THE SKYY’S THE LIMIT
Born Moshe Shama in Jerusalem, in what was then Palestine, his parents were Hana Kanbar and Meier Shama. They were a Jewish family.
His father had emigrated to Palestine from Greece.
When Moshe was still a child, the family relocated to the USA, living in Boro Park, Brooklyn. They changed their names to sound more American, taking their mother’s maiden name.
Moshe became Maurice. He had two brothers, Elliott and Edward.
The family were relatively poor, his father, Meier, running a laundry.
Maurice made his first invention when he was very small, making a bow and arrow out of branches. The tip of the arrow was made of cotton.
Aged twelve, and still in First Grade, Maurice joined forces with a school friend, Harvey Roer. They produced baby portraits.
They had their own darkroom and handed out business cards. The enterprise was a success – and the boys became friends for life.
Maurice went on to study Materials, Science and Engineering at Philadelphia Textile Institute (nowadays part of Philadelphia University).
During vacations, Maurice worked in the kitchens at a summer camp in Massachusetts. This taught him the value of hard work and being part of a team.
When Maurice graduated, his parents told him they could no longer support him financially. “From that point on, I had to make it happen.”
His first invention as an adult came when he was 21.
“I was leaning against a wall, trying to look cool and meet girls. When I pulled away from the wall, I noticed some bits from my sweater had clung to the concrete.”
Maurice instantly forgot the girls – and concentrated upon the wall. He thought that if he could replicate the texture of the wall, he would have made a great discovery.
Maurice created, and patented a gadget and invented every constituent part. He called it a D-Fuzz-It, a device for removing fluff from sweaters. His friends, his mother, and the bank manager (when he asked for a loan), all laughed at him.
It cost Maurice 14 cents to make and he retailed it at 98 cents. Within one year, he had made a profit of $200,000.
His next invention was the SafetyGlide hypodermic needle protector. Whist visiting a nurse, Maurice noticed she had many pin pricks on her arms. She told him this was an occupational hazard for medical workers – so he invented a device to protect them.
He sold the idea to a medical equipment company and continued to receive royalties for many years.
Maurice was particularly determined to help the medical profession in any way possible.
He had a friend who was an ophthalmologist. The friend described to Maurice how liquid nitrogen was poured into someone’s eye for a cataract operation.
Maurice retorted, “You’re crazy. If you spill a few drops on a man’s face it will burn a hole in it.”
Consequently, Maurice invented a device that improved cataract removal, by freezing the lens of the eye with cyrogenic gas. It made operations much quicker and safer. Maurice was praised in the US Senate.
He also developed collapsible, durable and inexpensive glasses for people living in developing countries.
From then on, Maurice just kept inventing things. He had over fifty different patents for a wide range of consumer goods. This included the Tangoes Puzzle Game. He saw the small child of a friend sitting on a carpet, trying to put shapes together – and realised he could turn it into a game. It is made up of seven plastic pieces.
Tangoes became so popular that there were competitions held.
Maurice also created Soo Foo, a nine-ingredient rice and lentil mixture.
Maurice designed a cigarette snuffer. If a smoker was interrupted, it would temporarily extinguish the flame on their cigarette – enabling them to carry on smoking it later.
He joined forces once again with his old school friend, Harvey Roer. They manufactured synthetic fibre for ladies’ hosiery. When the business took off, Maurice pulled out, allowing his friend to make a fortune.
One of Maurice’s more successful inventions was ‘Zip Notes’. He noticed that Post-it notes often stuck together, and that if a person wrote on one of them, much of the paper was wasted. “Like most things in my life, I thought there has to be a better way to do it.”
Zip Notes was a battery-powered dispenser enabling people to use exactly how much sticky paper they needed and was much more economical than the Post-it.
Maurice’s best idea came to him whilst he was recovering from a hangover. He realised that vodka made him feel worse than any other alcoholic drink. What if he could invent hangover-free vodka?
After many experiments, Maurice did just that. He realised that what causes hangovers is the ‘congener’ – an essential part of the process of making the drink alcoholic. He called the congeners, ‘Chemical Junk’.
By distilling the drink four times, he found the congeners disappeared – hangover-free vodka. He had no idea what to call it.
“I looked out of my window one day at the beautiful blue sky. I said, ‘There it is – Sky Vodka’. But Sky was too generic. That’s when I added the second Y.”
