Billy Mays, perhaps TV's most well-known pitchman, was found dead at his Tampa Bay-area home June 28, 2009. Mays, known for his loud voice, black beard, exuberant thumbs-up sign, and successful pitches for cleaning and other household products, was 50.
Television pitchman Bill Mays' sudden death was partly due to his cocaine use, according to an autopsy report revealed Friday.
His wife found him unresponsive June 28 at their condo in Tampa, Fla.
A release from the Hillsborough County medical examiner's office Friday said Mays had last used cocaine days before his death.
The report said that although Mays died from heart disease, cocaine use was a contributing cause of death.
Mays, whose high-energy hawking turned products like OxiClean from infomercial curiosities into mainstream successes, was remembered at his funeral last month as a pop culture icon who never forgot his hometown or spiritual roots.
Mays got his start on TV on the Home Shopping Network and then branched out into commercials and infomercials. He developed such a strong following that he became the subject of a reality TV series, Discovery Channel's "Pitchmen."
Mays hawked everything from the Wash-matik, a device for pumping water from a bucket to wash cars, to Orange Glo, an environmentally friendly cleaner. Sporting a jet-black beard and coupling high-energy demonstrations with booming pitches, Mays always seemed ready to jump off the screen.
