Stephen D. Hassenfeld

Stephen David Hassenfeld was born in Rhode Island on 19 January 1942 to Sylvia Grace (née Kay) and Merrill Hassenfeld; his grandfather Henry Hassenfeld was a Jewish immigrant from Poland who with his brothers founded the textile-remnant firm that became Hasbro. Stephen took control of the company as chairman and chief executive in 1980. He restored its reputation and carried it past Mattel to become the world's largest toy manufacturer, taking sales from 104 million dollars in the year he took over to more than 1.4 billion in 1989. He received the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award in 1987, four honorary doctorates and the National Humanitarian Award of the Rhode Island Council of the National Jewish Hospital, and entered the Toy Industry Hall of Fame in 1991. He died of pneumonia and cardiac arrest on 25 June 1989, aged forty-seven, having had AIDS since early 1987 without making it public.