About the Author

Bill Paxton invents toys and games for a living and collects them as a hobby. For the past 30 years he has designed at various Chicagoland toy invention studios where he has worked for, and with, many Marvin Glass partners and employees.
About the Book
This biography is of the toy king himself Marvin Glass, who created the first, largest and most successful independent toy invention studio. His unique genius and fervor for life was said to be a magical blend of Willy Wonka and Howard Hughes. Wonka had his Oompa Loompas and so too did Glass fill his high-security fortress with a cast of crazy characters. Their own words reveal the story of what really went on inside Marvin’s legendary studio.

A Tribute to Marvin Glass
Secretive, charismatic, showman, childlike, egomaniac, self-loathing, generous, eccentric, and moody are words that have been used to describe Marvin Glass throughout the decades. Each term fits, yet alone is somehow incomplete. He was a renaissance man, an entertainer, sexually voracious, playful and charming. He was also persuasive. Among all attempts to explain or define him, the single most often used descriptor is genius.

Latest Blog Post

Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle: When a Pair of Kings Ruled
The legendary “King of the Stuntmen” and “King of Toys” combined forces that resulted in the powerful reign of Ideal’s Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle. When Knievel signed a contract for his personal promotion and licensing with Marvin Glass and Associates, Glass referred to Knievel as “…the last of the world’s true gladiators.” In 1973 the…