Billy Mays, TV pitchman with booming voice; at 50

Tampa police said Mr. Mays was found unresponsive by his wife yesterday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m. It was not immediately clear how he died.

He had said he was hit on the head when an airplane he was on made a rough landing Saturday, and his wife, Deborah, told investigators that he didn’t feel well before he went to bed that night.

Investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lieutenant Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department. An autopsy was underway.

US Airways confirmed yesterday that Mr. Mays was among the passengers on a flight that made a rough landing on Saturday afternoon at Tampa International Airport, leaving debris on the runway after apparently blowing its front tires.

Tampa Bay’s Fox television affiliate interviewed Mr. Mays after the incident.

“All of a sudden as we hit, you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping,’’ MyFox Tampa Bay quoted him as saying. “It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head.’’

Born William Mays in McKees Rocks, Pa., Mr. Mays developed his style demonstrating knives, mops, and other “as seen on TV’’ gadgets on Atlantic City’s boardwalk. For years he worked as a salesman on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.

After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s, Mr. Mays was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of cleaning products on the Home Shopping Network.

Commercials and infomercials for a wide variety of products followed, anchored by the energetic Mr. Mays showing how it’s done while tossing out kitschy phrases like, “Long live your laundry!’’

Sarah Ellerstein worked closely with Mr. Mays when she was a buyer for the Home Shopping Network in the 1990s and he was pitching Orange Glo products.

“Billy was such a sweet guy, very lovable, very nice, always smiling, just a great, great guy,’’ she said yesterday, adding that Mr. Mays met his future wife at the network. “Everybody thinks because he’s loud and boisterous on the air that that’s the way he is, but I always found him to be a quiet, down-to-earth person.’’

Recently he has been featured on the reality TV show “Pitchmen’’ on the Discovery Channel, which follows Mr. Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their jobs.

His ubiquitousness and thumbs-up, in-your-face pitches won Mr. Mays plenty of fans. People lined up at his personal appearances for autographed color glossies, and strangers stopped him in airports to chat about the products.

“I enjoy what I do,’’ Mr. Mays told the Associated Press in a 2002 interview. “I think it shows.’’

Mr. Mays liked to tell the story of giving bottles of OxiClean to the 300 guests at his wedding, and doing his ad spiel (“powered by the air we breathe!’’) on the dance floor at the reception. Visitors to his house typically got bottles of cleaner and housekeeping tips.

As part of “Pitchmen,’’ Mr. Mays and Sullivan showed viewers new gadgets such as the Impact Gel shoe insert; the Tool Band-it, a magnetized armband that holds tools; and the Soft Buns portable seat cushion.

“One of the things that we hope to do with ‘Pitchmen’ is to give people an appreciation of what we do,’’ Mr. Mays told The Tampa Tribune in an interview in April. “I don’t take on a product unless I believe in it. I use everything that I sell.’’

Discovery Channel spokeswoman Elizabeth Hillman released a statement yesterday extending sympathy to the Mays family.

“Everyone that knows him was aware of his larger-than-life personality, generosity and warmth,’’ Hillman’s statement said. “Billy was a pioneer in his field and helped many people fulfill their dreams. He will be greatly missed as a loyal and compassionate friend.’’

His former wife, Dolores “Dee Dee’’ Mays, of McKees Rocks, Pa., recalled that the first product he sold was the Wash-matik, a device for pumping water from a bucket to wash cars.“I knew him since he was 15, and I always knew he had it in him,’’ she said of Mr. Mays’s success. “He’ll live on forever because he always had the biggest heart in the world. He loved his friends and family and would do anything for them. He was a generous soul and a great father.’’