Commercial tortilla chip pioneer Rebecca Webb Carranza, whose 1940s innovation was the core of her Los Angeles business, has died in Arizona at the age of 98.
Carranza died Jan. 19 at a Phoenix hospice from complications of old age, family members told The Los Angeles Times.
The Durango, Mexico, native, whose U.S.-born father and mining company official was a target of revolutionary Pancho Villa, moved to Texas and later to Los Angeles, where she married Mario Carranza in 1931.
Carranza first fried a tortilla for a 1940s family party to use misshapen discs that came off assembly lines.
By the 1960s, Tort Chips were the core of the family's El Zarape business. Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, who played Jack Benny's valet on radio and TV, often bought them, son Victor Carranza said.
Carranza signed the business over to her husband when they divorced in 1951. By 1967, tough national competition developed for the salty snack and he closed his Long Beach, Calif., factory.
Carranza was among 20 innovators honored with the Golden Tortilla award in the mid-1990s.
© Copyright 2006 by United Press International
