Sara Lee says goodbye, but this country legend isn’t singing the blues

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by Garry Kranz
for Virginia Business
June 2004

It has been an up and down year for Jimmy Dean. The country singer received his diploma last year from Plainview High School in his native Plainview, Texas. It was the culmination of a promise he made to his late mother after dropping out of school at 16.

Months later, the crooner of such hit tunes as “Big Bad John” and “PT 109,” was sacked as the spokesman for Jimmy Dean Meat Co., the sausage-making empire he founded more than 30 years ago. Dean sold the company to Sara Lee in 1984 but had remained on as chief spokesman. The move caught Dean off guard, and he doesn’t mask his displeasure at Sara Lee’s abrupt decision. “They said I wasn’t the one to reach (a market of) younger housewives. It doesn’t make any sense to me — I’m the best sausage peddler they ever had and they know it,” says the 75-year-old Dean, bristling with disdain. In response, Dean is suing Sara Lee in federal court for an unspecified amount. He hints at allegations of age discrimination by the company.

Dean may not like Sara Lee, but he is a long way from the poverty-ridden childhood he endured in dusty, Depression-era west Texas. His $35,000 belt buckle, embossed with his trademarked “JD” logo, glistens in the afternoon sun. Clad in his signature cowboy boots and cowboy hat, Dean is a man of leisure who hasn’t quite learned to relax. Wandering his picturesque 200-acre Chaffin’s Bluff estate overlooking the James River in Varina, Dean waxes philosophical on topics as varied as the state of education — “we’ve got to start reaching kids while they’re younger” — to the extravagant waste of making movies to partisan politics. Business interests still keep him active with meetings almost daily.
One thing he doesn’t like talking about is his wealth. After some prodding, he reluctantly pegs it at more than $100 million.

These days Dean stays mostly out of the limelight following a showbiz career that included hit records, movies and television. But in the 1960s few stars were as telegenic as the homespun Dean. He achieved recording fame in 1961 when “Big Bad John,” a tune he wrote and performed in about two hours on a plane to Nashville, became one of the first songs to appear on both the country and pop charts. Dean also became the first country singer to headline in Las Vegas. He went on to host two network variety shows, forging friendships with Elvis Presley and introducing up-and-coming stars such as Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline to a national audience. Dean also appeared in movies, including a co-starring role as the reclusive Willard Whyte in the quirky 1971 James Bond flick, “Diamonds Are Forever.”

Still, Dean probably is best known to an entire generation as the man who peddled “pure pork sausage.” As a youngster, one of his jobs after dropping out of school was slaughtering hogs. It was an experience he would use to great advantage. About the same time “Big Bad John” was climbing the charts, Dean — ever the businessman — founded Jimmy Dean Meat Co. and began marketing his own brand of sausage.

Despite his enormous wealth, Dean has never forgotten those childhood hardships or what it means to do without. “The wealthiest person I ever knew was my grandfather, and I’ll bet he never earned $10,000 in any single year. He just had a wonderful relationship with the man upstairs and had a marvelous peace about him. You can’t put a price on that,” says Dean.

Dean married country singer and songwriter Donna Meade of Highland Springs in 1991. When not attending political fundraisers — the Deans count former Virginia governor and current U.S. Sen. George Allen among their influential friends — the couple spends leisurely days rambling around Chaffin’s Bluff. The Texas twang still resonates from his smoky baritone, but the country legend says his roots are firmly embedded in Virginia. “I am so in love with this beautiful state,” he says.