Former PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico, who helped lead the soda company during the "Cola Wars" advertising battle with Coca-Cola in the 1980s, has died, PepsiCo said Thursday. He was 71.
Enrico was with PepsiCo for more than 30 years and retired in 2001, according to the company. PepsiCo, based in Purchase, New York, did not have a cause of death or other details.
Enrico was credited with signing pop star Michael Jackson and other celebrities for Pepsi ads and pressuring rival Coca-Cola.
In his book, "The Other Guy Blinked," Enrico recalled how the company tried to capitalize on Coke's disastrous introduction in 1985 of "New Coke," which was supposed to be sweeter than Pepsi. That included Pepsi placing a newspaper ad extending the "warmest welcome" to the "New Pepsi Generation," signed by Enrico.
PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi called Enrico "one of the most creative marketers of his or any generation."
"Today is an incredibly sad day for the PepsiCo family, for we have lost one of our true legends of our company and our industry," Nooyi said in a statement.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More