Jay Pritzker


Jay Arthur Pritzker was an American entrepreneur, conglomerate organizer, and member of the Pritzker family.

Early life and education

Pritzker was born in Chicago, Illinois to a Jewish family that arrived in Chicago from a Jewish shtetl near Kyiv, Ukraine in 1881, the son of Fanny and Abram Nicholas Pritzker. He had two brothers: Donald Pritzker and Robert Pritzker. At the age of 14, Pritzker was admitted to the University of Chicago. He then went on to graduate with a B.S. from Northwestern University in 1941 and a J.D. from the Northwestern University School of Law in 1947.

Career

Pritzker diversified the Chicago-based family business—which then consisted of the Pritzker & Pritzker law firm run by his uncle Harry Nicholas Pritzker and the investments made by his father and his uncle Jack Nicholas Pritzker—into the Marmon Group holding company. With his brother Robert Pritzker, he built a portfolio of 60 diversified industrial corporations. He created the Hyatt Hotel chain in 1957 with his brother Donald Pritzker and owned Braniff Airlines from 1983–1988.
In 1979 he established the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In 1982 he acquired Ticketmaster and expanded it before selling 80% for more than $325 million to Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, in 1993.
In 1996, he and his wife Cindy received the National Building Museum's Honor Award.
In 2004, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, designed by architect Frank Gehry, was completed as part of Millennium Park in downtown Chicago.

Personal life

Pritzker was married to Marian "Cindy" Friend, the daughter of Illinois appellate judge Hugo Friend, for 51 years. They had five children: