Arden, Elizabeth |
| BUSINESSWOMAN (CANADA) |
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BORN 31 Dec 1878, Woodbridge, Ontario - DIED 19 Oct 1966, New York City, New York: Lenox Hill Hospital, Manhattan BIRTH NAME Graham, Florence Nightingale GRAVE LOCATION Sleepy Hollow, New York: Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, 540 North Broadway |
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Daughter of a Scottish grocer from Ontario. After she went to New York (where she joined her elder brother), she worked as a bookkeper for a pharmaceutical company. In their lab she learned about skincare. After this she worked for Eleanor Adair and in 1909 she teamed up with Elizabeth Hubbard. After they went seperate ways she took the business name Elizabeth Arden, after Elizabeth Hubbard and Tennyson's poem "Enoch Arden". She went to France in 1912 to learn beauty techniques and when she was back she introduced moden makeup in the USA. With the chemist A.F. Swanson she developed Venetian Cream Amoretta, a huge success. Arden Skin Tonic was another success. In 1915 she married the banker T.A. Lewis and she became an American citizen. During the 1920s and 1930s she opened salons all over the world. During World War II she sold Montezuma Red lipstick, matching the color of the red on the uniforms of the women. In 1934 she divorced Lewis. In 1941 the FBI started an investigation to find out if her salons in Europe were covers for Nazi operations. In 1942 she married Prince Michael Evlonoff, but she divorced him in 1944. She always dressed in pink. She was active in horse racing and her stable won many prizes in the USA. In 1962 she received the Légion d'Honneur in France. When she died in 1966 she left between $30 and $40 million dollars. Her company was bought by Unilever and sold to FFI in 2003. FFI subsequently changed its name to Elizabeth Arden. |
| Images |
 The grave of Elizabeth Arden at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New York. Picture by Androom (15 Apr 2008) |
