Leonard Lauder, the oldest son of the founders of Estée Lauder and former CEO of the beauty empire, has died at 92, the company said in a statement.
Lauder died Saturday surrounded by family, the statement said.
“He was the most charitable man I have ever known, believing that art and education belonged to everyone, and championing the fight against diseases such as Alzheimer’s and breast cancer, ” said his son William Lauder, chairman of Estée Lauder’s board of directors. “Above all, my father was a man who practiced kindness with everyone he met. His impact was enormous.”
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“I was born in 1933, the same year that my mother founded what would become The Estée Lauder Companies,” Lauder told his story in a memoir published in 2020. The beauty company was officially founded in 1946 and has since expanded over two dozen brands selling products across the globe.
Growing up in New York City, Lauder wrote in his book “The Company I Keep” that he remembered his mother cooking up facial creams on the stove.
“The company and I grew up together, our lives as closely paired as twins. It has always been more than a family company: it was — and continues to be — my family,” he wrote.
In an interview with CBS News’ “Sunday Morning” in 2020, Lauder said the company was always a family business. His dad, Joseph, kept the books, and young Lauder packed boxes of powder and cleansing oil.
“We had a little tiny factory, and I would go there after school for 25 cents an hour and I’d work,” he said.
Lauder enlisted in the Navy after college, and joined the company in 1958, sharing an office with his mother. “I would listen to her on the phone, and did I learn,” he recalled.
Under his leadership, the company expanded, creating Clinique and acquiring other well-known beauty and fashion brands.
He also became a major art collector and philanthropist, pledging $1 billion worth of works by Picasso and other Cubist artists to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013.
