Colonel Sanders is probably the most recognizable icon in fast food history. However, most people don't know too much about the man himself. Much of what you may have heard is little more than myth, but forget the fiction: This is the tragic real-life story of Colonel Harland Sanders...
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Colonel Sanders is probably the most recognizable icon in fast food history.
00:04However, most people don't know too much about the man himself.
00:07Much of what you may have heard is little more than myth, but forget the fiction.
00:11This is the tragic real-life story of Colonel Harlan Sanders.
00:15Colonel Harlan Sanders might be famous today, but he came from humble beginnings.
00:19He was born in 1890 on a little farm in Henryville, Indiana, and sadly,
00:23his father died when he was just five years old. His mother was forced to take work where she
00:28while Sanders stayed home to care for his siblings, a responsibility that led him to begin cooking.
00:33Sanders eventually dropped out of the sixth grade,
00:35later claiming that algebra is what drove him off. Over the next 28 years,
00:39he held a variety of different jobs, including a brief stint in the U.S. Army.
00:43He also worked as a streetcar conductor, a railroad fireman, an insurance salesman,
00:48a secretary, a tire salesman, a ferry operator, a lawyer, and even a midwife.
00:53In 1908, he married Josephine King, a woman with whom he had three children,
00:57Margaret, Harlan Jr., and Mildred. They divorced in 1947 after suffering one of the greatest
01:03tragedies a parent could face. Their son died at the age of 20 of complications after a tonsillectomy.
01:08In 1949, he married Claudia Leadington, who he would remain with until his death in 1980.
01:14Eventually, Sanders found himself running a gas station in Corbin, Kentucky,
01:18where he began to cook and sell meals for weary travelers who stopped at the station.
01:22His food, which included pan-fried chicken, garnered him something of a reputation in the
01:26region. A few years later, he took out the gas pumps and set up his first restaurant.
01:31It was at that location, which is now a museum and tourist attraction,
01:34that Sanders had begun to perfect the recipe for chicken, which is still a secret closely
01:38guarded by KFC. The restaurant prospered — until the 50s, that is. When the highway
01:43junction situated in front of his restaurant was moved, his booming business suddenly struggled.
01:48Now miles from the highway, he auctioned off the site. With no income,
01:52he was forced to scrape by on his savings, the proceeds of the auction,
01:55and his Social Security check of $105 per month.
01:59It was time for a new business tactic. Sanders began traveling across the United States,
02:04visiting potential franchisee restaurants and offering them his chicken recipe in return for
02:08four cents on every chicken sold. It wasn't an easy life. It was a slow, expensive,
02:13and humiliating way to pursue business partners, especially considering he spent that time living
02:18out of his car and eating meals begged from friends. But it worked. By 1964,
02:23he had franchised over 600 outlets and built a company worth millions.
02:28Sanders had built a thriving company, and naturally, it attracted predators.
02:32John Y. Brown Jr. was a 29-year-old lawyer from Kentucky who set out to convince Sanders to sell
02:37his company. The colonel at first firmly declined the offer, but then Brown swore to never tamper
02:42with his recipe and insist on the highest degree of quality control for the franchise.
02:46Sanders, who considered KFC to be his own child, remained hesitant. He, Brown,
02:51and another potential partner toured the country, consulting family members and business associates.
02:55In 1964, he gave in to their offer of $2 million. To get it, though, he had sacrificed the most
03:01important thing in his life, and no indication exists that he was ever truly happy with the deal.
03:06Sanders' role in the ever-growing company wasn't over, at least not immediately.
03:10Brown believed Sanders' face to be KFC's greatest asset,
03:14and instigated a serious publicity campaign to up his nationwide presence.
03:18But in 1971, Brown sold the company, and Colonel Sanders became discontented with
03:22the direction KFC was taking. Eventually, Sanders chose to open a new restaurant,
03:27which he named Colonel Sanders Dinner House, but ended up in a bitter lawsuit with KFC
03:31over the copyright of his own name. They settled in 1975, and the terms have not been disclosed.
03:36He got in trouble with the company again in 1978 when he gave a newspaper interview where he said
03:41that the gravy now tasted like wallpaper paste. And the new chicken recipe was horrible. The
03:46franchise where he gave the interview tried to sue him for libel, but since he was talking about
03:50the whole company and not just one location, the judge threw it out. Despite his troubled
03:55relationship with KFC, Sanders continued to work for the company for the rest of his life.
03:59He continued to tour the country on KFC's behalf and, for the last two decades of his life,
04:04was never seen in public wearing anything but his iconic white suit. In his later years,
04:08he also found religion and donated much of his wealth to charities such as the Salvation Army.
04:12On December 16th, 1980, Sanders died of leukemia at the age of 90. His body was
04:17ordered to lay in state at the Kentucky State Capitol before he was buried in Louisville,
04:21Kentucky. In the wake of Sanders' death, KFC's fortunes exploded. It became one of the U.S.'s
04:26leading fast food brands, but that success came at the cost of the destruction of the Colonel's image.
04:31KFC's founder became little more than a marketing tool, and Sanders' family now
04:35has nothing to do with the company whatsoever.
04:37It's hard not to wonder what the Colonel would make of the company today.