NEW YORK — Pink was Evelyn Lauder’s color.
In her long career as an executive at cosmetics giant Estee Lauder Cos., the company founded by her mother-in-law, Lauder worked with many shades of red, peach, bronze and even blues, but pink was the hue that changed her life.
In 1992, Lauder worked with her friend Alexandra Penney, the former editor in chief of Self magazine, to create the pink ribbon campaign for breast cancer awareness.
It started small, with Lauder and her husband, Leonard, largely financing the little bows given to women at department store makeup counters to remind them about breast exams.
That grew into fundraising products, congressional designation of October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month and $330 million in donations — $50 million from Estee Lauder and its partners — to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, which Lauder also started.
That money helped establish the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Lauder died Saturday at her Manhattan home from complications of nongenetic ovarian cancer. She was 75.
Lauder had been diagnosed with her cancer in 2007, but it didn’t slow her down much.
Come each October, she appeared at cancer awareness events around the world.
The rest of the time, she went to work at Estee Lauder’s Fifth Avenue headquarters.
She came up with the name of its popular Clinique brand during the 1960s. Most recently, she held the title of senior corporate vice president.
Her other passion was photography, and she was the author of the book “In Great Taste: Fresh, Simple Recipes for Eating and Living Well.”
Born Evelyn Hausner in 1936 in Vienna, she fled Nazi-occupied Europe with her parents, and they settled in the U.S. She attended public schools in New York City and Hunter College, part of the City University of New York.
As a college freshman, she met her husband, the elder son of Estee Lauder.
They married in 1959. Leonard Lauder is now chairman emeritus of the company. Estee Lauder died in 2004 at 97.
Their son William is executive chairman of Estee Lauder Cos. Another son, Gary, is managing director of Lauder Partners LLC, a technology investment firm.
