56 | OCTOBER 12 • 2023 

BUSINESS

his brother, was recently 
discontinued.
“I’ve tried to live my life 
the right way,” he says during 
an hour-long conversation 
with the Detroit Jewish News. 
“My parents were good 
people, and they taught us to 
always believe in and try to 
practice tzedakah and tikkun 
olam.” 
Setting up the foundation 
is the sort of selflessness 
you’d expect from a guy 
like Milstein, who says his 
family has “always been very 
charitably inclined.
“It was very much part 
of our ethos growing up,” 
explains Milstein, detailing 
the gifts of his parents and 
his aunt, Dr. Freda Milstein, 
who, among other charitable 
acts, built a school in Israel. 
Milstein is reluctant to talk 
about this part of his life to 
a reporter; he actually poo-
poos what he gives away each 
year. “There are hundreds 
of other business people in 
Detroit who give more than I 
do,” he says, downplaying his 
generosity.

WODEHOUSE SCHOLAR
Instead, if you really want 
to get Milstein stoked, 
try talking about P.G. 
Wodehouse.
Milstein is a recognized 
scholar on the English-born 
comic writer who became 
a controversial figure after 
recording a series of radio 
broadcasts on behalf of 
Germany when he was 
interned in Nazi camps 
during World War II.
Milstein, who won the 
P.G. Wodehouse Society’s 
Norman Murphy Award last 
October, even co-authored 

a book in 2018 entitled A 
Plum Assignment: Discourses 
on P.G. Wodehouse and 
His World, with his good 
friend from Berkley High 
School, the actor, writer and 
producer Curtis Armstrong.
Of the radio broadcasts, 
Milstein says Wodehouse 
himself admitted that he 
“made a colossal error in 
judgment.”
Wodehouse and his wife 
were reportedly living in 
the French town of Le 
Touquet when German 
armies invaded France in 
June 1940 and eventually 
placed parts of the country 
under German and Italian 

military occupation. While 
in an internment camp, 
Wodehouse agreed to 
broadcast humorous updates 
to friends in America, which 
was neutral at the time. 
He never intended for the 
broadcasts to be sent to 
England.
“Wodehouse never sided 
with the Germans, and 
he wasn’t antisemitic,” 
continues Milstein. “Sadly, 
his reputation has been 
tarnished ever since but, yes, 
it was one of the stupidest 
things he ever did in his life.”
The controversy was 
reignited several years ago 
when plans for a memorial 

tablet for Wodehouse in 
Westminster Abbey were 
made public. The memorial 
was eventually unveiled in 
September 2019.
Milstein, who holds a 
degree in English literature 
from the University of St. 
Michael’s College in Toronto, 
Ontario, from which he 
graduated in 1976, would 
also much rather talk about 
his poetry than any of his 
business accomplishments or 
philanthropy. 
Mind you, he’s no Phillip 
Levine, the late U.S. Poet 
Laureate from Detroit who 
served on the Board of 
Chancellors of the American 
Academy of Poets, but 
Milstein thinks his work “is 
pretty good, especially the 
stuff I’ve written since I’ve 
retired. It’s a very fulfilling 
hobby.”
However, it is his business 
acumen, rather than his 
haikus, odes, elegies and 
sonnets, that made Milstein 
a success.
After Genesis acquired 
C&M Pharmacal, Milstein 
stayed on as a Genesis 
vice president until 2002, 
when Pierre Fabre Dermo 
Cosmetique acquired 
Genesis. 
At Pierre Farbe Dermo 
Cosmetique, which 
was widely known as 
a pioneering skin care 
company focused on derma-
tology and cosmetics, Mil-
stein served as executive vice 
president for operations.
Milstein left Pierre 
Fabre Dermo Cosmetique 
in 2005 to join Ferndale 
Laboratories. Executives at 
Ferndale Laboratories were 
looking for someone with 

continued from page 55

BUSINESS

A bibliophile who has a degree in English Literature from the University 
of St. Michael’s College in Toronto, Ontario, Milstein calls Ulysses 
the greatest novel ever written. The copy of the book he’s holding 
belonged to his late mother, who did her Ph.D. thesis on Ulysses.

