Later Years

Beatrice Alexander, 1895 – 1990

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Alexander remained actively involved with the Alexander Doll Company into her early nineties. She made public appearances for the Company throughout the 1980s, always met by enthusiastic throngs of people. A 1983 visit by Alexander drew record crowds to Walt Disney World, where a special events planner told Alexander that she was "more popular than Elvis."

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Alexander's day-to-day participation in the life of Alexander Doll was waning, however. She had ceded control over everyday operations to her son-in-law and grandson, Richard and William Birnbaum, in the 1970s, and she spent increasing amounts of time in her second home in Palm Beach, Florida. There she became involved with a new set of local cultural and philanthropic causes and contributed significant sums of money towards the election of Republican politicians.

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In 1988, at the age of 93, Alexander officially retired and sold the Alexander Doll Company to three private investors. She remained nominally as a design consultant, but in actuality the Company had passed from her hands. She died on October 3, 1990, in Palm Beach.