Tom Carvel — ice cream king, business tycoon, the man who brought us Fudgie the Whale. His voice was one that could sink a thousand ships, yet his was the voice of Carvel. “Who better to sell my ice cream than me?” he reasoned. And he was right. In the 1970s and ‘80s you’d hear him calling out “Buy one, get one free!” deals during commercial breaks. It was precisely that lack of Madison Avenue polish that made you believe Carvel was kindly, grandfatherly, a regular guy who just happened to make a lotta dough selling soft-serve ice cream. But all he really wanted was to make a kid smile. And you’d be wrong. Because what began as the quintessential American story — a Greek immigrant uses his ingenuity to create an empire — ended in disaster that may have resulted in Carvel’s death. It definitely resulted in litigation over his estate where the ones who benefitted most were the lawyers.

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