Alfred "freddy" heineken dead at age 78.

AP--The late Dutch beer baron Alfred Henry "Freddy" Heineken will be remembered as a marketing genius who led his family's company through nearly half a century of expansion that made him the richest man in the Netherlands.

Heineken died unexpectedly Thursday, January 3rd, apparently of pneumonia, in his home in the seaside Dutch town of Noordwijk. He was 78.

For the determined helmsman who created the namesake beer's famous red-star logo and made it one of the most popular in the world, keeping control of the business was more important than fortune.

Karel Vuursteen, the company's chief executive, said Heineken had urged him and other followers to protect the interest of the company after his death.

"He told me: 'Don't do anything crazy with the company--my name is on it," Vuursteen told the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

Heineken's family will retain the controlling stake in the firm, which trails only the makers of Budweiser, Anheuser Busch, and Belgium's Interbrew in terms of size.

Several companies have been interested in buying the brewery in the past decades and the news of Heineken's death stirred speculation and lifted shares on the Amsterdam stock exchange.

His only child, Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, has inherited his right to veto management decisions and will manage the family's dominant stake. Heineken is also survived by his wife and five grandchildren.

Heineken started his career in June 1942 when he was 18. The brewery was founded by his grandfather, Gerard Adriaan Heineken, in 1864.

Throughout the years, Heineken held off attempts by foreign companies to acquire the company, taking out huge loans to buy back shares, and refused to share power with outsiders.

At the age of 26, some 12 years after his father had sold shares to managers outside the family, Heineken took it upon himself to regain a controlling interest.

He rented a Rolls Royce and drove to an Amsterdam bank where he borrowed what was then a huge sum of money.

"Hello sir, my name is Fred Heineken and I need a loan of 400,000 guilders (dlrs 160,000)," he reportedly said.

In 1946, Heineken became a sales manager at the company's U.S. distribution operations, established shortly after the lifting of the Prohibition in 1933. During his two-year stay in the United States, Heineken developed an interest in marketing and advertising. During his stint in the U.S., he also met the American Lucille Cummins, whom he married in 1948.

Upon returning to the company's headquarters in Europe, he began building the beer into a premium brand. "I don't sell beer, I sell a feeling," he once said.

His skill in marketing worked and although Heineken was more expensive than competing beers, business was good.

Back at the company's headquarters in Amsterdam during the late 1 940s, Heineken started building the brand as a premium beer. He designed the famous green bottle and the logo with the red star and the graceful black banner bearing the brand name.

And it worked. Heineken's green bottles were more expensive than the alternatives, but this didn't hurt their popularity.

"If I hadn't been a beer brewer, I would have become a marketing man," he once said.

He made a steady career at the company and became a member of the management board in 1964. Heineken was the company's chief between 1971-89.

Later, he became president of the supervisory board. He was also the head of Heineken Holding NV, where his majority interest was parked.

Heineken regained the controlling stake in the company in 1954 after his father had lost it twelve years earlier.

On Nov. 6,2001, Heineken also left the holding company because "78 was a nice age to quit," a spokeswoman told Dutch newspapers on his behalf.

Heineken was the richest man in the Netherlands with an estimated fortune of more than 9 billion guilders (dlrs 3.6 billion).

His fame and fortune made him a target for criminals.

His abduction for ransom in 1983 changed his life forever. He was released unharmed after three weeks, but was so traumatized that afterwards he only appeared in public when he really had to and he protected his privacy more than ever.