REMEMBERANCE: KEVYN AUCOIN

He struggled his way to the top of the professional make-up industry by emphasizing the beauty within. His motto was that it was far more important to help a woman feel beautiful no matter what, and that makeup was simply his tool for helping her discover herself. A proponent of the philosophy that every woman is beautiful within, he was one of the best-paid celebrity make-up artists in history.

He worked with hundreds of A-list celebrities like Cher (above), Janet Jackson, Tina Turner, Gwyneth Paltrow, Courtney Love and Vanessa Williams. He became a highly in-demand makeup artist, often acquiring $10,000 per session for photo shoots or award shows.

As a published author (The Art of Makeup, Making Faces, and Face Forward), he was fond of taking celebrities (and various other men & women, including his mother) and using makeup and costume (and sometimes prosthetics) to make them look like other celebrities, or like other people entirely. He transformed Tori Amos into Mary Queen of Scots, Celine Dion into Maria Callas, Liza Minnelli into Marilyn Monroe, Christina Ricci into Édith Piaf, Hilary Swank into Raquel Welch, Winona Ryder into Elizabeth Taylor, and Martha Stewart into Veronica Lake, among others. (picture to left is Lisa Marie Presley as Marilyn Monroe from book Making Faces)

Aucoin lived with his partner, Jeremy Antunes, whom he married in an unofficial ceremony in Hawaii in 2000 and thereafter referred to as his husband. He had also previously been romantically involved with Eric Sakas, who after their breakup remained close friends with him and became president and creative director of Kevyn Aucoin Beauty.

In October 2001, just one month after launching his own cosmetics line, Aucoin was diagnosed with a rare pituitary tumor. He had been suffering from acromegaly resulting from the tumor for much of his life, but it had gone undiagnosed. He died in May (7th) 2002 of kidney and liver failure due to Tylenol toxicity, due to an addiction to prescription painkillers used to treat the extreme pain from his condition. A musical homage, called "Taxi Ride," was written for him by longtime friend Tori Amos.