Real Super Mario Dies at 84

CAIRO, Nov 3 (SEE)- "Mario Segale" the real estate developer whose name was the inspiration for the much beloved Nintendo video game character died at 84 in a local hospital on Oct. 27.

In 1950s, Segale built a small empire in construction and real estate in Tukwila, a suburb of Seattle. Around 1980 he rented a 60,000 square foot warehouse to Nintendo, a Japanese video-game company, as it sought to expand to the American market.

He started his company "M. A. Segale Inc" with a single dump truck and became a major construction contractor in the Northwest. Mr. Segale continued his parents activity for buying land around Tukwila, and he established a business park there in the early 1970s.

He sold the construction company in 1998 to concentrate on Segale Properties, and the company also owns commercial properties in Seattle and agricultural land, including a vineyard, in eastern Washington.

"Mario Segale"

Super Mario was a supporting role in Donkey Kong, but in1990s he became Nintendo’s beloved mascot and the star of one of the most popular video game franchises to date.

David Sheff reported In his book ''Game Over; How Nintendo Conquered the World" that a small company team had gathered in the warehouse one day and was struggling to come up with American names for the characters in the arcade game Donkey Kong.

In a video published by Nintendo in 2015, the game designer Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed with simple nod of his head that Mr. Segale had inspired Mario’s name.

Mario Arnold Segale was born in Seattle on April 30, 1934, to Louis and Rina Segale.