Popular celebrity dermatologist Dr. Fredric Brandt was found dead Sunday, April 5, in his home in Miami. He was 65.
Brandt, who helmed his own namesake skincare line and was known as the "Baron of Botox," worked with famous faces like Madonna, Stephanie Seymour, and many others. Most recently, Brandt was parodied by Martin Short on Netflix's new original series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
His publicist Jacquie Trachtenberg confirmed his death to Us Weekly on Monday. "He passed away this morning," his rep told Us. "He was suffering from an illness. Everyone who knows him is devastated… I worked with him for over 20 years and he was an amazing man, not only was he a brilliant doctor, but he was the kindest human being."
On Tina Fey's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Short's character Dr. Sidney Grant has platinum blonde hair, smooth skin, and a pale complexion — in the style of Brandt himself.
Brandt was born in 1949 in Newark, New Jersey. In his obit shared with Us on Monday, the medical professional was described as an "honors student" who "liked to take things apart and put them back together to make them more aesthetically pleasing."
In a 2014 profile in The New York Times, Brandt told the paper that his mission was to "restore a face to harmony."
He added: "I approach each face with a visual perception, an artistic perception and a medical perception…. I’ve been kind of a pioneer in pushing the limits to see how things work and what the look would be. Would I change anything I’ve done? I might not have used as much Botox, because you don’t want to look quite as frozen."
Brandt opened his private practice down in Miami in 1982, and wanted to accommodate his patients with a second location in New York City, which he founded in 1998. In 2001, brandt launched his eponymous skincare line.
"In all ways, Dr. Brandt was a tremendous presence in the beauty industry, a man who was incomparably skilled as a doctor but equally caring and generous as a human being," it read in the statement released to Us. "He loved singing show tunes and creating raps while he worked, keeping his patients happy and laughing while they were being injected with needles. It was impossible to walk out of his office without a smile on your face, feeling rejuvenated inside and out."
He is survived by his brother Paul, and his dogs Benji, Durya, and Tyler.
