James Crown dead in Colorado racetrack accident at 70; Chicago billionaire had just announced plans to enlist CEOs to fight violent crime

Chicago businessman James Crown, who recently pledged to address violent crime in Chicago by enlisting fellow CEOs to join him in a massive jobs program, died Sunday in a crash while driving on a racetrack outside Aspen, Colorado.

Mr. Crown, 70, was chairman and chief executive officer of his family business, Henry Crown & Co. in Chicago, and managing partner of Aspen Skiing Co.

On Sunday, his 70th birthday, Mr. Crown was at Aspen Motorsports Park in Woody Creek, Colorado.

“He was driving a race car, and it hit a wall going around a curve,” said his father, billionaire financier Lester Crown.

The Pitkin County, Colorado, coroner’s office, said Mr. Crown’s death was an accident and that he suffered blunt force trauma.

“He was the leader of our family both intellectually and emotionally, and he looked out for everybody,” Lester Crown said. “He also was a great leader also for the community.”

Just weeks ago, Mr. Crown, a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, announced that he and other Chicago corporate leaders were committed to finding jobs for as many as 10,000 young men from high-crime areas.

Mr. Crown, who headed a Commercial Club task force on public safety, set an ambitious goal of reducing the number of killings in Chicago to fewer than 400 a year within five years. Last year, there were 695.

“People are really hoping that we can get traction here,” Mr. Crown said in a May 31 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. “But it’s gonna take a lot of years before we can look back on this and say that we really had a lasting impact.”

Lester Crown said his son’s civic-mindedness was something he came to on his own.

“Basically, he loved to take care and do things for people,” he said. “He had no bias and very little ego. Just a remarkable, remarkable human.”

Mr. Crown, who also was a director of General Dynamics and JPMorgan Chase & Co., was one of the wealthiest people in Chicago. His family was ranked 34th-richest in America by Forbes in 2020, which estimated its fortune at $10.2 billion.

“One thing people who knew Jim well would say about him, which puts him in a rare category, in my experience, is that he was super-smart, really low-key and really down to earth and gentle,” said his friend Christie Hefner, former CEO of Playboy Enterprises. “He wore his success and his power lightly.”

Hefner said his effort to address factors that feed violence is a “great example of who he was as a person, in terms of a deep feeling of responsibility to Chicago. It’s so easy to sit on the sidelines and be critical.”

Mr. Crown — who lived in Chicago and was a part-time Aspen resident — was one of President Barack Obama’s key Chicago fundraisers ahead of his first run for president.

“It’s just sad for the city and leaves a gaping hole for me and so many others,” said Penny Pritzker, a friend who was commerce secretary under Obama and recruited Mr. Crown to help lead Obama’s fundraising. “When asked to help, he never said no.”

Mr. Crown had played host to the Obama family in Aspen and for years threw a mountaintop Fourth of July party there at which high-powered guests, after riding a gondola up to the festivities, would find such Chicago staples as hot dogs, pizza and Eli’s cheesecake.

“He also hosted a father-daughter ski outing,” Pritzker said. “You can imagine the chaos of that, and yet he was just right there in the middle with all these dads and little kids. He took the most joy from his immediate family and doing activities together.”

President Joe Biden, who hosted Mr. Crown at a state dinner last week, said, “Jim represented America at its best — industrious, bighearted and always looking out for each other.”

In a written statement, Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama called Mr. Crown a “dear friend” and one of his “most perceptive advisers” dating to when Obama first ran for the U.S. Senate.

“His generosity of spirit, his eagerness to help — that’s something we got to know up close,” the Obamas said. “Just a couple weeks ago, we spent an evening with Jim and [his wife] Paula and experienced Jim’s warmth and kindness for what we didn’t know would be the last time.”

Born in Chicago, Mr. Crown got a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1976 from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and a law degree from Stanford Law School in 1980. He then worked for Salomon Brothers Inc. in New York City before returning to Chicago in 1985 to work for his family’s investment firm.

Mr. Crown’s survivors include his wife, children Torie, Hayley, W. Andrew and Summer Crown, his parents Lester and Renée Crown, grandchildren Jackson and Lucas McKinney and six siblings. A memorial service is being planned.