Hadacol's sale was a big deal

By Jim Bradshaw
jhbradshaw@bellsouth.net

The news commanded big headlines in August 1951 when Dudley J. LeBlanc announced that he'd sold his magic elixir Hadacol for "about $10 million."

He'd begun marketing his "diet supplement" eight years before when, as he described it, he had nothing but "a girl mixing the stuff with a paddle" in a big wooden vat in his barn.

It may have been an inauspicious beginning, but by 1951 the man and his medicine were known across the country, largely because of a Hadacol Caravan of movie stars, sports figures, local Hadacol Queens, and circus acts that could be seen for the entry price of just one Hadacol box top.

Performers included Mickey Rooney, Jimmy Durante, Bob Hope, Hank Williams, Minnie Pearl, Roy Acuff, Cesar Romero, Carmen Miranda, boxing champ Jack Dempsey, Rudy Valee, Milton Berle, and other top names.

That helped to make Hadacol the second largest advertiser in the nation, led only by Coca-Cola. LeBlanc used newspaper and magazine ads, radio commercials, billboards, and specialty items such as Hadacol T-shirts.

There was even a Captain Hadacol, a muscleman in a Superman-like costume who supposedly symbolized what Hadacol could do for you.

LeBlanc's advertising antics also included amazing testimonials from people claiming to be cured of all sorts of ailments.

The advertising did what it was supposed to do. The factory in Lafayette worked around the clock and still couldn't keep up with the demand.

What was in it that made it so amazing? LeBlanc wouldn't say, but one secret of his success might have been revealed when the state of Illinois banned Hadacol sales by anyone except those holding a liquor license.

LeBlanc made his first announcement of Hadacol's sale from Augusta, Ga., where he was traveling with the Caravan.

He said he'd sold his patent medicine to the Maltz Cancer Foundation of New York but that he would remain with the company for another 15 years as sales manager, at a salary of $100,000 a year.

While I couldn't find exact data, I'm pretty sure that salary was well above what baseball superstars Ted Williams and Stan Musial made in 1951.

But, in the end, that didn't matter; LeBlanc wasn't going to collect much of that money.

There was a tipoff in the first big article announcing the sale.

"In New York," the newspapers reported, "medical sources said they had no knowledge of the Maltz Cancer Foundation and no such organization is listed n the New York city telephone directory."

The next day, a New York attorney said that one of the buyers was Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a Manhattan plastic surgeon who headed the Tobey-Maltz Foundation, "a private research project.."

The lawyer said Dr. Maltz was one of a number of "Eastern financiers and businessmen" who'd bought the business.

Some other signs of trouble began to pop up in September.

On Sept. 11, Hadacol announced that the Caravan, then touring Iowa, would lay off some "free riders" aboard the train, but that the tour would continue to wind through Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas before returning to Louisiana.

Then, about a week later, the tour was cancelled with 15 performances left. It seemed that there were a few debts that had to be paid before the company could go back on tour.

One of the debts was to Uncle Sam, who levied a $686,000 tax lien on the company less than a month after the reported sale.

LeBlanc said the government accountants had it all wrong, that he didn't owe the taxes, and that, at any rate, the whole issue was now the problem of the new Hadacol owners.

He was too busy with another venture to worry about it, campaigning against Earl Long for governor.