Estée Lauder (businesswoman)

Early life and education

Lauder was born Josephine Esther Mentzer in Corona, Queens, New York City, the second child born to Rose Schotz, born in Sátoraljaújhely, Hungary, and Max Mentzer, born in Pozsony (now Bratislava, Slovakia). Her parents were Hungarian Jewish immigrants. Her maternal grandmother was from Sátoraljaújhely and her maternal grandfather was from Gelle (now Holice, Slovakia), while her father had Czech-Jewish ancestry. Lauder's claims of descent from European aristocracy were discredited in a biography, Estée Lauder: Beyond the Magic (1985) by Lee Israel. Her New York Times obituary observed "she was a New Yorker and not an aristocrat at all", notwithstanding "the mythmaking that is so much of the magic of the beauty industry". Her "favourite story was that she had been brought up by her Viennese mother in fashionable Flushing, Long Island, in a sumptuous home with stables, a chauffeured car and an Italian nurse."

In actuality, in 1898 her mother Rose had emigrated from Hungary to the United States with her five children at the time to join her first husband, Abraham Rosenthal. In 1905, Rose married Max Mentzer, a shopkeeper who had also immigrated to the United States in the 1890s. When their daughter was born, they wanted to name her Eszti, the diminutive form of the Hungarian first name Eszter, after her mother's favorite Hungarian aunt, but decided at the last minute to keep the name "Josephine", which they had agreed upon. However, the baby's nickname became "Estee", the name she would grow up using and responding to. Eventually, when she launched her perfume empire with her husband, she added an accent mark to make her name look French and began pronouncing it the way her father had in his Hungarian accent.

Lauder spent much of her childhood trying to make ends meet. Like most of her eight siblings, she worked at the family's hardware store, where she got her first taste of business, entrepreneurship, and what it takes to be a successful retailer. Her childhood dream was to become an actress with her "name in lights, flowers and handsome men".

When Lauder grew older, she agreed to help her maternal uncle, Dr. John Schotz, with his business. Schotz was a chemist, and his company, New Way Laboratories, sold beauty products such as creams, lotions, rouge, and fragrances. She became more interested in his business than her father's. She was fascinated watching her uncle create his products. He also taught her how to wash her face and do facial massages. After graduating from Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens, New York, she focused on her uncle's business.