Irvine Robbins, 90, half of famed ice cream duo

Irvine Robbins opened his first ice cream shop in 1945. (sygma/file 1976)

LOS ANGELES - Irvine Robbins, the cofounder of Baskin-Robbins whose penchant for creating unusual ice-cream flavors helped push post-World War II America far beyond its chocolate-vanilla-strawberry tastes, has died. He was 90.

Mr. Robbins, who opened his first ice cream shop in 1945 in Glendale, Calif., died Monday of complications related to old age at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage,

With his brother-in-law and partner, Burton Baskin, Mr. Robbins displayed a keen sense of fun and a flair for marketing that helped turn some of their frozen treats into cultural touchstones.

When the Dodgers came to Los Angeles in 1958, they were greeted with Baseball Nut, complete with raspberries for the umpires. Lunar Cheesecake was launched the day after man landed on the moon in 1969. At the height of Beatlemania in 1964, a reporter asked Mr. Robbins what flavor would salute the Fab Four; Baskin-Robbins had yet to invent one, but Mr. Robbins replied, "Uh, Beatle Nut, of course," and had it in stores in five days.

He delighted in inventing flavors and naming them, including Plum Nuts (plums, vanilla, and walnuts), ChaChaCha (cherry chocolate chip), or his favorite, Jamoca Almond Fudge. By the time he retired in 1978, the company was selling 20 million gallons of ice cream a year in about 2,000 stores around the world.

The son of a dairyman, Mr. Robbins grew up scooping cones in his family's Tacoma, Wash., ice cream store for customers who always seemed to be having a good time. He recalled that he often "finished a day's work happy."

After leaving the Army in 1945, he soon opened the Snowbird Ice Cream store in Glendale.

"I just had the crazy idea that somebody ought to open a store that sold . . . nothing but ice cream and could do it in an outstanding way," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1985.

Baskin, who was married to Mr. Robbins's sister Shirley, opened Burton's Ice Cream in Pasadena, Calif.

Following the advice of Mr. Robbins's father, the pair purposely avoided starting out in business together. He had warned that partnering right away would cause them to squelch too many of their own ideas as they compromised in an effort to get along.

By 1948, the five Snowbird and three Burton's shops had been combined into a single enterprise, and they had devised their 31st flavor - Chocolate Mint.

Correction: Because of an editing error, the headline of the obituary Wednesday for Irvine Robbins misidentified the ice cream entrepreneur in some editions of the Globe.

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