Obit watch: November 23, 2022.

John Y. Brown Jr., former governor of Kentucky and fried chicken tycoon.

In 1964, Brown purchased Kentucky Fried Chicken from Harland Sanders for $2 million. He became president of KFC in January 1965 and sold it to Heublein Corp. in a $275 million stock swap in 1971. Brown received nearly $21 million in Heublein stock for his KFC shares.

(Diversion: this is an older piece from Damn Interesting about Harland Sanders that I rather enjoyed. It does discuss the Brown sale and the Heublein buyout.)

In 1969, Brown purchased controlling interest in the Kentucky Colonels, a Louisville franchise in the American Basketball Association. After the ABA folded, Brown paid a reported $1 million for half interest in the Buffalo Braves of the National Basketball Association. He wanted to move the Braves to Louisville but was blocked in court. Brown and a partner then swapped the Braves for the Boston Celtics, in the first trade of professional sports teams.
The Braves later moved to San Diego, and Brown later sold his share of the Celtics.

As some people may recall, he was married to Phyllis George.

For Christmas one year in the not-to-distant past, Lawrence gave me a copy of The Bluegrass Conspiracy, about Drew Thornton and his drug ring. (Cocaine bear!) John Y. Brown is mentioned quite a bit in that book: while he was never convicted of any crime, he certainly had close and questionable ties to people who were.

Mickey Kuhn. He was a child actor: his most famous role was probably “Beau Wilkes” in “Gone With the Wind”. He was also the last surviving cast member from that movie.

His last acting credit was in 1957.

Wilko Johnson, guitarist with Dr. Feelgood and acted in “Game of Thrones”.

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