When the young newlyweds started their candy business 51 years ago, they wanted, in the tradition of other Utah candy companies, to name it after their family.
But their name was unusual. They figured no one would remember it, much less be able to pronounce it - which would be bad for marketing."And then Orville Redenbacher proved us wrong," says Janet Redenbaugh.
Two decades later, Red-en-bacher made his odd name one of the selling points of his gourmet popcorn. But Janet and Russell Redenbaugh were afraid to take that gamble in 1945.
So, they named their fledgling candy company Janet Russell.
Just like Betty Crocker, Janet Russell was imaginary but sounded real. People often called the company asking to speak to her. Sometimes people swore they had met her.
At one point, the Reden- baughs advertised that they'd give a free box of candy to anyone really named Janet Russell, but no one ever showed up to claim the prize.
Janet and Russell Reden- baugh got into the candy business while they were both students at the University of Utah, before World War II. Janet's father had invested in a candy bar and encouraged Janet's fiance, Russell, to use the skills he was learning as a business major to help introduce the bar to Utah.
Later, after the war, Russell began inventing new candy formulas of his own. He and Janet opened stores in Salt Lake City and later on the West Coast, which they operated as what they call "branchizes."
"I've never met a piece of candy I didn't like," says Janet. If pressed though, she says her favorites are caramels and bavarian mints.
"We try to limit ourselves to a pound a day" of chocolate, she says. "And that's not too big an exaggeration."
Although they grew up in a candy family, her children all had good dental checkups as they were growing up, she reports, and her husband has only had one cavity in all these years.
She and Russell weren't suprised either by a recent study in the British medical journal The Lancet, which reported that chocolate seems to play a part in keeping cholesterol from sticking to arteries.
"I always hoped for that," says Janet, who adds that her own cholesterol and her husband's has always been low - "and we had the hazards of taste testing."