Colonel Sanders facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Colonel Sanders
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Portrait of Sanders, in his iconic attire, painted by Norman Rockwell in 1973.
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Harland David Sanders
September 9, 1890 Henryville, Indiana, U.S.
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| Died | December 16, 1980 (aged 90) Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
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| Cause of death | Pneumonia, leukemia |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | La Salle Extension University |
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| Board member of | Kentucky Fried Chicken (founder) |
| Spouse(s) | Josephine King (divorced) Claudia Price |
| Children | 3 |
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Colonel Harland David Sanders (September 9, 1890 – December 16, 1980) was an American businessman, best known for founding fast food chicken restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (now known as KFC) and later acting as the company's brand ambassador and symbol. His name and image are still symbols of the company.
Sanders held a number of jobs in his early life, such as steam engine stoker, insurance salesman and filling station operator. He began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in North Corbin, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. Sanders recognized the potential of the restaurant franchising concept, and the first KFC franchise opened in Utah in 1952. The company's rapid expansion across the United States and overseas was overwhelming for Sanders and, in 1964, he sold the company to a group of investors led by John Y. Brown, Jr. and Jack C. Massey for $2 million ($18.9 million today).
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Early career
In 1906, with his mother's approval, Sanders left the area to live with his uncle in New Albany, Indiana. His uncle worked for the streetcar company, and secured Sanders a job as a conductor.
Sanders falsified his date of birth and enlisted in the United States Army in October 1906, completing his service commitment as a teamster in Cuba. He was honorably discharged in February 1907 and moved to Sheffield, Alabama.
In 1909, Sanders found laboring work with the Norfolk and Western Railway. While working on the railroad, he met Josephine King of Jasper, Alabama, and they were married shortly afterwards. They would go on to have a son, Harland, Jr., who died in 1932 and two daughters, Margaret Sanders and Mildred Sanders Ruggles.
He then found work as a fireman on the Illinois Central Railroad, and he and his family moved to Jackson, Tennessee. By night, Sanders studied law by correspondence through the La Salle Extension University. In 1920, Sanders established a ferry boat company, which operated a boat on the Ohio River between Jeffersonville and Louisville.
Sanders moved to Winchester, Kentucky, to work as a salesman for the Michelin Tire Company. He lost his job in 1924 when Michelin closed their New Jersey manufacturing plant. In 1924, by chance, he met the general manager of Standard Oil of Kentucky, who asked him to run a service station in Nicholasville. In 1930, the station closed as a result of the Great Depression.
Kentucky Fried Chicken
In 1952, Sanders franchised his secret recipe "Kentucky Fried Chicken" for the first time, to Pete Harman of South Salt Lake, Utah, the operator of one of that city's largest restaurants. In the first year of selling the product, restaurant sales more than tripled, with 75% of the increase coming from sales of fried chicken.
Sanders believed that his North Corbin restaurant would remain successful indefinitely, but at age 65 sold it after the new Interstate 75 reduced customer traffic. Sanders decided to begin to franchise his chicken concept in earnest, and traveled the US looking for suitable restaurants, he opened a new restaurant and company headquarters in Shelbyville in 1959. Often sleeping in the back of his car, Sanders visited restaurants, offered to cook his chicken, and if workers liked it negotiated franchise rights.
Although such visits required much time, eventually potential franchisees began visiting Sanders instead. The franchise approach became highly successful; KFC was one of the first fast food chains to expand internationally, opening outlets in Canada and later in England, Mexico and Jamaica by the mid-1960s. Sanders obtained a patent protecting his method of pressure frying chicken in 1962. Sanders trademarked the phrase "It's Finger Lickin' Good" in 1963.
The company's rapid expansion to more than 600 locations became overwhelming for the aging Sanders. In 1964, then 73 years old, he sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation for $2 million. In 1965, Sanders moved to Mississauga, Ontario to oversee his Canadian franchises and continued to collect franchise and appearance fees both in Canada and in the U.S.
Sanders remained the company's symbol after selling it, traveling 200,000 miles a year on the company's behalf and filming many TV commercials and appearances. He retained much influence over executives and franchisees, who respected his culinary expertise.
Public image
After being recommissioned as a Kentucky colonel in 1950 by Governor Lawrence Wetherby, Sanders began to dress the part, growing a goatee and wearing a black frock coat (later switching to a white suit), a string tie, and referring to himself as "Colonel."
He never wore anything else in public during the last 20 years of his life, using a heavy wool suit in the winter and a light cotton suit in the summer. He bleached his mustache and goatee to match his white hair.
Death
Sanders was diagnosed with acute leukemia in June 1980. He died at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky of pneumonia on December 16, 1980 at the age of 90. Sanders had remained active until the month before his death, appearing in his white suit to crowds. His body lay in state in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort after a funeral service at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Chapel, which was attended by more than 1,000 people. Sanders was buried in his characteristic white suit and black western string tie in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.
