Joseph E. Brooks Dies.(Lord &Taylor )(Obituary)

Byline: DAVID MOIN

Joseph E. Brooks Dies

Joseph E. Brooks, the flamboyant former chairman of Lord &Taylor and Ann Taylor and one of the titans of retailing in the Seventies and Eighties, died Thursday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

The cause of death was leukemia, according to his daughter, Elizabeth Brooks Rains. He was 84. A memorial service will be private.

"He was larger than life, very colorful, and he could be difficult but he had a tremendous heart," Rains said. "He brought me up to be feisty."

Brooks, a domineering sometimes controversial executive, brought a sense of elevated prestige and pride to Lord & …