Vanderbilt and the Yeggman. Vipers. Vigor, the Hammersmith wonder.

Like you, I first met him at Gamesfair and subsequently at various TSR things. As Rick says, there was a lot of hostility towards him in the eighties especially after the corporate turmoil in TSR. By and large, however, gamers lost sight of him as an active figure in the 1990s. Whatever the merits of his business dealings and whatever the scale of his participation with his partners, he undoubtedly transformed hobby gaming and, arguably, laid the groundwork for much of today's fantasy industry.