KFC Col. Sanders' revival 'tarnishes' the icon

There are some kernels of truth in KFC's revived rendition of Col. Harland Sanders.

Former "Saturday Night Live" comedian Darrell Hammond plays the legend in new commercials KFC debuted last week. But former Kentucky Gov. John Y. Brown Jr., who bought the secret recipe in 1964 and opened 3,500 stores before selling the company in 1971, said the colonel wouldn't take too kindly to how KFC is spinning him as a caricature of himself.

For one, he didn't cackle like the animated version on KFC's new "Internet encyclopedia of fascinating facts about the man behind the bucket," Brown said. And he never played the mandolin.

"I don't think you make a gimmick out of somebody," Brown said in a phone interview from his home in Lexington. "I think they are making fun of the colonel. It is such a fascinating story, I hate to see them tarnish it."

Fifty-one years after Brown scribbled a two-page contract on a yellow legal pad to buy the Colonel's recipe, likeness and rights to take Kentucky Fried Chicken from a menu item at 600 independent restaurants around the U.S. and turn it into the nation's first fast-food chicken chain, Brown maintains deep respect for the man who was a fourth-grade dropout — or sixth grade "depending on which story he was telling that day."

The real colonel "cussed like a sailor," Brown remembered. He was nothing like the aw-shucks online version.

Some parts of KFC's $185 million makeover about Sanders are true. He ate fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits every single day, Brown said, and had an "extra 50 pounds" on his 5-foot, 11-inch frame to roughly match the bulky version played by the 59-year-old Hammond.

But the real colonel was never scripted.

KFC declined to comment for this story.

"We never coached him," Brown said of a publicity campaign that began with Sanders telling panelists from the 1963 TV show What's My Line that his chicken was "finger licking good."

"We just said, 'Go do your thing, Colonel.'"

Decades after he sold his Original Recipe, Sanders remained a fierce champion of quality for his fried chicken.

In 1979, Sanders rolled up in a chauffeur-driven white Cadillac to the Hikes Point KFC. Back then, Jeffersontown City Councilman Ray Perkins was a teenager breading chicken in the back. As he did three or four times a year, Sanders walked behind the counter, tasted the gravy, sampled the mashed potatoes and cole slaw and then chomped into a chicken leg.

"I heard metal trays clattering and I came around the corner and saw the Colonel using his cane to push eight trays of fried chicken onto the floor," Perkins said. "He was cussing out our manager."

"The manager looked at us and said, 'Shut up. Don't say a thing. Just wait until he leaves and we will drop more chicken in the fryer.'"

"You just didn't argue with him," Perkins, now 50, said of the Colonel. "He still felt like it was his."

Born in 1890 in Henryville, Ind., Sanders enlisted in the U.S. Army for duty in Cuba at age 16, sold tires, failed in a ferry boat venture, and ended up owning a gas station in Corbin, Ky., according to the new KFC website.

In 1930, KFC says, Sanders built a gas station sign on the road. A neighboring gas station owner painted over that sign, and the dispute escalated into a gunfight. The gas station owner, Matt Stewart, fired a shot that killed Sanders' friend. In return, Sanders took the gun from his dead friend's hand and shot Stewart in the shoulder. Stewart was arrested, according to the website.

"This is a true story," says the actor who plays Stewart said in a skit on the KFC website.

"How about we go back to my gas station and I cook you some of the world's best fried chicken?" the actor playing a young, beefy Sanders replies.

That shooting "was more of a mountain rumor," Brown recalled, adding that "Sanders Superior Gas Station," was where the colonel noticed hungry customers and began serving fried chicken at some tables inside. The home-schooled cook experimented with some 20 different seasonings until he came up with the famous recipe of 11 herbs and spices.

"It was an idea and concept that was so simple and changed the eating habits of the world," Brown said.

Sanders was dubbed a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 by then-Gov. Ruby Laffoon. The white suit and black string tie came later, after Sanders signed his first franchisee in 1952 in Salt Lake City. To snare business partners, Sanders drove across the country in his Cadillac, wearing the white suit and offering to cook chicken in the kitchen. If they liked it, he made arrangements to ship the blend of herbs and spices, and in return, asked for a nickel every time it was served, Brown said.

"Imagine being bold enough to walk around in a white suit, goatee and mustache," Brown said.

The Colonel, who had three children, had a soft spot for little ones. John Y. Brown III, the former governor's son, was 6 years old when his family spent the night at Sanders' home in Shelbyville. The next morning, Sanders gently instructed the youngster on how to make biscuits.

"Everything was treated very delicately. It was a special process he was taking us through to get to the grand end result," Brown said.

With adults, the Colonel's irascible style never slowed. As a witness in a lawsuit once, Brown said a lawyer asked Sanders if any wartime service warranted his claim to colonel.

Sanders told the lawyer it represents "the same thing that honorable means before your name. It doesn't mean a damn thing."

In 1971, Brown sold the business for $285 million to Heublein, a spirits distributor taken over by R.J. Reynolds, which then sold it to Pepsi Co. A spinoff later resulted in Yum! Brands, which also owns Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

At the age of 90, Sanders died of leukemia in 1980. In the month before his death, The Courier-Journal archive shows Sanders still trotting around town, appearing in the white suit for crowds. To take the "fried" out of the name for increasingly health conscious consumers, Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC in 1981. By 2010, a USA Today poll showed most Americans ages 18 to 25 did not know who Colonel Sanders was.

"Overall the public thinks the colonel is a caricature," Brown said. "He was a crusty old coot. He was the real deal. He is one of the few authentic creators in the entire food industry."

KFC's new commercial colonel may get some attention and create an appetite for the famous fried chicken, Brown said. But the gussied-up version is a shadow of the real man.

Jere Downs can be reached at (502) 582-4669, @JereDowns on Twitter and Jere Downs on Facebook.