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PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATT POWER (PORTRAIT); JULIE SKARRATT (EVELYN AND LEONARD) SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY a laudatory effort AS THE NEW ACTING CHAIRMAN OF THE BREAST CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION, LEONARD LAUDER TAKES UP THE CAUSE CHAMPIONED BY HIS LATE WIFE, EVELYN. BY JANET CARLSON A t The Breast Cancer Research Foundation's Hot Pink Luncheon and Symposium in Palm Beach this past February, Leonard Lauder, one of America's best-known business figures, stepped to the podium and said modestly, "I introduce myself these days as Mr. Evelyn Lauder." He paused for the bittersweet applause before adding, "because I am absolutely dedicated to my dear wife Evelyn's dream of cur- ing and preventing breast cancer." Three months earlier, in November 2011, Evelyn Lauder died at home in New York City, at age 75, of nongenetic ovarian cancer. A woman of many accomplishments, Evelyn held the position of senior corporate vice president at Estée Lauder and oversaw fragrance development worldwide. She famously founded The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) almost two decades ago after a bout with breast cancer (which was successfully treated). To date the BCRF has directed nearly $41.8 million to scientists at major institutions in New England, and this month more than $5.8 mil- lion will be awarded to 33 researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and a half-dozen other institutions in the area. During the tribute for her in New York City's Lincoln Center this past January, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, "She didn't just give a speech or write a check, she created a movement, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, which has raised more than $350 million for research and given us an iconic symbol, the pink ribbon." Leonard Lauder, still active as chairman emeritus of The Estée Lauder Companies, is a dedicated philan- thropist—his commitments include the Whitney Evelyn and Leonard Lauder at the 2010 Hot Pink Party. Museum of American Art, the Alzheimer's Drug Dis- covery Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations, The Aspen Institute, and the Memorial Sloan-Ketter- ing Cancer Center (to which The Leonard & Evelyn Lauder Foundation gave $50 million to help build the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center). He decided to pick up the BCRF baton "because I felt it had to be done. I was present at the creation." Dr. Larry Norton, scien- tific director of BCRF and deputy physician-in-chief at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, recalls of those early days: "We were at their apartment in New 58 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM