Tampa police said Mays‘
wife found him unresponsive Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew
pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m. It was not immediately clear how he
died. He said he was hit on the head when an airplane he was on made a
rough landing Saturday, and his wife, Deborah Mays, told investigators he didn’t feel well before he went to bed about 10 p.m. that night.

There
were no signs of a break-in at the home, and investigators do not
suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department,
who wouldn’t answer questions about how Mays‘ body was found because of the ongoing investigation. The coroner’s office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

“Although Billy lived a public life, we don’t anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days,” Deborah Mays said in a statement Sunday. “Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times.”

U.S. Airways confirmed that Mays
was among the passengers on a flight that made a rough landing on
Saturday afternoon at Tampa International Airport, leaving debris on
the runway after apparently blowing its front tires.

Tampa Bay’s Fox television affiliate interviewed Mays afterward.

“All
of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the
things from the ceiling started dropping,” MyFox Tampa Bay quoted him
as saying. “It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head.”

Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said linking Mays‘ death to the landing would “purely be speculation.” She said Mays‘
family members didn’t report any health issues with the pitchman, but
said he was due to have hip replacement surgery in the coming weeks.

Laura Brown, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she did not know if Mays was wearing his seat belt on the flight because the FAA is not investigating his death.

U.S. Airways spokesman Jim Olson said there were no reports of serious injury due to the landing.

“If local authorities have any questions for us about yesterday’s flight, we’ll cooperate fully with them,” he said.

Born William Mays in McKees Rocks, Pa., on July 20, 1958, Mays
developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other “As Seen on
TV” gadgets on Atlantic City’s boardwalk. For years he worked as a
hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds
with his booming voice and genial manner.

AJ Khubani, founder and CEO of “As Seen on TV,” said he first met Mays in the early 1990s when Mays
was still pitching one of his early products, the Shammy absorbent
cloth, at a trade fair. He said he most recently worked with Mays on the reality TV show “Pitchmen” on the Discovery Channel, which follows Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs.

“His
innovative role and impact on the growth and wide acceptance of direct
response television cannot be overestimated or easily replaced; he was
truly one of a kind,” Khubani said of Mays in a statement.

After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s, Mays
was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of
cleaning products on the St. Petersburg-based Home Shopping Network.

Commercials and informercials followed, anchored by the high-energy Mays showing how it’s done while tossing out kitschy phrases like, “Long live your laundry!”

Sarah Ellerstein worked closely with Mays when she was a buyer for the Home Shopping Network in the 1990s and he was pitching Orange Glo products.

“Billy was such a sweet guy, very lovable, very nice, always smiling, just a great, great guy,” she said, adding that Mays
met his future wife at the network. “Everybody thinks because he’s loud
and boisterous on the air that that’s the way he is, but I always found
him to be a quiet, down-to-earth person.”

His ubiquitousness and thumbs-up, in-your-face pitches won Mays
plenty of fans for his commercials on a wide variety of products.
People lined up at his personal appearances for autographed color
glossies, and strangers stopped him in airports to chat about the
products.

“I enjoy what I do,” Mays told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview. “I think it shows.”

Mays
liked to tell the story of giving bottles of OxiClean to the 300 guests
at his wedding, and doing his ad spiel (“powered by the air we
breathe!”) on the dance floor at the reception. Visitors to his house
typically got bottles of cleaner and housekeeping tips.

As part of “Pitchmen,” Mays
and Sullivan showed viewers new gadgets such as the Impact Gel shoe
insert; the Tool Band-it, a magnetized armband that holds tools; and
the Soft Buns portable seat cushion.

“One of the things that we hope to do with ‘Pitchmen’ is to give people an appreciation of what we do,” Mays told The Tampa Tribune in an April interview. “I don’t take on a product unless I believe in it. I use everything that I sell.”

His former wife, Dolores “Dee Dee” Mays,
of McKees Rocks, Pa., recalled that the first product he sold was the
Wash-matik, a device for pumping water from a bucket to wash cars.

“I knew him since he was 15, and I always knew he had it in him,” she said of Mays‘
success. “He’ll live on forever because he always had the biggest heart
in the world. He loved his friends and family and would do anything for
them. He was a generous soul and a great father.”

Besides his wife, Mays is survived by a 3-year-old daughter and a stepson in his 20s, police said.