Friday, July 2, 1999 | 3:06 a.m.
McLEAN, Va. -- Forrest Mars Sr., who created M&Ms candies and built one of the biggest fortunes in America as head of the Mars candy empire, has died. He was 95.
The reclusive billionaire, one of the richest men in America, died of natural causes Thursday night in Miami, said Sharon Heffelfinger, a spokeswoman for McLean-based Mars Inc.
She said no further information would be released.
In Las Vegas, Mars Sr. will be remembered as the founder of the Ethel M Chocolates business in Henderson, where he occasionally lived. The candy giant's business began in 1911 with Frank C. Mars' small business in Tacoma, Wash. In 1940, his son, Forrest, devised a candy modeled after a British confection: a circle of chocolate covered with a crunchy coating.
M&Ms -- promoted, as every Baby Boomer knows, as the candy that melts in your mouth, not in your hand -- were created as much out of meteorological necessity as anything.
"In those days, the stores didn't have air conditioning, the cars didn't have air conditioning, the homes didn't have air conditioning," then-Mars spokesman Hans Fiuczynski said as the candy turned 50 in 1990.
The candy, originally sold in paper tubes, came in brown, yellow, orange, red, green and violet, later replaced by tan. Beginning in 1950, the candies were stamped with the trademark "M" to assure customers they were getting the real thing. Peanut M&Ms came out in 1954.
The company now has 30,000 employees. Besides M&Ms, its candy brands include Skittles, Milky Way, Dove, Snickers and Three Musketeers. Other brands owned by the Mars companies include Uncle Ben's Rice, the Kal Kan and Pedigree pet food labels, and Combos, Kudos and Twix snack foods.
Mars' sons, Forrest Jr. and John, are now co-presidents of the privately held company. In its rankings of richest Americans last fall, Forbes listed Forrest Jr. as 29th richest, Forrest Sr. as 30th richest, John as 31st richest and Jacqueline Mars Vogel, John and Forrest Jr.'s sister, at 33rd. The family matriarch, Forrest Sr.'s wife Audrey, died in 1989.
The family became known for its reticence as well as its riches.
"Mars's assets are often underestimated because the company is as loose with information as its McLean, Va., neighbor, the CIA," Fortune magazine said in 1988 when it dubbed the family the richest in America at that time.
M&M's were packed in World War II GI rations, served at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and launched with 31 shuttle flights as of 1990. The rock band Van Halen's contract called for a backstage stash of three pounds of M&M's -- with all the brown and tan ones removed.
The company had discontinued red M&Ms in 1976 because of the cancer scare over Red Dye No. 2, although the candy never contained the substance. Red M&M's reappeared in 1987.
Here's an excerpt on Mars Sr. and Ethel M Chocolates from "The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars," a 1998 book by Joel Glenn Brenner:
"It has been a quarter century since Forrest Sr. gave up the business, and the years have taken their toll. He is in good health for a man of his age, (94), although he spends most of his time in a wheelchair, the result of a stroke he suffered in 1994. He and his companion, Janet (a former Mars secretary), seldom travel abroad anymore, though they spend winters in Miami.
"While his various projects kept Forrest busy through the 1970s, they proved unable to absorb his energies and attention for more than a few years. In 1980, bored with retired life, he invited some of his old colleagues to join him in building another candy company. Forrest named the business Ethel M Chocolates, after his mother. The new factory, located in Las Vegas, makes fine liqueur-filled candies.
"Forrest established the venture in Nevada because it is one of the few states that allowed the sale of liqueur-filled cordials. He has been trying ever since to expand the number of states where it is legal to sell his new products. He took the fight to state legislators in Texas, where a group called Children Against Alcohol in Chocolates lobbied strongly against the Mars product and won. Their major source of funding? Insiders say it was Hershey.
"Despite the loss, Ethel M has gotten off to an impressive start. Within a few years of its opening, the company had reached annual sales of $150 million, from 70 Ethel M stores throughout the West.
"The success should come as no surprise; Forrest Mars runs Ethel M the way he has run all his businesses. He lives in a penthouse above the factory and spies on his workers through one-way mirrors. Employees call him the 'phantom of the candy factory.' "
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