Pierre de Beaumont, 1915-2010

Via the New York Times comes news that the owner of mall and catalog gadget retailer Brookstone, Pierre de Beaumont, died last December. He was 95 years old. There are over 300 Brookstone locations in various shopping centers across North America; the article goes a bit into its history, divulging that the name came from the de Beaumont farm and the original focus was hard-to-find tools sold through a catalog.

The obituary also reveals that the trained engineer son of the French Count de Beaumont -- born in America when his mother visited there while her husband was off fighting the war that killed him -- was the owner of the Mutt & Jeff property. His mother married cartoonist Bud Fisher in 1925. They separated for maybe the greatest recorded reason in the history of marriage, what the article describes as the cruelty from Fisher to Countess of "permitting her permitting her to be neglected by his servants while they looked after a number of live frogs he maintained in their former apartment on Riverside Drive." The Fishers didn't divorce, however, and when the cartoonist died in 1954, the rights moved to the Countess, and, later, her son. The strip is apparently still in syndication, although exactly what is being offered and who's creating it isn't immediately clear; the strip is credited to the late mega-retailer, who retired in 1980s after selling off Brookstone.

thanks to everyone that sent the link
 
posted 11:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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