Robert Taylor, 1935–2013

last updated 8 January 2015

Robert Taylor knew he had a winning idea for a product the moment he thought of it. Looking at the mess a bar of soap had left on his bathroom sink, he spotted a gap in the market for a bottled liquid soap dispensed by a pump. Realizing bigger companies would quickly copy his idea, he borrowed $12 million—every penny his business was worth—and ordered 100 million little plastic pumps from U.S. manufacturers, creating a back order so huge that no rival could buy pumps for at least a year. In 1987, a few years after the soap giants caught up, Taylor sold Softsoap to Colgate-Palmolive for $61 million. “The best way for an entrepreneur to compete in today’s marketplace,” he later said, “is to avoid competition—or at least circumvent it.”

Born in Baltimore, Taylor showed an early flair for business, said the Los Angeles Times. “As a boy, he sold a homing pigeon to a pet store several times,” and in 1963 started his own firm, selling scented, hand-rolled soaps. Working initially from his Minnesota home, he was soon supplying more than 100 products to department stores. In 1980, Taylor bought Calvin Klein’s failing cosmetic line for about $1 million, and later rolled out a wildly successful TV campaign for Obsession perfume. The advertisements’ erotic, surreal imagery and its provocative tagline—“Between love and madness lies Obsession”—was lambasted by critics and lampooned on Saturday Night Live, said The New York Times. He loved the attention, said his daughter, Lori Lawrence. She recalled him saying, “That’s called free advertising.”

Taylor never stopped working, said the Associated Press, teaming up in one of his final ventures with London stylist Graham Webb to create hair-care products. While going through her husband’s papers, Mary Kay Taylor found handwritten notes under the heading, “What you need to be a successful entrepreneur.” One item read, “Unique idea—fill a gap!” Of building businesses, Taylor wrote, “Each one gets easier—never easy.”