By Mitch Stacy
The Associated Press

PALM HARBOR, Fla. - Out in his three-car garage, next to the brand new black Bentley, TV pitchman Billy Mays keeps a long cabinet stocked with the cleaning products that are making him a household name.

Not only does Mr. Mays use OxiClean, Kaboom and Orange Clean on tough stains, he swears by the stuff. And he foists it on whoever visits, sending them home with tubs, boxes, spray bottles and helpful cleaning tips.

"I enjoy what I do," the amiable Pittsburgh native said. "I think it shows."

Mr. Mays, 44, is an unabashed company man. His thumbs-up TV pitches have helped make Orange Glo International one of the nation's fastest-growing companies - and put him and his wife, Deborah, in a big house with a pool in the back and luxury vehicles in the garage.

Love him or hate him, there's no escaping the burly, bearded Billy Mays on TV. There he is on one commercial urging you to add a scoop of OxiClean to each laundry load. Turn the channel, and he's peddling a car dent fixer, or a hands-free cell phone device. On another, he is spritzing Orange Clean on a kitchen counter.

Mr. Mays' ubiquitousness and in-your-face pitches have earned him his share of detractors. In a true measure of celebrity in the modern age, whole Web sites are now dedicated to trashing him.

Mr. Mays has plenty of fans, too. People line up at his personal appearances for autographed color glossies, and strangers stop him in airports to chat about the products.

"As long as there's good and bad, it evens itself out," he said.

Mr. Mays has never been anything but a salesman, starting out of high school with his dad's waste hauling business.

He developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other "as seen on TV" gadgets on Atlantic City's boardwalk. For years he worked as a hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.

After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in Pittsburgh in the mid-'90s, Mr. Mays was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of cleaning products on the St. Petersburg-based Home Shopping Network. Sales took off the very first day he was on.

Commercials and infomercials followed, anchored by the high-energy Mr. Mays showing how it's done. Now he's the public face of a company projected to earn $330 million this year, after taking in $245 million in 2001.

Inc. magazine named Denver-based Orange Glo International one of the 10 fastest-growing privately owned companies in each of the past three years, and Mr. Appel says Mr. Mays is a big part of it.