Charles Revson

Charles Revson was married three times. His first was brief. His second was to Ancky Revson, producing sons John and Charles H. Revson, Jr., and an adopted daughter, Penelope. He had 5 grandchildren: Jill Revson, Jennifer Mitchell, Charles Mitchell, Charles H. Revson III and Alexander Revson. He married a third time to Lyn Revson (who in the 1980s was a subject of portraits by Andy Warhol). He also had an affair with actress/singer Eartha Kitt.

Revson died on August 24, 1975 at his home in Premium Point, New Rochelle, New York.

His nephew, Peter Revson, a Formula One racecar driver and son of his brother Martin, died in 1974. Peter's younger brother Doug died before him in a racecar accident in Denmark in 1967. Peter was engaged to 1973 Miss World, Marjorie Wallace 14 days before his fatal accident in practice for the 1974 South African Grand Prix.

In 1956, Revson established the Charles H. Revson Foundation, which he funded with over $10 million during his lifetime. The foundation funded schools, hospitals, and service organizations serving the Jewish community, mostly located in New York. Upon his death, Revson endowed the foundation with $68 million from his estate and granted the board of directors the discretion to chart the foundation's future course. In 1978, the foundation began a formal grantmaking process, and since that time, it has disbursed a total of $145 million in grants and its endowment has grown from $68 million to $141 million.

In the mid-1950s, Revlon sponsored the quiz show The $64,000 Question, which became a television phenomenon and boosted sales considerably. Revson and his brother Martin, second in charge at the company, allegedly demanded that the producers control the questions in order to keep them winning and maintain the program's high ratings. This sparked what later became known as the quiz show scandal, as The $64,000 Question, The Challenge and Twenty One led to the duplication of the producers' and sponsors' dubious methods to ensure a large viewership.

Revson was born in Somerville, Massachusetts after his family immigrated from Canada to the United States. He was raised in Manchester, New Hampshire. His father, Samuel Revson, was born in Lithuania and of Lithuanian-Jewish heritage; his mother, Jeanette Weiss Revson, in Austria-Hungary and of German-Jewish background. His parents emigrated to Boston in the late 19th century where they had eight other children. Jeanette died young of pneumonia in the 1920s. Jeanette's parents, Saul J. and Mary Ella Greenberg Weiss, influenced many of their offspring to pursue success. Many of the Weiss family descendants exhibited qualities such as the perfectionism and aestheticism evident in Charles Revson's career. Revson, like many other Weiss family descendants, disassociated from most of the family of origin to create a fiercely autonomous identity.

Charles Haskell Revson (October 11, 1906 – August 24, 1975) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was best known as a pioneering cosmetics industry executive who created the first pigment-based nail polish and founded and managed Revlon through five decades.