RECLUSIVE CANDY MAKER MARS, FATHER OF M&M, UNCLE BEN'S.

Byline: The New York Times

Forrest Mars Sr., creator of the M&M, died Thursday at his home in Miami. He was 95 years old.

In a final nod to Mars' lifelong desire for secrecy, a spokeswoman for his company, Mars Inc., refused to provide details Friday.

While Mars ardently sought to avoid the limelight, he routinely ended up on lists of the wealthiest Americans. The company he built and turned over in 1973 to his sons now sells some $20 billion worth of candy, snacks and pet food annually, according to Joel Glenn Brenner, author of ``Emperors of Chocolate,'' which was published earlier this year and chronicles Mars' life. Along with M&M's, Milky Way, Snickers, Three Musketeers and Skittles, the company, based in McLean, Va., owns the Combos, Kudos and Twix brands; Uncle Ben's rice; and Kal-Kan and Pedigree pet food.

Mars was often called a recluse, an eccentric or worse. When Fortune magazine named him to its Business Hall of Fame in 1984, it praised him as ``one of this century's most brilliant and successful entrepreneurs'' and derided him as ``an irascible candy maker with a fetish for privacy'' and ``a driven personality given to terrifying outbursts of temper.''

Mars did not respond.

Born in 1904, he inherited the privately held company from his father, Frank, who developed the Milky Way candy bar in the 1920s and quickly had a hit on his hands. Forrest Mars, however, is credited with suggesting some ingredients for the candy.

The two ended up squabbling, and Forrest Mars went to England, where he marketed the Milky Way with some variations in the formula. During World War II, he returned to the United States and introduced a candy-coated chocolate that he named M&M's, based on a popular European product.

In 1964, he merged his company, known as Food Manufacturers - which was responsible for, among other things, the invention of Uncle Ben's converted rice - with Mars Inc. Fortune reported that at his first formal meeting with Mars executives, he announced that he was a religious man and then dropped to his knees, intoning, ``I pray for Milky Way; I pray for Snickers.''

Mars, who in 1922 had declared a goal of making his father's already-successful candy company a global powerhouse, ran Mars with a system of clear penalties and rewards. Employees were to keep their desktops neat and clean; he once hurled a basket of papers off a senior executive's desk, Brenner said.

Managers who failed to meet growth and profit targets were dismissed. To this day, employees who arrive on time all week qualify for a 10 percent bonus in their paychecks, while those who arrive late are docked 10 percent. Everyone, from the executive suite on down, punches a time clock.

``He was legendary for his extreme temper and his fanatical behavior,'' Brenner said in an interview.

That temper and that behavior could be exhibited upon the discovery of a less than perfect Mars product. ``He would call up sales associates in the middle of the night if he found a packet of M&M's where the M wasn't printed exactly in the middle of the candy, and he would order the candy recalled,'' Brenner said.

Mars is also credited with coming up with a processing method for rice that extended its shelf life, simplified its cooking and increased its nutritional value. He marketed the rice as Uncle Ben's.

His inspiration for M&M's was a lentil-shaped, candy-coated chocolate that he saw soldiers eating while on a visit behind the lines during the Spanish Civil War. He was traveling with a member of the Rowntree family, Brenner said, and Rowntree went on to make Smarties, a candy similar to M&M's.

The name came about because, with World War II under way and America's involvement only a matter of time, Mars felt he needed help with the product, especially if sugar and chocolate were to be rationed. So he approached William F.R. Murrie, then the president of Hershey, and they agreed to become partners. Hence the M&M stands for ``Mars and Murrie,'' according to Brenner. Today, Hershey and Mars are archrivals.

Although he officially retired in 1973 and began unaffiliated businesses selling boxes of chocolates and plant food, among other things, he continued to look in on the business and to call his sons on the carpet for any problems he detected; until recently the sons were co-presidents of the company.

A series of trusts that control the ownership of the company prevented his three children from selling the company until his death, Brenner said. Now, she added, the company may well go public.

His survivors include his sons, Forrest Jr., who, Brenner said, stepped down as co-president in April, and John, who remains president; his daughter, Jacqueline Mars Vogel; and 10 grandchildren. His wife, Audrey, died in 1989.