It was sold in distinctive blue bottles. Maurice was very proud of the advertising line – ‘Vodka so filtered – we even took the Russia out of it’.
It made Maurice greater profits than any other of his inventions.
He was a chocoholic and wondered if he could mix chocolate with Skyy vodka.
This led to him inventing another alcoholic drink -Vermeer Dutch Chocolate Cream Liqueur. It won a gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
Maurice was passionate about film. He owned the first multiplex cinema in New York. It was called the Quad Cinema and had four auditoriums.
Maurice’s inventions had made him a multi-millionaire. He started buying property and became a philanthropist.
He bought twenty commercial high-rise buildings in the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma. At one point, Maurice owned a third of all the office space in the city.
However, he fell out with his business partner at the time, Henry Kaufman. Both men sued each other.
In 1984, Maurice decided he was tired of the weather in New York so he moved to San Francisco. He bought himself a small red scooter and was often seen riding around the city.
He called San Francisco, ‘paradise’.
However, despite being extremely rich, Maurice refused to pay parking metre charges – so his scooter was often seen parked up in some strange places.
Maurice bought seventeen acres of commercial property in the neighbouring city of Oakland. He had the ‘American Steel Building’ built on it. It is a place where 150 artists and makers can ply their trade.
He also had the Pacific Pipe building erected on the land. It was a climbing gym, open to all.
However, he could still cause controversy. In 1998, Maurice bought an eight-storey residential building in Pacific Heights.
The following year, he served notice to evict all of the tenants. “Being a landlord was terrible. I was treated as a janitor. The tenants were all wealthy, not exactly on welfare, and they all had months to leave.”
He never rented out residential property again.
In 2001, Maurice sold Skyy Vodka to Campari, for $300 million.
He donated $6 million to Philadelphia University for a new campus building, followed by another $12 million in 2012, for a new design centre, which was named after him.
Other projects he invested in, included a 450-seat Jewish Community Centre in San Francisco, a large gift to New York University, the creation of the Maurice Kanbar Institution of Film and Technology and many charities including the National Blood Centre in Ramla, Israel.
Maurice was also responsible for funding a Salvation Army building and the Kanbar Cardiac Care Centre in San Francisco.
There were many other philanthropic projects as well.
Meanwhile, Maurice had moved into film production with the computer animated musical film ‘Hoodwinked’ (and its sequel ‘Hoodwinked Too!’), which grossed $100 million worldwide.
He started his own publishing company. One of the first authors was…himself. He wrote ‘Secrets from an Inventor’s Notebook’.
Maurice just kept inventing. He was addicted to coffee, drinking it throughout the day, which often led to him suffering heartburn.
Someone told him that 400 million cups of coffee were drunk around the world each day. Consequently, he created Caffeo. It is a dispenser which pus a couple of drops of potassium carbonate into the drink and neutralises the acid. This worked not only in coffee but in wine, orange juice and tomato sauce. It was an enormous commercial success and was praised as being ‘a life changer’.
He also created a new type of acrylic paint.
Unexpectedly, Maurice returned to vodka.
“I thought I was done with vodka but I found a way to age it in just two weeks instead of the ten years it used to take in a barrel.” He called it ‘Blue Angel’. It was extra smooth and gluten-free. A review in the Tasting Panel Magazine said, ‘This may be the best damn vodka I’ve ever tasted’.
In 2017, Maurice sold all his buildings in Tulsa to his new business partner, Stuart Price.
Maurice also received an honorary degree from his Alma Mata, Philadelphia University (as well as from three other universities).
Maurice never married or had children, although he had many nieces and nephews. He always kept a pet dog for company.
Maurice kept working right until his death. “I don’t stop thinking. I’m certainly often lonely, but I’m never bored. I keep thinking what else can I do?
He added, “I put myself to sleep at night thinking of all the problems I’m unable to solve.”
In an interview, just before his death, Maurice was asked about his philanthropy. “I’m looking to do good before I leave this planet.”
When Maurice died, his old school friend and former business partner, Harvey Roer, said, “Maurice is one of the dearest friends I’ve ever had and will have. He was just a sweet, loveable guy. And that mind of his never stopped.”
Maurice is survived by his brother Elliott.
RIP – Repeatedly Inventing Products
