From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Estée Lauder with a customer (1966)
Estée Lauder (1906
- 2004)
was the co-founder, with her husband Joseph Lauder, of
Estée Lauder Companies, a pioneering
cosmetics company. She was born Josephine Esther Mentzer
in
Corona, Queens,
New York, the daughter of
Hungarian Jewish
immigrants. She was the only woman on
Time magazine's 1998 list of the 20 most influential
business geniuses of the 20th century. She was the recipient of
the
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
She married Joseph Lauter in 1930. They had two sons. Estée
divorced Joseph in 1939, and re-married him in 1942. The couple
afterwards remained married until his death in 1982. The Lauter
family changed their surname to "Lauder" in the late 1930s. Her
older son,
Leonard Lauder, was chief executive of Estée Lauder and is
now chairman of the board. Her younger son,
Ronald Lauder, is a prominent philanthropist, a
Republican political appointee in the Reagan administration,
and developer of property in
Berlin, among other endeavors.
Lauder died in her
Manhattan residence of cardiopulmonary failure at the age of
97.
External links
-
Time Magazine profile
-
CNN report of passing
-
Biography channel profile
Categories:
American entrepreneurs |
Cosmetics businesspeople |
History of cosmetics
