| Anita Lucia Roddick | |
|---|---|
| Born | Anita Lucia Perilli 23 October 1942 Littlehampton, England |
| Died | 10 September 2007 (aged 64) Chichester, West Sussex, England |
| Cause of death | Cerebral hemorrhage |
| Known for | Businesswoman, founder of The Body Shop, charity work |
| Title | Dame |
| Spouse | Gordon Roddick (m. 1970–2007, her death) |
| Children | Justine, Sam |
| Parents | Henry (deceased), Gilda |
| Website | |
| www.anitaroddick.com | |
Dame Anita Roddick, DBE (23 October 1942 – 10 September 2007) was a British businesswoman, human rights activist and environmental campaigner, best known as the founder of The Body Shop, a cosmetics company producing and retailing beauty products that shaped ethical consumerism.[1][2] The company was one of the first to prohibit the use of ingredients tested on animals and one of the first to promote fair trade with third world countries.
Roddick was involved in activism and campaigning for environmental and social issues, including involvement with Greenpeace and The Big Issue. In 1990, Roddick founded Children On The Edge, a charitable organisation which helps disadvantaged children in Eastern Europe and Asia.[3]
In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Roddick a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
In 2004, Roddick was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis due to long-standing hepatitis C. After she revealed this to the media in February 2007, she promoted the work of the Hepatitis C Trust,[4] and campaigned to increase awareness of the disease.[5]
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Roddick was born Anita Lucia Perilli in a bomb shelter in Littlehampton, Sussex, in an Italian immigrant community, one of four siblings. Her family had fled Naples just before the Second World War.[6] Her mother, Gilda, ran a café and was in the habit of recycling. She went to school at St Amy's Convent, and then attended the Maude Allen Secondary Modern School.[2] Roddick's parents divorced when she was 9 years old, and her mother married her former husband's cousin, Henry,[7] who died of tuberculosis after only a few years of marriage.[2] It was not until Roddick was 19 years old that her mother told her that Henry was the biological father of Anita and her brother, but not Anita's two sisters.[2][7][8][9] Prior to this Roddick thought that her mother's first husband, Donny, was her biological father.[7]
After leaving school, Roddick trained as a teacher at Bath College of Higher Education (now called Bath Spa University), and travelled widely before her mother introduced her to Gordon Roddick, whom she married in 1970. The couple opened a restaurant, followed by a hotel. By the time they married, they already had one child and were expecting another. Roddick became the mother of two daughters, Justine and Sam, who, following in her mother's footsteps, runs her own business, the upmarket and ethical sex shop Coco de Mer.[10] Roddick worked for the United Nations, for which she traveled extensively and met people from a number of different cultures. She founded The Shop in Brighton, in 1976. The first Body Shop was basic, offering only 15 products at first. The Body Shop's full range now has over 300 products.
Roddick opened the first Body Shop with the aim of making an income for herself and her two daughters while her husband was away in South America, with the idea of providing quality skin care products in refillable containers and sample sizes, all marketed with truth rather than hype.[11] She opened her second shop six months later. On her husband's return, he joined the business. By 1991, the Body Shop had 700 branches, and Roddick was awarded the 1991 World Vision Award for Development Initiative.[12] In 1993 she told Third Way Magazine:
| “ | The original Body Shop was a series of brilliant accidents. It had a great smell, it had a funky name. It was positioned between two funeral parlours--that always caused controversy. It was incredibly sensuous. It was 1976, the year of the heat wave, so there was a lot of flesh around. We knew about storytelling then, so all the products had stories. We recycled everything, not because we were environmentally friendly, but because we didn’t have enough bottles. It was a good idea. What was unique about it, with no intent at all, no marketing nous, was that it translated across cultures, across geographical barriers and social structures. It wasn’t a sophisticated plan, it just happened like that.[13] | ” |
In 1997, Anita developed the Body Shop’s most successful campaign ever, creating Ruby, the size 16 doll, who was thought to bear a passing resemblance to Barbie. The campaign evolved from a new strategic positioning developed by ethical communications consultancy Host Universal, who created the image of the naked red-haired doll, hands behind her head and wind in her hair, that became the embodiment of the campaign. The photographer was Steve Perry.
By 2004, the Body Shop had 1980 stores, serving over 77 million customers throughout the world.It was voted the second most trusted brand in the United Kingdom, and 28th top brand in the world.
