When Interstate went bankrupt in 1974, Lazarus took the reins of the company, which emerged from bankruptcy and renamed itself Toys R Us in 1978. Perhaps anticipating that his company had peaked, Lazarus sold Toys R Us that year to the Interstate department store chain for $7.5 million, remaining with the business as head of its toys division. By 1966, he had four stores and $12 million in sales. He modeled his locations after the New York chain Korvettes, in which a large variety of products were stocked in long aisles, easily accessible by shopping cart. Lazarus opened his first toys-only store in 1957 in Rockville, Maryland, taking on the name Toys R Us in part because the letter “R” helped fit the store’s name onto signs. “I started out selling a few baby toys and realized that customers didn’t buy another crib or another high chair or playpen as their family grew, but they did buy toys for each child.” “The toy business was kind of an accident,” Lazarus later explained to the trade publication DSN Retailing Today.

Last week, it announced it would sell or close all 735 of its U.S. Acquired by private equity firms in 2005, it eventually took on $7.9 billion of debt, according to bankruptcy filings. His company soon became mired in a pitched battle against big-box retailers such as Walmart, founded by his friend Sam Walton, and e-commerce giants such as Amazon. The “Toy King,” as Lazarus was christened in headlines, stepped down as chief executive in 1994. Sign up for our new Morning Report weekday newsletter. Start your day with the news you need from the Bay Area and beyond.

Over six decades, the company grew into an international empire with a flagship store in New York’s Times Square, a giraffe mascot named Geoffrey and an earworm jingle: “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid.” Lazarus was 25 when he founded what became Toys R Us, his “supermarket for toys,” in 1948. He was 94.Ī Toys R Us spokeswoman confirmed the death but did not provide additional details. By Harrison Smith and Ellie Silverman | Washington PostĬharles Lazarus, who transformed his father’s Washington bicycle business into Toys R Us, a retail giant that rivaled Santa Claus’s workshop as one of the world’s largest distributors of games, dolls, stuffed animals and other children’s goodies before it declared bankruptcy in September, died March 22.

Charles lazarus obituary