There was a time when Leonard Lauder, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 92, had so much power that from his 1,100-square-meter duplex penthouse, he approved who could buy one of the apartments in the building on Fifth Avenue. The interior of this magnificent residence was like a museum. Over the fireplace in the main living room hung Picasso's painting Homme nu assis, and on a pedestal, a sculpture by Matisse was admired.
The billionaire was not only Estée Lauder's eldest son, who from the kitchen of their home concocted ointments that gave rise in 1946 to Estée Lauder Cosmetics, but he was also the one who launched the small company to a global level. After serving in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant, in 1958 at just 25 years old, Leonard became part of the business that still today makes all descendants immensely wealthy. At the time of his passing, Leonard owned 80 million shares valued at $15.6 billion according to Forbes.
For over six decades, he was an innovative visionary who helped transform the business from just a handful of products sold under one brand in U.S. stores to being a global multi-brand leader. Among the acquired and self-created brands are Clinique, La Mer, Tom Ford, Origins, and M·A·C Cosmetics. The Lauder family remains faithful to their founder's motto: "Whatever you do, do it well."
In a statement released by the company, his son William P. Lauder highlighted that "throughout his life, my father worked tirelessly to build and transform the beauty industry, pioneering many of the innovations, trends, and best practices that are fundamental to the industry today."
Leonard Lauder was not the typical billionaire who flaunted large yachts, private planes, or spectacular houses. Throughout his life, he donated hundreds of millions of dollars to cancer and Alzheimer's research. He most enjoyed being deeply involved in medical research, education, art, foreign policy, and philanthropy. In this sense, he was a strong advocate for the importance of public access to museums. He had an extensive art collection, and as a collector, his philosophy was to preserve, not to own.
That's why a decade ago, he made a historic donation to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (MET) of his cubist collection consisting of 78 paintings - later he donated five more by great artists - valued at around $1.1 billion. Among the most representative paintings are 33 works by Picasso (Woman on the Sofa, Our Future is in the Air), 17 by Georges Braque (The Violin or Trees in the Pond), and 14 by Juan Gris (Still Life with Checkered Tablecloth).
In 1959, he married Evelyn Hausner, whose family had fled the Nazi occupation in Austria after selling the silver from their home to obtain visas to Belgium. They had two sons, William (65) and Gary (63). After their wedding, she taught for several years at a school in Harlem, New York, and later joined Estée Lauder, where she became the senior corporate vice president, created the Clinique brand, and was the first to introduce the white coat that cosmetic department salespeople worldwide wear today. She also served on the board of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and is remembered for creating the pink ribbon to raise awareness for breast cancer. She passed away in 2011 from non-genetic ovarian cancer.
On January 1, 2015, Leonard married Judy Glickman, who, along with her late husband who passed away in 2013, had been one of the closest couples to the heir for three decades. A month after the wedding, during a conference in New York, Leonard confessed to the audience, "I am a lucky guy." As reported by Page Six, when asked about his future at almost 82 years old, he commented, "My wife Judy has, believe it or not, 16 grandchildren and is the youngest and most beautiful woman in the world. I want to see her grandchildren grow up... I will live long enough to see them all married and have children."
Professionally, Judy is a highly respected photographer whose work can be seen in some of the world's best museums such as the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in California, and in prominent private collections.