Klinger, Georgette

(b. 28 February 1915 in Brno, Moravia [now the Czech Republic]; d. 9 January 2004 in New York City), aesthetician who pioneered natural and herbal skin care, skin care for men and teens, and day spas, building a multimillion-dollar company and earning the title of the “Dean of Skin Care.”

Klinger was born Gejungi Eckstein but was called Georgette. She was the only daughter and the third of four children of Benno Eckstein, a textile manufacturer, and Ilona (Rosenthal) Eckstein, a weaver and gardener. The wealthy family had a summer home near Brno, including a vineyard where foreign guests were often entertained.

Klinger attended school in Vienna, Austria, and won a beauty contest at age eighteen. When the products she won irritated her skin, her mother took her to a dermatologist in Vienna. Fascinated by his work, Klinger developed an interest in skin-care products based on natural ingredients. She stayed in Vienna to study dermatology and also studied with dermatologists and cosmeticians in Zurich, Switzerland; Budapest, Hungary; and Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic).

In about 1936 Klinger married Frank (Franzi) Klinger, a lawyer. In 1938 she opened a salon in Czechoslovakia despite the objections of her husband’s family to her working. She said that she threatened to play piano nonstop if she were not allowed to work.

To escape the Nazis, Klinger fled Czechoslovakia for London in 1939 along with her husband; her brother, Ernest; and his wife. Her father had died in 1937, but her mother would not leave their home. (Later Ilona Eckstein contracted pneumonia and died en route to Spain while trying to flee.) Klinger and her brother both had blonde hair and blue eyes; she was fluent in German, and he posed as a German officer as they both helped provide exit visas to others trying to escape. During the blitzkrieg they stayed in London, where Klinger opened a costume jewelry business. When Klinger left London, she passed on the successful business to a friend. Her brother and husband worked clandestinely for the movement to free Czechoslovakia during World War II.

Klinger immigrated to the United States in 1941 (some sources say late 1940) on an empty troop ship. An uncle who lived in Great Neck, New York, helped her obtain a loan to open a small salon in Manhattan in 1941. By 1943 she had signed a lease at 509 Madison Avenue in New York City, where the salon, called Georgette Klinger Inc., remained until 1959, moving a few doors away to 501 Madison Avenue, where the flagship salon is still located. Georgette Klinger’s name is inlaid on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to the four-story building. The steel double doors feature a cutout lily-of-the-valley pattern, which is repeated in frosted glass running along a chrome spiral stairway inside. Klinger’s initial success was through word of mouth, as she did not advertise. Her logo was her handwritten signature.

Unlike other salons, which offered hairdressing and makeup services, Klinger’s salon concentrated on skin care and hired only staff trained in Europe. She wore a magnifying glass around her neck and never hesitated to proffer her analysis of someone’s skin. The facial treatments used her own formulas of scientifically developed lotions, mixed in her own kitchen with natural ingredients. In the 1980s she was one of the first to combine collagen and elastin, although she was always skeptical of “miracle cures.”

Having divorced her first husband in about 1946, Klinger married Jacobo Eisenberg, a Venezuelan businessman, on 21 November 1949. She became a naturalized United States citizen, although the date is unknown. Kathryn, their only child, was born in 1951.

In 1969 Klinger opened a second salon, this one in Los Angeles. In 1977 her daughter became director of the privately owned company, and they opened a salon in Beverly Hills, California. By 1979 there were four salons in the United States, and by 1998, when the company was sold to the Pyle Group, there were nine salons, including locations in Florida, Texas, and Illinois. In 1977 the products were trademarked, and in 1982 Klinger set up a facility in New Jersey to manufacture her products on a larger scale. Her clientele included Hollywood stars who flew to New York for treatments and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

With coauthor Barbara Rowes, Klinger wrote Georgette Klinger’s Skincare (1979), which describes her scientific approach to skin care, always emphasizing cleanliness as the most important aspect of healthy skin. Going against the norm, she advised against using foundation makeup and night creams, although eventually she did sell makeup and suggested using night creams in certain circumstances. Klinger also warned against exposure to the sun, explaining as early as 1943 the scientific reasons that sun damages and prematurely ages skin. This idea contradicted the accepted wisdom that sun is good for skin. Klinger connected smoking, air pollution, and medications to skin problems and recognized diet and exercise as important aspects of a good skin-care regime.

Klinger was a philanthropist and continued to aid Czech refugees after she moved to the United States. She also helped her younger brother, who had been sent to Palestine before the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, set up a business. She supported organizations to help the homeless and the Schepens Eye Research Institute (her husband Jacobo Eisenberg had suffered from a detached retina). In October 1981 she received the first Woman of Vision Award from the Eye Research Institute of the Retina Foundation. In 1982 she was invited to join the Committee of 200, an organization of “outstanding businesswomen” who ran businesses with revenues of more than $5 million annually. Klinger was known by the hats she wore and for her habit of carrying her pet poodle, Pushka, in a Louis Vuitton case when she lunched at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan.

Klinger died at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City of natural causes. A funeral at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home in Manhattan was followed by burial in Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York.

Klinger’s salons led the way for the day-spa industry. Her pampering attracted the rich and famous to her salons. She was the first to develop special treatment programs and products for teenagers (1967) and men (1972), and there were separate facilities for each in her salons. Her salons were recognized for using products that were not tested on animals. Klinger’s name was synonymous with the highest standards of excellence, and her facials were considered the penultimate symbol of beauty, referred to in art reviews and other articles. One writer in the New York Times claimed that “Georgette Klinger was to the facial as Greece was to mythology.”

Some biographical information is in Klinger and Barbara Rowes, Georgette Klinger’s Skincare (1979). Most articles about Klinger, such as one in the New Yorker (5 Feb. 1972): 81–82, focus almost exclusively on her facials and skin-care philosophy and contain little biographical information. But there are some quotes by Klinger about her life and philosophy in both a profile in DC and I (Dec. 1986): 12; and in an interview in Women’s Wear Daily (20 Mar. 1992): T14. She appeared on the short-lived Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) show 30 Minutes in 1979. Obituaries are in the New York Times and Women’s Wear Daily (both 14 Jan. 2004).

Jane Brodsky Fitzpatrick