On 17 March 2006, L'Oréal purchased Body Shop for £652 million.[14] This caused controversy, because L'Oréal is involved in animal testing and because the company is part-owned by Nestlé, which has been criticised for its treatment of third world producers. Anita Roddick addressed it directly in an interview with The Guardian, which reported that "she sees herself as a kind of 'Trojan horse' who by selling her business to a huge firm will be able to influence the decisions it makes. Suppliers who had formerly worked with the Body Shop will in future have contracts with L'Oréal, and whilst working with the company 25 days a year Roddick was able to have an input into decisions."[15]
Roddick was known for her campaigning work on environmental issues and was a member of the Demos think tank's advisory council. Children On The Edge (COTE) is an organisation that Roddick founded in 1990, in response to her visits to Romanian orphanages.[3]
Upon seeing the conditions the children were in, she created COTE to help manage the crisis and worked to de-institutionalise the children over the course of their early life. COTE's mission focuses on disadvantaged children affected by conflicts, natural disasters, disabilities, and HIV/AIDS.
On 13 December 2005, the National Post reported that Roddick had decided to turn her back on the world of commerce and give away her fortune, worth some £51 million ($104 million).[14]
Roddick also wrote the book Take It Personally, which encourages equality and an end to the exploitation of workers and children in underdeveloped countries.
After her death her husband, Gordon Roddick, founded 38 Degrees in her memory, explaining, "I knew what would make Anita really laugh would be to cause a lot of trouble." [16]
On 14 February 2007, Roddick revealed she had been diagnosed with hepatitis C. Roddick said, "I have hepatitis C. It's a bit of a bummer, but you groan and move on".[5] On 30 August 2007, less than two weeks before her death, Roddick was a special guest in an episode of the live television programme Doctor, Doctor broadcast on Channel 5 in the UK, in which she talked about hepatitis C with the presenter and general practitioner, Mark Porter.[17]
On live television, Roddick explained that her hepatitis C was unexpectedly diagnosed in 2004, following a blood test that was part of a medical examination needed for a life insurance policy; the blood test indicated abnormal liver function and subsequent blood tests diagnosed hepatitis C. Roddick explained that she had a large blood transfusion in 1971, after the birth of her younger daughter, and that she was convinced that the transfusion had infected her with hepatitis C. This was about 20 years before blood donors were screened for hepatitis C in the United Kingdom. She reported that she had developed cirrhosis of the liver, and that her main symptoms were itching and poor concentration. She briefly mentioned that medical treatment with interferon did not suit her. Roddick explained that she kept fit and active, and that she attended biannual out-patient hospital appointments in Southampton, as well as being under review by the liver transplant team at the Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.
Roddick died of acute brain hemorrhage at about 6:30 p.m. on 10 September 2007, after being admitted to St Richard's Hospital, Chichester the previous evening suffering from a severe headache.[1] She fulfilled her promise to leave her estate to charities, on moral grounds.
Dame Anita Roddick was a close friend of Littlehampton Community School. In 2003, it successfully applied to become a Business and Enterprise specialist school. Much of the money that was required was donated by Anita Roddick. As a result of this donation, a new building that was built with this money was named 'The Roddick Enterprise Centre' (normally abbreviated to 'REC'). The Littlehampton College also hosts 'Roddick Days' such as 'Day of Action' and 'One World'; these events allow students to give something back to their local community and learn about what is happening around them.
The school is currently planning the building of an academy. Following the death of Dame Anita Roddick, it has been widely suggested that any future academy should be given her name in memory of the local entrepreneur.
Jon Entine notes that Anita Roddick copied the name, concept and original brochures from the original The Body Shop, which was started in San Francisco and had three stores when Roddick visited the Bay area in the early 1970s. Roddick's original brochures were word-for-word copies of the San Francisco-based Body Shop. When Roddick decided to expand her multinational corporation into the United States, she bought the rights to the Body Shop name from the original shop owners in exchange for a gag agreement. The original Body Shop renamed itself Body Time, and is still flourishing. Entine also notes The Body Shop did not make charitable donations for its first 11 years of existence, despite Roddick's statements to the contrary.[18] The Body Shop opened in Brighton in March 1976. The company entered the stock exchange in 1984. The first sponsorship, which was made possible by the wealth generated by the IPO, was for Greenpeace posters in 1985. The IP for "The Body Shop" in the USA was purchased for $3.5 million some time later.[11]