Albert Bildner
Albert Bildner of Manhattan and Water Mill died on June 4 at Mt. Sinai Medical Center. He would have been 97 on June 22.
Mr. Bildner had been in frail health for the past three years. He had a very full and exceptionally productive life. According to survivors, he always maintained an amazingly sharp intellect, full of knowledge and wit, and totally undiminished by age or sickness. He enjoyed a family of close friends who marveled at his wonderfully active mind and wide-ranging interests.
In the two weeks prior to his last hospitalization, Mr. Bildner saw “Death of a Salesman” on Broadway, had lunch with City University of New York Graduate School and University Center President Bill Kelly, spent the weekend with his son Max by taking in the Diego Rivera exhibit at the Musuem of Modern Art, and spoke at the City University of New York Graduate Center on his encounter with Leon Trotsky (whom he translated for), Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera (whom he chauffeured for) in 1937 in Mexico.
A year ago, for his 96th birthday, he cruised with his wife on a paddle-wheeler steamboat on the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. His only complaint of the cruise: “There were too many old people.”
Mr. Bildner was a successful businessman and philanthropist. Born in 1915 in New York, where he was educated through high school, he was a 1937 graduate of Yale University, and served in the United States Navy during World War II as a lieutenant commander. Following the war, Mr. Bildner attended Yale Graduate School from 1945-46, studying Spanish literature.
After operating a family-owned chain of supermarkets on Long Island, Mr. Bildner left in 1948 to start a chain of supermarkets in Venezuela for the Rockefeller brothers’ International Basic Economy Corporation, or IBEC, the first in South America. Subsequently, he became an importer and food business consultant in Venezuela.
Mr. Bildner resided in Brazil from 1959 to 1976, first as president of Crown Cork and Seal do Brasil, and later as founder and operator of his own business, DRURY’s S/A. That venture, started in 1960 with an investment of just $10,000, became the largest spirits business in Latin America with annual sales in excess of $100 million throughout South America. In 1973 he sold the business to Heublein Inc., and returned to the United States.
In 1977, Mr. Bildner joined the not-for-profit Business Marketing Corporation in New York City, and served as its president from 1978 to 1979. In August 1978, he was appointed special ambassador by President Carter to attend the inauguration of the president of Colombia.
In 1982, he established and funded the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies at The Graduate School and University Center of CUNY. Since 1980, Mr. Bildner has served on the Board of Trustees of The Graduate Center at CUNY, where he received an honorary doctor of humane letters in 1994.
He served on the boards of numerous science, educational and cultural institutions including Americas Watch, the Anti-Defamation League, Acción International, the Weitzman Institute of Science, Ben Gurion University and the American Place Theatre. For 40 years, he has funded the annual Bildner Prizes in Spanish and Portuguese literature and travel grants to Brazil at Yale University. He was fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and French. He and his wife, Lin Ilusorio Bildner ran the Albert & Lin Bildner Foundation.
Mr. Bildner is survived by his wife Lin; his son, Max; and many friends and family throughout the world.
A memorial service is being planned in the fall.
on Jun 15, 2012