October 2002

Saleswoman Extrodinare           

Louise Orr

by Barbara M. Ingber

   Louise H. Orr is a natural-born salesperson. You don’t necessarily think that when you see her today, smiling and quiet, erect in her wheelchair, white hair elegantly coiffed, mouth carefully lipsticked, blue eyes shyly meeting yours.
    “She’s a sweet and endearing person, kind of reserved,” says Rebecca Reagan about her grandmother. “She came out of her shell when talking about Charles of the Ritz and what it could do for you.”
Orr’s granddaughter, Katie McCullough, says, “My grandmother always laughs about the time she saw a nun sit down on the pink patent-leather seat at Miller & Rhoads to rest her feet. Mamalou ended up selling her something. She’d say, ‘Your skin looks a little dry….’”
    When she was working, Orr preached staying out of the sun—long before doing so was politically correct—and using her product. “You need this!” she’d say, if someone rejected her suggestions. Chances were, she’d make the sale.
    Born in Salem, Virginia, Orr moved to Bristol, Tennessee, as a child. Her first job was selling handbags, then cosmetics, for her uncle, an owner of H. P. King Company, a Bristol department store. In the process of divorcing her first husband and with a one-year-old son in tow, she came to Richmond in October of 1937.
    Orr had already accepted a position with Charles of the Ritz at the downtown Miller & Rhoads store. She sold cleanser, toner, night cream, foundation, lipstick, and mascara—a full line of makeup and skin care products formulated, Orr says, for “a natural look.” Chief among them was Revenescence, the first moisturizer ever made.
Orr still uses it.
    Her skin, still beautiful at 92, was Orr’s primary selling tool. “I gained the confidence of customers by selling myself to them, I guess,” she says.
    Although someone else always worked the counter with her, the others came and went. Orr was consistently one of the cosmetic company’s top salespeople, exceeding $100,000 per year in sales. As a result, Charles of the Ritz bigwigs wined and dined her in New York City. In 1966, she was rewarded with a trip to London and Paris. To celebrate her 45th anniversary with them, Miller & Rhoads threw Orr a formal party at the Country Club of Virginia. Charles of the Ritz executives came down from New York to attend. A limousine picked up Orr’s family from their little house on Laburnum Avenue. Later that week, the Miller & Roads Tea Room was the site of a luncheon for 600 of Orr’s best customers.
    Orr kept in touch with more than 25,000 clients. She made a card for each, noting name, skin color and type, and products used. She would call whenever new products came in, or when she suspected they were running out of their favorites.
    McCullough recalls seeing her grandmother in action: “She’d pull up a card [filed in one of 20 shoeboxes], call the number, and say, ‘I haven’t seen you in a while….’”
    Orr’s clients were from Richmond and environs, from Waynesboro, and from Hawaii, England, and Germany. Beyond the confines of the counter, customers sometimes became friends. Rebecca recalls one.
“Millie McIntyre, a wealthy eccentric, would go out to eat with Mamalou for years. When [McIntyre] died, she left Mamalou tons and tons of china, furs, and French linen.”
    McCullough remembers a semicircle of powder containers, her grandmother measuring and mixing. When Charles of the Ritz stopped making face powder about eight years ago, the remainder was shipped to a sales representative in Tidewater. She stored the product in her garage, delivering it to Orr as needed. Orr was one of the first—and the very last—in the country to blend powder to match an individual’s skin color.
    When Miller & Rhoads closed in 1990, Louise Orr moved across the street to the Charles of the Ritz counter at Thalhimer’s. When that store’s doors shut, she went to Hecht’s at Regency Mall, then to Belk’s/Leggett’s/Dillards at Willow Lawn. She worked full time until her doctor ordered her to quit. She was 90.
    Orr’s eyes sparkle when she remembers her many years selling Charles of the Ritz at Miller & Rhoads. “It was easy,” she says, quietly. “I loved it.”

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