Mario Segale, inspiration for the Nintendo plumber hero, has passed away: NPR

Mario Segale, who inspired one of the world's most recognizable characters in Mario's Nintendo, died at the age of 84. Segale was the owner of Nintendo outside Seattle, Washington State, when the company created Donkey Kong – the classic game that launched the combination-wear Mario.

Segale has never sought to play the connection, focusing instead on his family's lucrative activities in heavy construction and real estate development in the bustling Seattle area. Because of his desire for intimacy, some pictures of him exist online.

"While he was at the origin of Nintendo's name" Super Mario ", while he was a tenant of his business park in the 1970s, he always dodged the notoriety and wanted to be known for what he accomplished in his life ", obituary of Segale reads.

As for how his name and his Italian heritage helped to give Mario life, Segale would have impressed his tenants when he allegedly invaded Nintendo's offices in Tukwila, Washington, demanding that they catch up with their late rent. As the game's historian Benj Edwards pointed out in 2010, a close associate of Segale confirmed that he was not very tall and that he was wearing suspenders rather than combinations.

Another friend of Segale commented on this story: "My understanding and my direct perception is that Mario Segale has no objection to his name inspiring such an iconic character and being extremely proud of his grandchildren. and well-welded adult circles ".

It was a coincidence that linked him to Super Mario, and Segale preferred to see nothing more, even after the company that rented him a warehouse space later adopted the character of Super Mario as a mascot .

"You could say that I'm still waiting for my royalty checks," Segale said in 1993, according to the Seattle Times.

Everything comes from Shigeru Miyamoto, famous video game designer from Nintendo, who created the main characters of Donkey Kong – but did not have strong names for them. The main character simply called Jumpman; his girlfriend was Lady. As Kotaku reports, "Nintendo wanted proper names for the characters, so they named the hero after his owner and the lady Pauline after the wife of a Nintendo employee of America. "

Mario's character has become a franchise, appearing in dozens of games, from duck hunting to racing and tennis.

Segale was very discreet and rarely spoke to the media. He was born on April 30, 1934 in Seattle. He is the only son of Louis and Rina Segale, who are described in the obituary of their son as farmers of the first generation Italian immigrants.

Mario Segale was clearly a wise businessman who worked alongside his wife, Donna, and their four children. He sold his heavy construction business for $ 60 million in 1998, making a final profit on the business he created just after finishing high school. A few years later, he sold the land where the casino and the Emerald Downs racetrack had been built in Auburn, Washington, for $ 73.6 million. He was also a major political donor, especially for the Democratic Party, as noted by Auburn's reporter.