Joseph Cullman

Joseph Frederick Cullman III (April 9, 1912 – April 30, 2004) was an American businessman who was CEO of Philip Morris from 1957 to 1978.

Early life Cullman was born to a Jewish family on April 9, 1912, in New York City, the son of Frances Nathan Wolff and Joseph F. Cullman Jr. He had two brothers Edgar M. Cullman and Lewis B. Cullman (married to Dorothy Freedman Cullman). He was educated at the Collegiate School (New York City) and the Hotchkiss School.

In 1929, Cullman's father purchased the Webster Tobacco Company after the 1929 stock market collapse where the younger Cullman worked during the summers while attending Yale University from which he graduated in 1935.

During his tenure as CEO, the Philip Morris brand Marlboro became the most popular brand of cigarette in the United States. Described as "the cigarette industry's chief defender against the antitobacco movement",

Personal life In 1935, he married Susan Lehman, daughter of Harold M. Lehman and member of the Lehman family; they had one daughter, He then married Joan Paley Straus who had two children from a previous marriage, Tracy Straus and Barnard S. Straus Jr. They divorced soon after marrying but moved back in together after several years and remarried in 1988.

Away from the tobacco industry he had an interest in tennis. His company, Philip Morris, at the request of Gladys Heldman, sponsored the first Virginia Slims Women's Tennis Tour starting in 1970. He served as chairman of the US Open at Forest Hills in 1969 and 1970 and as both president and chairman of the International Tennis Hall of Fame from 1982 to 1988, into which he was inducted in 1990.

In 2002 Cullman donated an endowment to the Smithsonian Institution to establish the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History rare book collection.