Lawrence LaBelle was an artistic TV ad man who created commercials for Minnegasco and other firms for more than 50 years.
He played a big part in developing the Indian maiden with the blue-flame feather that became the iconic logo of what is now CenterPoint Energy, said a former artistic partner, ad writer Gene Carr of Plymouth.
Carr said he suggested the maiden logo in 1959 to LaBelle, who created a more polished drawing. They also created ads for the former Northwest Racquet and Swim clubs.
LaBelle died Sept. 17 from congestive heart failure complications at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. He was 85.
"He was an awfully good partner and a good guy," Carr said.
"He grew up on Madison Avenue in early days of television," said his son, Bill LaBelle, who worked with his father in the 1990s. "He was the consummate ad man. That was his world and his life. It was part of our dinner table discussion and embodied who he was."
He said his dad loved the creative process and "the concept of the Big Idea that you wrap around, and [that] the commercial is designed to communicate."
LaBelle specialized in toy company ads and composed music and lyrics for some ads. He spent a lot of time filming commercials in California while working as TV ad director for Campbell Mithun in the 1960s, and once hired comedian Phyllis Diller for a commercial promoting Snowy Bleach. "Diller was the expert on laundry; that was his kind of humor," Bill LaBelle said.