Legacy
By the time of Sanders' death, there were an estimated 6,000 KFC outlets in 48 countries worldwide, with $2 billion ($7.1 billion today) of sales annually.
As a symbol of the KFC brand
A fictionalized Colonel Sanders has repeatedly appeared as a mascot in KFC's advertising and branding. Sanders has been voiced by impressionists in radio ads, and from 1998 to 2001 an animated version of him voiced by Randy Quaid appeared in television commercials. In May 2015, KFC reprised the Colonel Sanders character in new television advertisements.
In April 2017, actor Rob Lowe was announced as the newest actor in the role of Colonel Sanders. Lowe stated that as a child, he actually got to meet Harland Sanders.
Beyond KFC
The Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball league has developed an urban legend of the "Curse of the Colonel". A statue of Colonel Sanders was thrown into a river and lost during a 1985 fan celebration, and (according to the legend) the "curse" has caused Japan's Hanshin Tigers to perform poorly since the incident. It was said that unless the statue was fully recovered, the Tigers would never win the Japan Series again. They did make it in 2003, 2005, and 2014 however. They lost in all three appearances, including a four-game sweep by the Chiba Lotte Marines in 2005, who hit 10 home runs in the first three games.
Characters based on Colonel Sanders have appeared in popular fiction. The Colonel appears as a character within the DC Comics multiverse in three promotional issues, with titles parodying other DC Comics titles - The Colonel of Two Worlds (a parody of Flash of Two Worlds), The Colonel Corps: The Crisis of Infinite Colonels (a parody of Crisis on Infinite Earths), and Across The Universe, teaming up with characters such as Green Lantern and Flash, and alternate versions of himself (such as a female version, a Teen Titans Go! version, and a chicken version) to battle villains such as the "Anti-Colonel" of Earth-3, "Colonel Grodd" (a Colonel version of Gorilla Grodd) and Larfleeze. The writer of the comics, Tony Bedard, said "It's been an honor, a privilege, and just plain fun working on the last two KFC comics. I'm super-excited the story is a trilogy now, with the Colonel planet-hopping across the DC Universe. As a former Green Lantern writer, it's great to revisit Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps." In a 2018 episode of the soap opera General Hospital, Sanders is shown to know Malbolge, which he uses to disarm a bomb intended to compel him to reveal his secret recipe.
In the novel Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, Colonel Sanders appears when an "abstract concept" takes on the appearance of "a famous capitalist icon".
In 2017, KFC released a 96-page romance novella, Tender Wings of Desire, in time for Mother's Day. Set in Victorian England, it centers on Lady Madeline Parker, who "must choose between a life of order and a man of passion", and featuring Sanders as the love interest, and ostensibly the writer. It was made available as a free download via Amazon.
One of Colonel Sanders' white suits with its black clip-on bow-tie was sold at auction for $21,510 by Heritage Auctions on June 22, 2013. The suit had been given to Cincinnati resident Mike Morris by Sanders, who was close to Morris's family. The Morris family house was purchased by Col. Sanders, and Sanders lived with the family for six months. The suit was purchased by Kentucky Fried Chicken of Japan president Maseo "Charlie" Watanabe. Watanabe put on the famous suit after placing the winning bid at the auction event in Dallas, Texas.
In 2011, a manuscript of a book on cooking that Sanders apparently wrote in the mid-1960s was found in KFC archives. It includes some cooking recipes from Sanders as well as anecdotes and life lessons. KFC said it was planning to try some of the recipes and to publish the 200-page manuscript online.
In 2010, the Oscar-winning animated short LOGORAMA prominently featured a rotoscoped depiction of Colonel Sanders during the early fast-food restaurant scenes.
Charitable giving
Before his death, Sanders used his stock holdings to create the Colonel Harland Sanders Charitable Organization, a registered Canadian charity. The wing of Mississauga Hospital for women's and children's care is named The Colonel Harland Sanders Family Care Centre in honor of his substantial donation. Sanders' foundation has also made sizeable donations to other Canadian children's hospitals including the McMaster Children's Hospital, IWK Health Centre, and Stollery Children's Hospital. The Toronto-based foundation disbursed $500,000 to other Canadian charities in 2016, according to its tax return filed with the Canada Revenue Agency.
Images for kids
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Sanders at the age of 7 with his mother in 1897.
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Sanders in 1914.
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Colonel Sanders' business card, c. late 1940s.
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A photograph of Colonel Sanders during a visit to Tehran sometime in the 1970s.
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Colonel Harland David Sanders, creator of Kentucky Fried Chicken, with Raul Diez Canseco in Louisville, USA.
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See also
In Spanish: Coronel Sanders para niños
