Even in Death, Billy Mays Is Ever the Pitchman

Legendary pitchman Billy Mays has been dead for nearly two weeks, and already he's pitching products from beyond the grave.

According to the Associated Press, Media Enterprises, the company that shot many of his commercials, including those for OxyClean and Orange Glo, is planning on airing a spot shot before his death, for a number called Mighty Tape.

In deference to Mays's wife, Deborah, and his two children, Elizabeth and Billy Mays III--often cited as Mays's potential heir to his father's infomercial empire--the ads won't air for another 30 days. But the message is clear: The show must go on.

"Billy didn't shoot the commercials for them not to air," Roger Pilakas, attorney for Mays Productions, Inc., said in an interview. "He shot commercials to roll the products out and make money for his business partners."

The use of deceased celebrities to hawk products is nothing new, but it is controversial. In the mid-'90s, TTI FloorCare America obtained the rights to Fred Astaire's likeness and digitized him to appear in a series of commercials for the popular Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner. The move created a minor dustup after Astaire's daughter, Ava McKenzie, found out about the arrangement. Since then, Dirt Devil has shied away from any further advertisements featuring Astaire or his descendants.

Since then, the mood surrounding the use of deceased actors or actresses has lightened somewhat, but Media Enterprises still has its work cut out, said Eli Portnoy, chief brand strategist for the Los Angeles-based Portnoy Group.

"There might come a point at which consumers may be put off by the brand and start thinking that the company is cashing in on his death," Portnoy said. "So they have to tread lightly."

As for Mays's friends and family, Mays's appearance on TV one last time is a bittersweet but appropriate one.

"Billy loved being on camera," Anthony "Sully" Sullivan, Mays's business partner and co-star on the Discovery series, "Pitchman," said. "He loved making money for the people who hired him. He'd roll over in his grave if the ads were being pulled off the air."

Over a decades-long career as salesmen, Mays and Sullivan contracted with over 27 companies nationwide, grossing over $1 billion in sales, according to Fortune magazine. Those kind of numbers will be hard to sustain without the legendary pitchman. But Sullivan is determined to carry on Mays's legacy, even if he has to pitch the products himself.

"There will never be another Billy Mays," he said. "But the business will go on. Billy would want it that way."