Mary Kay Ash, Mary Kay Cosmetics founder, 83

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Thursday November 22 10:25 PM ET 

Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics Dies

By JOHN McFARLAND, Associated Press Writer 

DALLAS (AP) - Mary Kay Ash, whose pink Cadillacs and eponymous
cosmetics company made her one of the most famous women in American
business, died at her home in Dallas on Thursday. She was 83. 

Ash, who had been in fragile health in recent years, died of natural
causes, Mary Kay Inc. said in a news release. 

``The world has lost one of its greatest champions of women and one of
the most loving and inspirational business leaders,'' said Ash's son,
Richard Rogers, who is also co-founder, chairman and chief executive
officer at Mary Kay. 

Mary Kay Inc. grew from a sales force of 11 in 1963 to more than
750,000 in 37 countries and wholesale revenue of $1.3 billion last
year. But Ash's fans said she was about more than profits, and enriched
women's lives at a time when it was difficult for them to succeed in
the corporate world. 

``I wasn't that interested in the dollars-and-cents part of business,''
Ash once said. ``My interest in starting Mary Kay Inc. was to offer
women opportunities that didn't exist anywhere else.'' 

Ash spent most of her life known simply as ``Mary Kay,'' one of the
most recognizable names in the United States. As Mary Kay Corp.'s
founder and chairman emeritus, she inspired devotion from a
400,000-member sales force. 

Each year the convention she held in Dallas attracted thousands of
saleswoman who paid their own way to hear, cheer and revere their
founder. 

With hard work, the saleswomen - and occasionally a salesman - could
move through the ranks of the company to earn the prized position of
national sales director. The person who now holds the position earns
more than $800,000 annually, and company spokesman Randall Oxford said
more than 150 women have earned at least $1 million working for Mary
Kay. 

``I want you to become the highest-paid women in America,'' Ash said in
her motivational speeches. 

Mary Kay also created an award system designed specifically for women,
including such items as mink coats, diamond rings and the famous pink
Cadillac. 

The compacts and boxes that contained her makeup were also pink, and
Ash once owned a pink 19,000-square-foot mansion with a gigantic pink
marble bathtub. 

She was born Mary Kathlyn Wagner on May 12, 1918, in Houston. By age 6,
she was caring for her seriously ill father while her mother worked 14
hours a day at a restaurant. Ash said her mother encouraged her to
excel in everything from school work to selling Girl Scout cookies by
telling her almost daily, ``You can do it.'' 

Ash married Houston radio personality Ben Rogers at 17 and had three
children. Ash wrote in her autobiography that the marriage dissolved
after Rogers entered the Army. 

Moving to Dallas, Ash took a part-time job for Stanley Home Products,
selling household goods at parties in women's homes in 1938. She
studied to become a doctor, but focused on sales full-time as her
success grew. She would write weekly sales goals in soap on her
bathroom mirror. 

Eleven years later, she joined another direct-sales company, World
Gifts, as national sales director. According to a biography on her
company's Web site, Ash quit in 1963 when a male colleague hired as her
assistant was promoted over her at twice her salary. 

``Those men didn't believe a woman had brain matter at all. I learned
back then that as long as men didn't believe women could do anything,
women were never going to have a chance,'' she told Texas Monthly
magazine in 1995. 

Out of work, Ash began to collect her thoughts for a how-to career book
for women. The musings turned into her idea for Mary Kay Cosmetics. 

``I began asking myself, 'Why are you theorizing about a dream company?
Why don't you just start one?''' Ash said. 

Ash bought a formulation for a skin-care cream developed by an Arkansas
tanner, promoted it as a beauty product and recruited friends to sell
``Beauty by Mary Kay.'' Her sons worked for her. 

Ash told employees to put God first, family second, and career third. 

``We must figure out how to remain good wives and good mothers while
triumphing in the workplace. This is no easy task for the woman who
works full-time,'' she wrote. 

``With your priorities in order, press on, and never look back. May all
of your dreams come true. You can, indeed, have it all.'' 

The company was profitable almost immediately, and had nearly $200,000
in revenues the first year. But soon, Ash was entangled in lawsuits
with former employees who bought what they said was the Arkansas
tanner's original formula for beauty cream and started their own
company. 

The bitter fight was settled in 1969, and both sides were able to claim
their formula came from a tanner, although Ash was barred from using
the tanner's name or image in her promotional material. 

Mary Kay Cosmetics grew rapidly in the 1970s, breaking $100 million in
sales in 1979, and it sold stock to the public. Ash was profiled on
CBS' ``60 Minutes.'' 

But sales sagged in the mid-'80s. Shares of the company lost more than
75 percent in value. In 1985, Ash and her family borrowed to buy the
company back and take it private. New products were introduced and
brochures were updated. 

Ash retired as chairwoman in 1987. She was rarely seen in public after
a stroke in 1996, although company officials said she watched videos of
each year's Seminar to keep track of her company. 

Rogers, who left the company in 1992, returned this year as chief
executive. The company has tried to maintain its growth by expanding
rapidly overseas and by targeting new markets, including a line of
cosmetics and skin-care products for teen-agers. 

Ash wrote three books: a 1981 autobiography called ``Mary Kay''; a
business book, ``Mary Kay on People Management'' in 1984; and a
motivational volume, ``Mary Kay - You Can Have It All,'' in 1995. All
made best-seller lists. 

Ash's husband, Dallas sales representative Mel Ash, whom she married in
1966, died of cancer in 1980. Her daughter, Marylyn Theard, died of
pneumonia in 1991. 

Ash is survived by her two sons, 16 grandchildren, 28 great
grandchildren; and a great-great grandchild. 


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