The following excerpts from the 1988 UF’s Samuel Proctor Oral History Program interview with Charles Hepner, director of advertising for the Rosen brothers in the early development of Cape Coral, offer some intriguing insight into the personalities of the Rosens. He knew them well, having worked with them as an advertiser for their Charles Antell products and later, in marketing Cape Coral.
1. “They were total opposites. Leonard was a total extrovert. Leonard would go for the dramatic…he was good at getting a group of people in the office to talk about something, and ending up getting excited, and jump up on the desk. I’ve seen him do it.”
2. “Leonard Rosen was an old carnival patron. [In the ‘40s] He used to go out on the road to carnivals and pitch this lanolin…He did this carnival pitch which took about a half an hour.”
3. “He was a professional boxer…in the carnival…He fought maybe 20, 30, 40 fights. He never won one, but he was a fighter.”
4. “Jack was an extremely bright guy…very handsome man, knowledgeable guy in sales. A real people person…Leonard would work with people and snap them like a twig. Not Jack. Jack would try to pick people up. He loved people. Jack would spend hours reading and mulling over problems. And worrying about people. They were so totally opposite. If they were similar, they probably wouldn’t have been that successful.”
5. [But]… “They fought like cats and dogs. They would battle, battle, battle. You’d think they would kill each other. But if somebody went after one of them…they were brothers. They would stand back to back and they could break the world.”
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