Dr Fredric Brandt, the celebrity dermatologist who died Sunday at his home in Coconut Grove, Florida, was once called the 'Baron of Botox' by W magazine. He was 65.
Frederica Burden, a spokeswoman for the Miami police, said the cause was suicide.
Susan Biegacz, a publicist for Brandt, said he had been dealing with depression for some time and had recently been "devastated" by what is widely believed to be a parody of him on the Tina Fey comedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, presented by Netflix.
On the show, Martin Short portrays Sidney Grant, a wispy-haired plastic surgeon whose pneumatic features suggest experiments with Botox and facial fillers run amok.
With his own wispy blond locks and pneumatic features, Brandt was a walking commentary on age-defying treatments and the products that have flooded the market since they were introduced as medical means of treating facial wasting among AIDS patients, and that he always tried first on himself.
For all his apparent flamboyance, his fondness for outlandish designs from labels like Comme des Garçons and his stellar clientele - including supermodels, trophy wives, industrial titans of either sex and Madonna - Brandt was an esteemed physician. His involvement in research trials and wide knowledge of the latest anti-aging techniques made him a sought-after speaker at dermatologic conferences around the world.
"When he came into dermatology it was people treating sunspots and removing moles," Linda Wells, the editor of Allure magazine, said in an interview. "Suddenly there were all these new substances and techniques that altered our relationship to age and aging, and he was at the absolute forefront of that."
Brandt was born June 26, 1949, in Newark, where his parents, Irving and Esther Brandt, owned a candy store. An honours student, a self-professed "science geek" and an inveterate tinkerer, he developed an early interest in dismantling gadgets to see how they were made. It would prove unexpectedly beneficial to his professional career.
"Before Botox was out, when collagen was around in the 1980s, doctors were still injecting individual wrinkles," said Peter Kopelson, a prominent Beverly Hills dermatologist. "When we're young our faces are top-heavy, and as we get older they become bottom heavy. Fred was one of the first to look at the face structurally and understand the possibilities of using fillers to restore that underlying structure. He was a huge pioneer of that."
After graduating from Rutgers University, Brandt obtained a medical degree from Drexel University medical school and completed medical residencies in oncology and nephrology at New York University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan before moving to the University of Miami and settling on dermatology as a specialty.
In 1982 he opened a private practice in Miami, where his developing expertise with newly introduced injectable substances earned him a special place among the growing ranks of cosmetic dermatologists. It was only after expanding his practice to New York in 1998, and splitting his time between the two cities, that Brandt developed a celebrity clientele, a successful skin-care line (Dr Brandt Skin Care) and a relationship with Madonna that went a long way toward establishing his own celebrity brand.
"How he got Madonna I don't know," said Joan Kron, a writer who has covered the beauty industry for decades. "But I'm sure the Madonna connection was a tremendous boost."
Madonna, in an email to a reporter for The New York Times last year, wrote, "If I have nice skin, I owe a lot to him."
©2015 The New York Times News Service
