Makeup Mogul Victoria Jackson's Extraordinary Story — From Saving Her Daughter to Her Beauty World Comeback (Exclusive)

When Victoria Jackson walked into a boardroom full of men in the mid-'80s to convince them she could sell her makeup line, Victoria Jackson Cosmetics, on TV, she was met with blank stares.

"They didn't think women would buy makeup if they couldn't touch the products," she tells PEOPLE of pitching her first television infomercial program. "I told them, 'If you put your money where my idea is, I'll make you millions.'"

And make it, she did. She sold a history-making $1 million worth of cosmetics in the first week of her first infomercial. A 10-year career run on QVC followed, and she completely revolutionized the beauty industry, launching more than 600 products and generating a billion dollars in sales.

Pretty impressive for someone without a high school diploma.

Jackson's life is so extraordinary, that her close friend and mentor, feminist icon Gloria Steinem, tells PEOPLE, "If you put her in a novel, it would be unbelievable.”

An Unsteady Start

Born in New York in 1955 to a mother who was "too young to have a child" and raised in a house with alcoholic stepfather, Jackson says she lived in a state of "survival mode" during her early years. When she was 17, she was sexually assaulted and stabbed in her own bedroom by a serial rapist who was later convicted of multiple crimes.

"I never went back in my room again," she says of the horrific experience. "I could have let that be a defining moment where I never got off the floor again. Or I could go, ‘Okay, that is really horrible and I'm going to do the work to help me get to the other side. It's always going to be there, but how can I move through it?’”

Jackson left home and moved to West Hollywood, Calif. What started as mixing "concoctions" in her garage, led to a beauty school scholarship in 1976 and a successful career as a makeup artist.

"I didn't graduate high school, so I don't know what colleges I would've gotten into," she says. "I was a creative from early on, [passionate] about decorating, designing and making things beautiful."

She worked on many magazine shoots, including her "big break" — a 1980 PEOPLE cover with Dallas' Larry Hagman.

"I was looking at beauty, just waiting for money to happen," she says.

Jackson took advantage of downtime on set by tapping into her "entrepreneurial" spirit, which led to creating her own foundation, and in 1986, Victoria Jackson Cosmetics was born.

Revolutionizing the Makeup Industry

Under the mantra, “When you look better, you feel better and when you feel better you can change the world,” Victoria Jackson Cosmetics represented a direct backlash to the overly saturated, heavy makeup looks that defined the decade.

The brand was built around Jackson's "no makeup makeup" philosophy (a term she would later trademark in 2000).

Jackson brought her less-is-best approach to her hugely lucrative and popular infomercials with the goal of educating and empowering women. Her bestselling beauty survival kit — a full face of makeup in one convenient compact — was a massive success, all leading to her boundary-breaking QVC career.

By 1988, Jackson taught her philosophy as part of an extension class at UCLA, where she would continue to mentor for a decade. She also volunteered at Southern California prisons giving mini makeovers and sharing the power behind her products, as well as business knowledge.

Her business thrived and so did her personal life. In 1991, she married Bill Guthy, cofounder of the direct-to-consumer company Guthy-Renker. Shortly after, they had two children, Ali and Jackson. (She welcomed her first son, Evan, in 1986 with her late first husband, Joe.)

But another life-changing pivot would soon follow.

A Mom on a Mission

To hear Jackson tell it, “this is the part of the story where I put down the mascara, and open the book on medicine.”

In 2008, Jackson's daughter, Ali, was diagnosed with the rare autoimmune disease neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and given four years to live.

"You're thinking, 'I've got to cram four years of life into my 13-year-old,'” she says. “I remember Ali going to the prom, and in my mind, I had to find her the best dress, because this was going to be the last dress.”

Jackson literally picked up the books and taught herself all the basics of molecular immunology. She started the Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation to fund life-saving research to better understand, treat and cure NMO. And then she did what she’s known for: She brought people together.

Through her work, she enrolled more than 1,000 people with the disease in a patient registry, collecting data that would create the world’s largest biorepository for NMO. By 2020, her groundbreaking work pushed through three FDA-approved treatments for the disease. She also created the NMO Resources app to keep patients informed. To date she has contributed $80 million of her own money.

Ali, now 31, has defied her initial diagnosis, thanks to treatment from her mother's indomitable efforts, and so have so many more living with NMO.

“I have parents that come up to me at my conferences and are hugging me and little kids that are grabbing onto me because you know that they're not as afraid,” she says. “It is such a gift to be able to have that kind of money to be able to make a difference in people's lives.”

The Rebirth of No Makeup Makeup

Last fall, the mogul returned to the beauty scene with the reinvention of her brand under the name No Makeup Makeup, one that skyrocketed to the forefront of pop culture thanks to the pared-down bridal beauty look her friend Daniel Martin created on another close friend, Meghan Markle, for the 2018 royal wedding.

“I think now more than ever, people feel, ‘I don't have to hide behind it all.’ Look at women like Pamela Anderson and Sharon Stone. They're feeling more confident in themselves and in their skin. That’s always been the philosophy of No Makeup Makeup.”

$80 at nomakeupmakeup.com

As for her newly formulated No Makeup Makeup foundation, Jackson calls it "the best product I ever made."

Available in 13 shades, the foundation's 4-in-1 acts as a color-corrector, redness-corrector, concealer and foundation in one and is designed to enhance your own natural complexion.

On Jan. 17, Jackson returned to QVC alongside her newly formulated foundation and this time, no one was surprised when it sold out.

A New Book and Bookstore

Jackson just released her fifth book, We All Worry, Now What?, which details her five-step approach to facing fear. "I wanted to have this conversation together because there are common things we all worry about," she says.

As a "black belt worrier," Jackson has built her own coping tactics shared in the book, which also includes a collection of essays from famous voices like Steinem, Jane Fonda, Monica Lewinsky and Kris Jenner who all share their unique perspectives on navigating worry.

"I think they're all really brave, very courageous for being willing to talk through their anxiety," she says. "They really showed up."

Jackson also opened the bookstore Godmothers in Summerland, Calif., alongside her friend, celebrated literary agent Jennifer Rudolph Walsh.

"I wanted to create a space that's really where you're bringing community together to gather and tell stories," she says.

Jackson also exercised her passion for decorating.

"It's beautiful. When you enter, it's a Godmother Hall, which holds all these images of women that have made a difference throughout history," she says. "It's just really cool."

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended the opening last year, along with Oprah and Maria Shriver.

"My friends are so important to me," she says. "I'm so lucky."

As for what's next for Jackson, who turns 70 in August? There's no doubt there's more trailblazing to be done.

"I'm a manifester," she says. "If I can see it, I can achieve it."

The print version of this story erroneously stated that Jackson made her infomercial debut on QVC. She made it prior to joining QVC.

Read the original article on People