Rocky Aoki, 1938-2008

Benihana founder Rocky Aoki, the man who introduced Americans to acrobatic knife work and flaming onion volcanos, has gone to the big hibachi grill in the sky. He was 69. The Jheri-curled grill guru—he used to say he adopted his signature hair style in the '60s so "white people could tell me apart from other Asians"—started his empire with a four-table restaurant on West 56th Street before expanding it into virtually every suburb with a strip mall; he later branched out with a series of other ventures including a porn magazine (Genesis) and a nightclub, which was also called Genesis. (Then there was that insider trading thing in the '90s: He paid a $500,000 fine and received three months' probation.) Aoki had ended his involvement with the restaurant chain he founded several years ago, devoting much of his time and energy to a bitter feud with his children over control of his fortune. (He sued four of them.) He leaves behind his third wife, Keiko One, and a total of six kids with his two previous wives.
