Dame Anita Roddick

Sep 12 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

THERE was perhaps a hint of the dippy-hippy in her long, bushy hair and the wisely quizzical brown-eyed stare, but behind the toothy smile lay determination, ambition and rare honesty.

“I have never felt that beauty products are the body and blood of Jesus Christ,” she said.

But some would have thought that there was something close to divine inspiration in the way Anita Roddick managed to seamlessly combine ethical notions to a thriving capitalist business.

Ethical capitalism was a new concept and it was hers.

So the former teacher and founder of the Body Shop chain was able to commune with the Indians of the Amazon – as though there was nothing more natural in the world than a sophisticated queen of commerce exchanging pleasantries with spear-fishers.

That was the charm of this daughter of Italian immigrants, Henry Perilli and Gilda de Vita, who was brought up in Littlehampton, Sussex, attending the Maud Allen Secondary Modern School.

She trained to be a teacher at the Newton Park College of Education, Bath.

But, on the road to her triumph with the Body Shop, she gained wide experience of life – in a kibbutz, teaching history and English, in the library of the International Herald Tribune, Paris, and in the Women’s Rights’ Department of the UN’s International Labour Organisation.

In 1970, she married the Scotsman Gordon Roddick with whom she had two daughters. Together, they opened a restaurant and hotel in Littlehampton.

She opened the first Body Shop in Brighton in 1976. As branches spread across the land, the public became as familiar with the distinctive dewberry-oil aroma of the shops as their green paintwork.

In the era of Thatcherism, people of different political leanings, were persuaded by her brand with its natural ingredients in plain jars, suggesting both global concern and success.

When The Body Shop was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1984, it was valued at £8m. It would eventually number more than 2,000 stores in 50 countries.

With her growing reputation came honours, including an OBE in 1988. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2003.

In 2006, she sold her business to the French cosmetic company, L’Oreal, for £652.3m. Last February, Dame Anita announced that she had been suffering from hepatitis C for 30 years.

Dame Anita Roddick, ethical capitalist; born October 23, 1942, died September 11, 2007.