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Curtis Allina, credited with inventing the dispensers made famous by Pez Candy, died Dec. 15 at his home in Olympia, Wash. He was 87.
Pez built a factory in Orange where its U.S. headquarters remains today. After a 2006 buyout, the parent company is now based in Traun, Austria.
A native of Prague and a Holocaust survivor, Allina came up with the idea for the Pez-Haas company creating candy dispensers in the shape of character busts ”“ originally released in 1955 as Santa Claus and a robot.
Pez containers are collector items today, and the company continues to produce more than 3 billion small bricks of candy annually.
