Evelyn Lauder: Beauty queen

If you like a fancy fragrance, the chances are that the daughter-in-law of Estée is probably behind it. She tells James Sherwood why she loves 'the dirtiest business in the world'

When the legendary beauty queen Estée Lauder retired in 1995, her daughter-in-law Evelyn became, arguably, the most powerful woman in the beauty business. Her husband Leonard is chairman of the Lauder empire, which is worth close to $4bn annually, and Evelyn is senior corporate vice president. But hers is no grace-and-favour moniker for a trophy wife. Evelyn Lauder is responsible for all Lauder-owned fragrances, including Beautiful and her latest, greatest hit, Beyond Paradise, currently the number-one bestseller in the US prestige fragrance market.

Her day job isn't even the half of it. In 1993, Evelyn Lauder founded her Breast Cancer Research Foundation and raised $70m at the last count. In addition to this, she helped raise $15m to build the Evelyn Lauder Breast Center in New York and dreamt up the pink ribbon to publicise the annual Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. She is one of the most powerful philanthropists in the world.

From her CV, one might expect one of those Teflon-coated Manhattan socialites whom Tom Wolfe named "social X-rays" in his autopsy on New York social politics, The Bonfire of the Vanities. This is a woman who counts Hillary Clinton as a friend, as she did Diana, Princess of Wales. She has finer Picassos, Rothkos and Legers in her Manhattan apartment than the Metropolitan Museum in New York. But, although the diminutive, 66-year-old's Hermès scarf and Chanel bouclé wool jacket are the uniform of super wealth and emanate quiet class, she lacks all pretension or ceremony.

Lauder came to London to accept a life-time achievement award from Britain's Cosmetic Executive Women society at Claridge's, and we met in one of the three Mayfair townhouses that comprise her London base.

She's as excited by the success of Beyond Paradise as a girl going to her first prom: "We have never had a success this big. It's unheard of. We hit the bull's-eye! The advertising is fabulous, the bottle is gorgeous, the fragrance is good, and people have responded to it."

I ask how she retains her energy level when she has been sitting on top of an empire as monolithic as Estée Lauder since the late 1950s. She laughs like a drain. "But it wasn't an empire then. We had a receptionist, two secretaries and Estée's office. My husband didn't have an office, I didn't have an office and my father-in-law was dealing with the manufacturing. That was it. When I joined the company turnover was under $1m."

Lauder showed immense chutzpah in choosing to enter a family business headed by as powerful and garrulous a mother-in-law as Estée. I suggest it's a smart lady who makes friends with her mother-in-law. "No, no, it was the other way around," protests Lauder. "She was fabulous to me and I was very, very lucky. She was terribly clever to be a good mother-in-law. It's always the mother-in-law who sets the tone. I have friends who told me they started their own business because they were made to feel unwelcome by their mothers-in-law. But she wanted me in the business. It was all hands on deck and I loved it."

Evelyn Lauder is a poster girl for the American dream. Born Evelyn Hausner in 1937 in Vienna, she was forced to flee to Britain with her family from Nazi-occupied Austria. Her mother, Mimi, was interned on the Isle of Man but Evelyn lived through the Blitz in London. The family then emigrated to New York where Evelyn taught in an all-black school in Harlem before she started dating Leonard Lauder in 1955.

Her double major was in Psychology and Anthropology, and it shows. "I had a choice of two schools. One was closer to where I lived downtown and had a very mixed population with white, black and Hispanic children and I felt a lot of tension among these children. So I opted for an all-black school because I thought they would be harmonious with one another. And I was quite right. If someone didn't have a pencil, someone else would break one in half and share it. The only dynamic I had to worry about was between me and them. Some were a little hostile, trying to get away with murder. They tested me every single day. But I established my authority and earned their respect." If nothing else, Harlem must have prepared Evelyn to join what Helena Rubinstein called "the dirtiest business in the world: beauty".

With Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, Estée Lauder formed the formidable troika of New York-based beauty queens who could be credited with inventing modern cosmetics. To hear Evelyn talk about her, Estée was a very grande dame; Dolly Levi with the demonic drive of Gypsy's Mama Rose. Her motto was, "Time is not on your side, but I am." In Estée's world, make-up was the not-so-secret weapon in the quest to bag a husband. "She believed it, too", says Evelyn, with a wry smile.

But Evelyn Lauder is far too smart to peddle a touch of blush or a shade of lipstick as a mantrap. "I think fundamentally we women do it for ourselves first. Of that I'm sure. I don't like looking in the mirror without thinking I've done the best I can for my face - beauty is a platform for confidence. Of course, there's a knock-on effect if other women compliment you. That's nice. And being attractive to men is nice, too. But, first and foremost, you do it for your own confidence level."

