Irwin L. Jacobs

By 2019 Alexandra, Jacobs' wife of 57 years, was using a wheelchair and showing signs of dementia, and he was reported to be distraught over her condition. Their daughter Sheila has cerebral palsy, and he was a major supporter of the Special Olympics, for which he once served as chairman after donating $8 million in 1991.

Jacobs and his wife were found dead of gunshot wounds on a bed in their Orono home on the morning of April 10, 2019. A handgun was found next to them. The Hennepin County medical examiner concluded that Irwin Jacobs shot his wife and then himself.

Jacobs also owned a minority share of the Minnesota Vikings, which he sold to Mike Lynn in 1991.

At the age of 33, Jacobs purchased the ailing Grain Belt Brewery in 1975 for $4.1 million with his company I.J. Enterprises. He tried unsuccessfully for eight months to turn around the company, which was losing nearly $200,000 per month. He then liquidated the company, selling the brand to G. Heileman Brewing Company, and profited $4 million. He later sold the property that accompanied the brewery to the City of Minneapolis in 1989 for $4.85 million.

Irwin L. Jacobs (July 15, 1941 – April 10, 2019) was an American businessman. He was the CEO of several large corporations, formerly including the now-bankrupt Genmar Holdings, boat-building company. He earned the nickname "Irv the Liquidator" for his aggressive business practices in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1973, Jacobs founded COMB ("Close-out Merchandise Buyers"), a catalog-based mail-order retailer. In 1986, COMB and several cable television operators created the Cable Value Network (CVN), a pioneering television shopping channel which was later purchased by Joseph Segel's QVC. Jacobs, based in Minneapolis, became wealthy by taking big stakes in Fortune 500 conglomerates, usually to unlock value by breaking them up.

Jacobs lived on a 32-acre estate between Lake Minnetonka and Lake Tanager in the Twin Cities suburb of Orono. The house was originally built in 1939 by the son of James Ford Bell, founder of General Mills, and appeared in a few scenes of the 1972 film The Heartbreak Kid not long before he bought it at age 30 for $340,000. He and his wife, Alexandra Jacobs, raised five children in the home. Alexandra was an accomplished artist and philanthropist. The couple collected eclectic artwork, including a vast array of African ivory purchased from a trader's collection. The Jacobses put the estate on the market in 2014 for $22 million, but it had not changed hands at the time he died in 2019. The historic mansion was demolished in 2021.