Cosmetics magnate Leonard A. Lauder has made the biggest gift the Whitney Museum has ever received.

Little-known philanthropist Chuck Feeney has patterned his life on an Irish proverb: “There are no pockets in a shroud.”

As Margot Roosevelt of the Los Angeles Times reported in a rare profile yesterday, Feeney plans to give away $8 billion in the next 8 years.

Feeney, co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers, which was bought by Bernard Arnault in 1997, put most of his fortune into Atlantic Philanthropies eight years ago. He gave the foundation leadership an usual mission: Spend every dollar by 2016.

James H. Simons keeps putting his money where his mind is.

The billionaire former mathematics professor and his wife, Marilyn Hawrys Simons, have given $60 million to Stony Brook University.

Brad Pitt is unlikely to quit his day job, especially with a houseful of Jolie-Pitt munchkins. And judging from the picture of partner Angelina’s much talked about “bump” during this past weekend’s Independent Spirit Awards, child number five may be on the way.

Crime novelist Patricia Cornwell has learned that even generosity can need an explanation.

Cornwell gave $1 million donation to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City this month.

But worried that some of her remarks about the gift might be read as demeaning police officers, Cornwell last week spent $250,000 to set the record straight.

The Nuclear Threat Initiative may soon receive a big boost from the deep-pocketed Peter Peterson.

Lev Leviev is perhaps best known as the man who defied De Beers, the mighty cartel that controlled the flow of the world’s supply of rough diamonds.

By doing so, Leviev has become one of the world’s richest men. Close friends claim he’s worth about $8 billion, but Forbes lists him at a conservative $4.1 billion.

And of course, immense wealth almost always makes access easier to the halls of political power. Among his circle of friends are the heads of state of the splintered republics of the former Soviet Union and the African nations of Angola and Namibia.

Do a Google search for Dr. Larry Brilliant and you’ll get links to the worlds of medicine, technology, music and religion.

Prominent, too, is a link to Google Inc. itself, as Brilliant, 63, is now the executive director of Google.org, the Internet company’s philanthropic arm.

Andre Agassi

Hey, bowling fans, ever wondered whom to thank for ESPN’s coverage of your once-neglected sport? That’s Steve Miller, who, while president and CEO of the Professional Bowlers Association, negotiated two exclusive television deals with the network.

This week, Miller was named to the newly created post of chief executive officer of the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation, which is trying to become national in scope.

Alan Schwartz’s predecessor as CEO of Bear Stearns spent too much time on the golf course and at the bridge table, critics say.

That shouldn’t be the case for Schwartz, named to the top spot this week. Besides his demanding job, Schwartz is very involved in philanthropy and community affairs.

Who knew Bill Gates could be funny?

In his “last day” video shown at the Consumer Electronics Show Sunday, Gates debuted his comedic side, with the help of some famous friends.

In the video, Gates goes over the opportunities he could possibly pursue after leaving Microsoft full-time. He pumps iron with Matthew McConaughey, raps with Jay-Z, and offers his Guitar Hero skills to U2’s frontman, Bono. After trying to negotiate a biopic with Steven Spielberg and George Clooney, Gates offers his services as a running mate to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

During life, Heinz Prechter was a powerful force in industry and politics.

He got his start in the 1960s, by installing car sunroofs, a feature common in his home country of Germany, but relatively unheard of then in the U.S. Prechter built the operation into a global automotive company, ASC Inc.

At the same time, he assumed enormous influence in Republican politics, co-chairing the national finance committee for President George H.W. Bush’s 1992 re-election and bringing early support to George W. Bush’s first presidential run.

Yet his public image was very much at odds with his private torments. Prechter suffered from manic depression, or bipolar disorder, but had kept his illness secret.

In 1961, A&P supermarket heir Marie Robertson and her husband, Charles, gave $35 million in stock to Princeton University for its Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Today, the gift is worth more than $880 million.

But the university and the descendants of the couple have spent millions in legal costs in a years-long fight over how the money should be used.

The Ford Foundation announced today that Luis A. Ubinas, a director of McKinsey & Company, will be its new president.

Ubinas will succeed Susan V. Berresford, who is retiring after 12 years as president and 38 years with the organization.