P. M. BRIEFING : Fried Chicken King Dies at 85
Jack C. Massey, who helped build Kentucky Fried Chicken Co. into an international success and co-founded Hospital Corp. of America, died today at a Palm Beach, Fla., hospital. He was 85.
Massey died of pneumonia at Good Samaritan Hospital early this morning, said Mimi Scruggs, his secretary at Massey Investment Co. in Nashville. Massey, who retired from the company in 1978, had been staying at his winter home in Florida.
From a chain of six drugstores, the Nashville businessman founded Massey Surgical Supply Inc. in 1930. He sold that company for about $1 million in 1961 with the intention of retiring in Florida but soon found himself looking for other business ventures.
In 1964 he bought Kentucky Fried Chicken Co. from its founder, Col. Harland Sanders. With John Y. Brown Jr., who later became governor of Kentucky, Massey built the company into one of the world’s largest commercial marketers of prepared food. The two sold that business to Heublein Corp. in 1969.
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