Celebrity News

Alzheimer’s Foundation gala raises $2M

Leonard Lauder — the billionaire chairman emeritus of Estée Lauder — was accompanied by his new love, Linda E. Johnson, the president and CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation’s dinner at Sotheby’s late last week. Also at the gala for the foundation, created by Lauder, was honoree Paula Zahn, who made an impassioned speech in which she described her mother’s steady decline from an active teacher and parent to the point where she doesn’t recognize her children because of the dreaded disease. We’re told the evening raised $2 million to help fund research programs to fight Alzheimer’s, helped along by auctioneer extra-ordinaire Jamie Niven, whose determined call for more contributions raised $500,000 alone. Also on view was the auction house’s latest collection: the Fernand Léger cubist painting “Three Women,” owned by Madonna. The singer wrote a note displayed alongside the work that read, “I have chosen to auction this painting and donate all the proceeds to support girls’ educational projects in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries where female education is rare or nonexistent. I cannot accept a world where women or girls are wounded, shot or killed for either going to school or teaching in girls’ schools.” It will be sold tomorrow for an estimated $5 million to $7 million.