BEVERLY Mass. (AP) – Rainer L. Broekel, the author of a book on the candy bar and known as “The Candy Man” in more than 100 radio and television appearances, has died. He was 83.

A member of Mensa International, a science teacher and a children’s author, it was his sweet tooth that made him famous. He once appeared as “The Candy Man” on the TV show “Sesame Street” with Oscar the Grouch.

Broekel died Thursday in Beverly Hospital of heart failure, according to family members.

“The Great American Candy Bar Book (published by Houghton Mifflin) earned Dad the reputation as the number one authority on American candy bar history,” his daughter Peggy, of Newton, told The Boston Globe. “The Chocolate Chronicles” followed in 1985.

In 1990, Broekel was inducted into the Chocolate Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C. For many years, he was historian for the National Confectioner’s Association and the Chocolate Manufacturer’s Association.

Broekel’s name will be memorialized by the American Museum of Candy History, planned for Somerset, N.J. – possibly to open this year, according to its founder, food company owner Michael G. Rosenberg – along with 40,000 candy memorabilia that Broekel acquired during years of collecting. Among the items is a salesman’s sample case, containing the packaging of everything from original Hershey bars to packs of Good & Plenty and Wrigley gum from the early 1900s – all unopened, but now petrified.

Born in Dresden, Germany, he immigrated with his family to Evanston, Ill., in 1927. He married his wife, Margaret, in 1944, and taught school in Illinois before moving his family east, settling in Ipswich in 1967.

Besides his wife and daughter, he leaves a son, Randy, of North Conway, N.H.

A memorial service will be held April 22 at 1:30 p.m. in Ascension Memorial Church in Ipswich.