Sidney Frank

Early life, family, education

Sidney Frank was born to Abraham and Sarah Frank, a Jewish family in Montville, Connecticut. He was raised in Norwich, Connecticut, and completed high school at Norwich Free Academy in 1937.

Frank enrolled at Brown University as part of the class of 1942 but could only afford a single year of tuition before leaving. During World War II, he served as a manufacturer's representative for Pratt and Whitney in India, working on methods to boost aircraft engine performance at high altitudes in the CBI theater. One solution explored was alcohol injection for engines.

Career

Sidney Frank launched his own importing company in 1973, the same year his wife died, and quickly secured the rights to Jägermeister. His first major win with the firm was Jacques Cardin brandy, bought from Seagram in 1979.

During the 1980s, he aggressively marketed Jägermeister after it caught on with Louisiana college students, transforming it from a digestive aid into a popular shot and Jell-O shooter staple. In 1997, he created Grey Goose vodka, crafted in France by François Thibault, and sold it to Bacardi for $2 billion in 2004. Later, he purchased Travel Savvy and Business Traveler magazines for $4 million, and in 2004 he invented Crunk Energy.

Philanthropy

Frank gave large bonuses to his employees and donated $12 million to Norwich Free Academy in 2005. In October 2005, he gave £500,000 and a statue by sculptor Stephen Kettle to Bletchley Park Trust for a Science Center dedicated to Alan Turing, and commissioned a life-size statue of Supermarine Spitfire designer R. J. Mitchell, funding a website about Mitchell's life. He donated $5 million to New York Medical College's psychiatry department, creating the Sidney Frank fellowship.

His foundation supported the Israel Olympic Committee and offered scholarships in Israeli sports. In 2004, he gave $100 million to Brown University, at the time the largest single contribution in its history, funding the Sidney E. Frank Scholarship for low-income students. In 2005, he donated $5 million for Brown's Hurricane Katrina relief. In 2006, Brown named its Life Sciences building after him in recognition of a $20 million gift.

Personal life, death and aftermath

Sidney Frank was married twice. His first wife, Louise "Skippy" Rosenstiel, passed away in 1973 at age 50; the couple had two children, Matthew Frank and Cathy Frank Finkelstein Halstead. He wed Marian Elinor Ombres in 1975. Frank died of heart failure on January 10, 2006, aboard a private plane traveling from San Diego to Vancouver, at age 86.

He was pronounced dead in San Francisco. Despite the presence of nurses, doctors, and a defibrillator on the plane, he could not be revived. His funeral was held at Riverside Memorial Chapel, and he was buried in the Rosenstiel family plot at United Jewish Cemeteries in Cincinnati. His daughter Cathy Frank Halstead later became chairwoman of Sidney Frank Importing Company; she is also an artist and co-founded the Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana.

Cathy Frank was central to a notorious legal case involving her grandfather's will, which led to the disbarment of lawyer Roy Cohn in 1986. Sidney Frank and his son Matthew each filed separate lawsuits against the Rosenstiel estate. In 2015, Jägermeister acquired the company, renaming it Mast-Jägermeister US, and Cathy Frank no longer holds an officer position there.