Mr. [Leonard] Lauder, the emeritus chairman of the Estée Lauder Companies, had seemed disarmed by his wife’s emphatic offer of a house tour. But after a quick moment, he appeared to reconsider her spontaneity with the amusement of a new husband tickled by his wife’s whims.
Mr. Lauder, who hooked his arm around his wife’s waist, dramatically pulled her close and said, “I’m going to leave you” — theatrical pause — “for an older woman.”
His wife burst into laughter and then rested her head on his lapel. Mr. Lauder closed his eyes, as if trying to absorb the moment.
And on the first day of this year, Mr. Lauder, 82, married Judy Glickman, 77, the widow of one his closest friends. She is a mother (of four), a grandmother (of 16), a free-spirited photographer, a daily practitioner of meditation and a woman of her own financial means.
Perhaps the most important factor in their marriage together were the marriages they both cherished with their late spouses.
Leonard and Evelyn were married for 52 years at the time of her death, and Al and Judy were married for 54 at the time of his, in 2013.
Mr. Lauder reached out to her, and they set up a lunch at the Little Nell, in Aspen.
Mr. Lauder was enthralled.
Mr. Lauder said, “I left that lunch with my jaw hanging open saying, ‘Wow.’ ”😂
About a week after the Aspen lunch, in early January 2014, Mr. Lauder made his move. “I called Judy and invited her to spend the weekend with me in Palm Beach,” he said.
She declined.
She then called up her friend Mrs. Lautenberg [wife of New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg] to tell her that Mr. Lauder had invited her to Florida and that she had said no.
“You said what?” Mrs. Lautenberg replied. “Call him back!”😁
“So I did,” the new Mrs. Lauder said.
“Their love, attraction and giddiness is really magic,” David Glickman said. “They are absolutely teenagers in love.”
Mr. and Mrs. Lauder were married on New Year’s Day. The ceremony was officiated by two of Mrs. Lauder’s three sons and one of her daughters-in-law, all rabbis.
To commemorate their love story, Mr. Lauder had T-shirts made. The words printed on them read: “You said what? Call him back!”