Gerry Thomas

Age: 83

Summary: food-service salesman who invented the TV dinner while working for C.A. Swanson & Sons in 1954, who was inspired to propose packing frozen food on a metal tray leading to sales of 10 million dinners during Swanson's first year of distribution across the U.S. and helping to transform Swanson from a poultry company into a major frozen-food manufacturer, and whose original metal tray is in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Cause of Death: Cancer

Born: February 17, 1922

Died: July 18, 2005

Location: Phoenix, Arizona