Businessman. Born in Manhattan, he was an advertising executive who found a niche product in 1950 and turned the blue-crystal plant fertilizer, Miracle-Gro, a staple of American gardens, into the world’s top-selling plant food. His first full-page advertisement for Miracle-Gro in the New York Herald Tribune generated $22,000 in orders within three days. “Miracle-Gro All-Purpose Plant Food” soon became America’s best seller in its field. Miracle-Gro was the best-known plant food in the world and had sales of around $125 million before he sold it to the Scotts Company in 1995. Cause of death: natural causes, in Sands Point, New York. (bio by: Fred Beisser)