It's a smart, post-feminist agenda: personal empowerment through cosmetics and clouds of perfume. But, lest we get too cynical, it's important to note that millions of women and men are buying into the philosophy. As well as the main brand, Estée Lauder owns a veritable chemist-ful of brands - Clinique, Aramis (named by Evelyn), Origins, Prescriptives, MAC, Bobbi Brown, Jo Malone, Stila, Aveda, Crème de la Mer, Bumble & Bumble, and perfume arms for Tommy Hilfiger and Donna Karan. The company was valued at $3bn when it floated on the New York stock exchange in 1995.

Although no longer family-owned, the firm still retains Leonard as chairman, Evelyn, their younger son Gary, Leonard's brother Ronald and his daughters Aerin and Jane. Estée Lauder herself retired from public life when she could no longer fool Father Time, though she still holds the honorary title of founding chairman. Leonard's succession was smooth and the family has, as yet, escaped the crushing implosion and dynastic war that beset the Gucci clan.

Evelyn flinches at the suggestion of a matriarchy. "Dynasties! Matriarchs! It all sounds like the Borgias. We have a motto: 'We are not a family business. We are a family doing business.'" Rumours of Ronald's extravagance and Aerin's attempted coup to replace Elizabeth Hurley as the face-of-Lauder with Gwyneth Paltrow left no visible damage on the Lauder brand; Evelyn and Leonard remain serenely in control.

Lauder is also removed from the Disney-witch, New-York-beauty-queen clichés because she clearly hasn't been surgically enhanced. "What's the good of surgery if you can tell it's been done?" she asks. "My mother-in-law always said: 'Don't even think about it until you're 60. Use creams and lotions, protect your skin from the sun and then at 60, when your muscles start to weaken, that's when you do it.'"

And Evelyn Lauder's philosophy? "If you exercise, sleep well, eat correctly and hopefully are in a good relationship with someone, then it all enhances your life and your face. The most important thing is to surround yourself with people who are entertaining and don't sap your strength. I invite people to my house who don't take away my energy and are fun to be with."

This woman, whose professional metier is life-affirming beauty - the "hope in a jar" business - has chosen cancer as the focus for her philanthropic activity. "No one's life is untouched by cancer. It's in my husband's family and though there's no breast cancer in my family, there is colon cancer and prostate cancer on my side. The older generation just didn't discuss it. They'd never tell their children about it. In my view, the more you speak about something the more knowledge you have. And the more knowledge you have the less fear you have.

"In the US, we have 211,700 people diagnosed with breast cancer every year," she says. Her technique for getting results is gentle persuasion and problem solving. "I actually learnt from the people who were HIV-positive how to do this. They were phenomenally successful in drawing attention to HIV. They were my example and I was looking to them for ideas and it worked."

Lauder is calm and unruffled for most of the interview. But she laughs like a Bronx cab driver when asked the secret of survival at the top of New York's greasy society pole. "We are really unforgiving. Don't make a mistake. Ever! Make a mistake and you're dead."

She is similarly firm about business practice. "We don't fool around like some of those CEOs who have disillusioned shareholders. Don't disillusion them. To have those golden parachute buyouts, where somebody can walk away with $200m and the shareholders get a dollar and fifty cents? That's not right. We're very proud that we're an honourable company. We don't fiddle around with books and we're a public company so nothing is secret."

Making a mental note to cash in my premium bonds for Lauder stock, I mention the Martha Stewart case and see Lauder the social lioness roar. "Martha's a friend of mine and I have to say she doesn't deserve those accusations. They are a tempest in a teapot. There's a huge 'I hate Martha Stewart' club right now, and do you know why? Because Martha does everything right and makes every other women look like a failure: she can look glamorous... she has her hair done just right... she's a successful businesswoman... and the damn woman can cook! It's just jealousy."

This is a brief but sharp demonstration of why people and major organisations such as cancer charities want Evelyn Lauder on their side. She has a backbone of steel to "just keep rolling along", as she calls her fund-raising. She knows how to get results and her secret, it seems, is an ability to read people, from presidents to interns, and connect with seeming effortlessness on their level. It's a talent very few people possess.

I tell her I'm going to New York in January to see Bette Midler perform, and she's immediately into camp banter. "Do you love Bette? I love her. She's the best. Isn't she the best? Actually, she's sung for me, as have Liza and Elton. She asked if she could host one of her benefits in one of my houses and I said: 'Sure. You sing for me and I'll sing for you.'" That says it all.