Oliver Belmont

popular name: Charles Revson

date_of_death: August 24, 1975

age: 68

cause_of_death: Pancreatic cancer

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: Charles Revson was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was best known as a pioneering cosmetics industry executive who, with brother Joseph Revson along with a chemist, Charles Lachman (who contributed the "L" in the Revlon name) created and managed Revlon through five decades. Notoriously difficult and brilliant, Revson was the visionary behind the growth of Revlon, which he had started with his brother. Among his business innovations were “matching lips and fingertips.” Before Revson decreed it, no one had thought of coordinating the two by color. In fact, there weren’t many shades available to women until he promoted a wide spectrum of reds, pinks, and oranges with exotic and provocative names. Revson also pioneered perfumes driven by personality—Norell, which he named after the fashion designer, is considered to be the first great American scent—and he ushered in the idea of the supermodel by offering ­Lauren Hutton an unprecedented $200,000-a-year exclusive deal in 1973, marking the beginning of huge cosmetics contracts. Today Revlon gross sales are approaching $2.0 billion dollars.

popular name: Hugh Hefner

date_of_death: September 27, 2017

age: 91

cause_of_death: Sepsis and cardiac arrest caused by an E. coli infection

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: Hugh Hefner transformed the adult entertainment industry with his groundbreaking publication Playboy. From the first issue featuring Marilyn Monroe in December 1953, Playboy expanded into a multimillion-dollar enterprise mirroring the often controversial, if not outright sleazy, sensibilities of its founder. By the early 1960s, it was a huge success, soon expanding to open its namesake clubs all over the world. It also moved into TV with Playboy After Dark. By the 1970s, Hefner set himself up at the Playboy Mansion West in California, remaining editor-in-chief of the magazine he founded while daughter Christie ran the day to day operations. Once worth in excess of $200 million, upon his death the Playboy empire was worth $55 million while the magazine folded in 2020.

popular name: James Gamble

date_of_death: April 29, 1891

age: 88

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Business and Finance

best_know_for: In 1819, the George Gamble family set sail for American to seek their fortune in an area of Illinois that was being promoted. Because of illness of a son, they stopped and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. A son, James Gamble, at 18 apprenticed in the soap business and eventually formed his own company. After marrying Ann Norris, he merged his company with that of William Proctor who married Ann’s sister. And in 1837 that was the start of the Proctor and Gamble Company. In 1858–1859, sales reached $1 million. By that point, about 80 employees worked for Procter & Gamble. During the American Civil War, the company won contracts to supply the Union Army with soap and candles. In addition to the increased profits experienced during the war, the military contracts introduced soldiers from all over the country to Procter & Gamble's products. In the 1880s, Procter & Gamble began to market a new product, an inexpensive soap that floated in water. The company called the soap Ivory. Beginning in the 1880s, P&G advertised its wares in full-page advertisements in many general-interest magazines; by 1921, it had become a major international corporation with a diversified line of soaps, toiletries, and food products; in that year, its annual advertising budget reached $1 million. In the 1920s, P&G advertised its products on the new medium of radio, and from 1932 forward was one of the biggest sponsors of daytime serials, which soon acquired the nickname of soap operas. In the television era, P&G sponsored and produced some twenty soap operas across six decades before the last of its shows ended in 2010. Today Procter and Gamble employees over 101,000 employees with total sales exceeding $76 billion. Upon his death in 1891, he was laid to rest at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, OH.