" with his devices. Popeil was a past member of the board of directors of Mirage Resorts, where he served for 22 years under Steve Wynn, as well as a past member of the board of directors of MGM Hotels for seven years under Kirk Kerkorian. Popeil became the recipient of the Electronic Retail Association's Lifetime Achievement award in 2001, and he is listed in the Direct Response Hall of Fame.

Popeil was previously a member of the advisory board for University of California, Los Angeles' Business, Management, and Legal Programs. In August 2005, he sold his company, Ronco, to Fi-Tek VII, a Denver holding company, for US$55 million, with plans to continue serving as the spokesman and inventor while being able to spend more time with his family.

In 1956, Popeil married Marilyn Greene, with whom he had two daughters; they divorced in 1963. Popeil married Lisa Boehne sometime after this and had one daughter with her. They got divorced sometime before 1995, when he married Robin Angers, with whom he had two more daughters. Ashley Tisdale and Jennifer Tisdale are Popeil's cousins.