BOSTON -- Melvin Gordon, who helped turn the enduring popularity of the Tootsie Roll into a candy empire, has died. He was 95.
The longtime Tootsie Roll Industries Inc. chairman and CEO died Tuesday in Boston after a brief illness, Brooke Vane, a spokesperson for the company's public relations firm told the Associated Press.
Gordon ran the Chicago-based confectioner for 53 years, overseeing the manufacture of 64 million Tootsie Rolls a day and other sweets including Junior Mints, Charleston Chews and Tootsie Pops.
The "penny-candy patriarch" worked a full schedule until last month, the company said. He was the oldest CEO of a company trading on a major U.S. stock exchange, according to the report, citing S&P Capital IQ.
Gordon celebrated the Tootsie Roll's 100th anniversary in 1996 by touring the Chicago factory with an AP reporter. He scooped up one of the warm, gooey candies from the assembly line and tasted it, saying: "There's nothing like a hot Tootsie Roll."
He boasted that Tootsie Rolls were almost indestructible. "Nothing can happen to a Tootsie Roll. We have some that were made in 1938 that we still eat," Gordon told the news agency in 1996. "If you can't bite it when it's that old, you certainly can lick it."
Tootsie Rolls were invented in 1896 by New York City candy maker Leo Hirshfield, who named it for his five-year-old daughter, Clara, his "little Tootsie."
Tootsie Roll has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 1922. Gordon, a Boston native, married into the business in 1950 when he wed Ellen Rubin, whose father, William Rubin, was president of Sweets Co. Of America. Gordon changed the company's name to Tootsie Roll in 1966.
Gordon's wife of 65 years, Ellen Gordon, has been named chairman and CEO by its board, the company said Wednesday. She had been serving as company president and COO.
"Melvin's life represented the very highest values in business, wisdom, generosity and integrity. Tootsie Roll has seen great growth and success during his time as Chairman," Ellen Gordon said in a statement.
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