Evelyn Lauder (née
Hausner; )
[1] was an
American businesswoman, socialite and philanthropist who has been credited as one of the creators and popularizers of the
pink ribbon as a symbol for awareness of
breast cancer died from complications from ovarian cancer she was 75..
[2]
August 12, 1936 – November 12, 2011
Early life
She was born Evelyn Hausner in
Vienna, Austria in 1936 to a
Jewish family.
[3] Lauder’s family fled
Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938, using their household silver to get visas to
Belgium. They then moved on to
England where her mother was sent to an
internment camp on the
Isle of Man and Evelyn was placed in a nursery. The family arrived in
New York City in 1940.
[4][5] Lauder would later recall that she was asleep when the ship bringing them to the United States arrived in
New York Harbor and her mother woke her up to see the
Statue of Liberty.
[6]
During the war years her father worked as a diamond cutter; then the
family opened the first of what became a chain of five dress shops in
Manhattan.
[7]
She graduated from Hunter College High School in 1954. She then attended
Hunter College, part of the
City University of New York, where she studied Psychology and Anthropology and also where she met her future husband,
Leonard Lauder, then a trainee naval officer, on a blind date.
[7] She graduated from Hunter College in 1958.
[8] The couple were married on July 5, 1959.
[8] After the marriage, she worked for several years as a public school teacher in
Harlem before leaving to work with her husband at the company founded in 1946 by her mother-in-law,
Estée Lauder, which at the time sold six products: a red lipstick, creams, lotions, and Youth Dew fragrance in a bath oil.
[9][7]
Career
Lauder was the Senior Corporate Vice President of the
Estée Lauder Companies and a member of the board of overseers at the
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
[10] A 1995 profile in
The New York Times
called her "an immaculately turned-out, awesomely organized woman" who
had started to fill the public role that had been filled by her
mother-in-law, Estée Lauder.
[9]
Lauder, an executive at Estée Lauder, created the
Clinique brand name and developed its
product line.
[11] She worked as the training director for Clinique and was the first person to wear the trademark white
lab coat, now worn by Clinique salespeople at cosmetic departments worldwide.
[11]
Breast cancer activist
Lauder personally raised much of the $13.6 million that went to create the
Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center,
which opened in October 1992 and focuses on the treatment and diagnosis
of breast cancer. She helped raise an additional $5 million to create
an endowment to be used to fund
clinical research there.
[9]
Self magazine's first annual issue for
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month came after an April 1991 lunch at the
21 Club, at which Lauder discussed ideas for articles about breast cancer with her friend
Alexandra Penney, who was then serving as editor of
Self.
[12]
Together with Penney, Lauder established
The Breast Cancer Research Foundation and formalized the
pink ribbon as a symbol for
breast cancer awareness as part of
Self
magazine's second annual Breast Cancer Awareness Month issue in 1992.
Penney's inspiration to improve on the success of the magazine's first
annual issue was to create a ribbon that would be placed in Estee
Lauder's New York City stores. Lauder made the commitment to have the
ribbons placed on the company's cosmetics counters across the United
States.
[10][13]
By 1993, Lauder had overseen the creation of a new shade called Pink
Ribbon that was part of her personal and corporate effort to raise
breast cancer awareness. Her husband paid for the cost of registering
The Breast Cancer Research Foundation in all 50 states. By the start of
1995, some $900,000 had been raised for the foundation, including
$120,000 from the sale of Pink Ribbon lipstick and blusher and $190,000
from the sale of the
Clinique Berry Kiss pink lipstick.
[9]
By October 2008, the Estée Lauder Companies estimated that the firm's
Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign had raised $335 million towards
research and distributed 80 million pink ribbons.
[14]
Personal life
She was married to
Leonard Lauder, former Chairman of the Estée Lauder Companies, from 1959 until her death. They had two sons:
- William P. Lauder, Executive Chairman of the Estée Lauder Companies; and[15]
- Gary M. Lauder, Managing Director of Lauder Partners LLC.[15] He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and received an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University.
In 1994, Gary married Laura Heller, daughter of Marlyn G. McClaskey and
William A. Heller of California. Rabbi Peter Rubenstein performed the
ceremony at the Central Synagogue.[16] Laura serves as General Partner of Lauder Partners.[15] They have two children: Josh and Ellie.[17]
Death
Evelyn Lauder died at home in
Manhattan from complications of
nongenetic ovarian cancer.
[18] She was a longtime resident of
Palm Beach, Florida.
[11] A private funeral service was held at the
Central Synagogue in New York City.
To see more of who died in 2011
click here