Edward Lasker (May 15, 1912 – July 11, 1997) was an American businessman and Thoroughbred

racehorse Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...

owner.

Biography

He was one of the three children of Flora Warner and her husband, Albert Davis Lasker (1880-1952), the owner of

Lord & Thomas Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB), is one of the largest global advertising agency networks. It is owned by Interpublic Group and was merged in 2006 with Draft Worldwide, adopting the name Draftfcb. In 2014 the company rebranded itself as FCB. Parent ...

, a highly successful Chicago advertising agency, who was also the owner of the

Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...

Major League Baseball team.Morello, John A.
"Albert Lasker"
''Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present'', vol. 4, edited by Jeffrey Fear. German Historical Institute; accessed June 26, 2013. His sisters are Mary Lasker Block (1904-1981) and

Frances Lasker Brody Frances Lasker Brody (1916–2009) was an American arts advocate, collector, and philanthropist who influenced the development of Los Angeles' cultural life as a founding benefactor of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and later as a guiding p ...

(1916–2009). Edward Lasker graduated from Yale University in 1933. He then joined his father's advertising agency where he worked until 1942 when he joined the U.S. Navy and served in the Pacific. In 1935, he married

Gimbels Gimbel Brothers (known simply as Gimbels) was an American department store corporation that operated for over a century, from 1842 until 1987. Gimbel patriarch Adam Gimbel opened his first store in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. In 1887, the compa ...

department-store heiress Caral Gimbel (daughter of Bernard Gimbel), but the marriage ended in divorce and Caral wed baseball star Hank Greenberg in 1946. After the war (by which time his father had left the advertising business), Edward Lasker moved to the West Coast of the United States where he became a film producer in Hollywood. In 1947, Lasker married actress Jane Greer with whom he had three children: Alex and Lawrence Lasker (both

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

s and producers) and Steven Lasker. In 1963, Lasker married Cynthia Stone Palmer. In 1929, Lasker became involved in Thoroughbred horse racing as an owner/breeder. After his marriage, his wife also became a race horse owner. At age forty, he went back to university to study for a law degree. After graduating in 1955 from the

University of California in Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

he began practicing law and served for many years on the boards of directors of Phillip Morris, Inc. and Great Western Financial. Edward Lasker died in Los Angeles on July 11, 1997, aged 85.

References

Sources

* Ingham, John N. ''Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders'' (1983)

Greenwood Press Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

1912 births 1997 deaths Yale University alumni UCLA School of Law alumni American people of German-Jewish descent American racehorse owners and breeders Businesspeople from Chicago 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American businesspeople Gimbel family {{US-business-bio-1910s-stub