217Typically, there might be around thirty articles: Helen occasionally explained how the magazine was put together in “Step Into My Parlour.” Additional background from Walter Meade and Linda Cox, interviews with the author.
217George made up a schedule for an upcoming issue: Ibid.
218“How can you have a hole”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, August 1965, SSC.
218“Have you written anything recently?”: Ibid.
29: MR. RIGHT IS DEAD
219“The girl of the fifties would stay home”: Associated Press, reprinted as “The Bookshelf: ‘Romance Wanes in Cynical Sixties,’” Milwaukee Sentinel, September 13, 1965.
219“How would you go about telling your date”: Referenced by Lily Rothman, “The Surprisingly Feminist Roots of The Bachelorette,” Time, May 18, 2015.
220“The Girl Ghetto”: Paul Stewart, “The Girl Ghetto: Manhattan’s Swingiest Square Mile,” Cosmopolitan, September 1966.
220At night they gathered at singles bars: Background from Malachy McCourt, A Monk Swimming (New York: Hachette Books, 1998), passim; and Nicola Twilley, “A Cocktail Party in the Street: An Interview with Alan Stillman,” New City Reader, November 12, 2010, available at www.ediblegeography.com/a-cocktail-party-in-the-street-an-interview-with-alan-stillman/.
220“passion pads”: Background on singles housing from “Housing: Pads for Singles,” Time, August 26, 1966.
221“Many single women take cruises or head alone”: Thomas Meehan, “New Industry Built Around Boy Meets Girl,” Cosmopolitan, September 1965, SSC.
221“Don’t listen to the pessimists. You can do it!”: Lyn Tornabene, “Do Be an Actress!” Cosmopolitan, September 1965.
221“What’s new this month, pussycat?”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, September 1965.
222“If you hate being away from your darlings”: Ibid.
222“rumple-proof” sari; “Of course I’m purring, pet” and following caption excerpt: “Husband-Coming-Home Clothes,” Cosmopolitan, September 1965.
223The merchandising editor: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, September 1965.
223“I never paid much attention to them”: Melvin Sokolsky, interview with the author, September 2014.
30: THAT COSMOPOLITAN GIRL
224“A color photograph of a pretty brunette”: Eugenia Sheppard, “‘Any Woman Can Get a Man . . . ,’” New York Herald Tribune, September 9, 1965.
224The stretchy, red-jersey wraparound dress: Melvin Sokolsky, interview with the author, September 2014.
224“Basically, that red dress is selling the most beautiful set of breasts”: Ibid.
225Working in a spotless, white-walled studio: Background on Scavullo, his studio, and his style of working from Scavullo: Francesco Scavullo Photographs 1948– 1984 (New York: Harper & Row, 1984). Also per Harry King, interview with the author, September 2014.
225“I don’t know what other models ate”: Kecia Nyman described her first Cosmopolitan session with Scavullo in an interview with the author, August 2014.
226“We all loved Scavullo”: Ibid.
226It was a place of legend and extraordinary leverage: History and legend of “21” drawn from H. Peter Kriendler with H. Paul Jeffers, “21”: Every Day Was New Year’s Eve (Dallas: Taylor, 1999).
227“just another 102-pound nobody in a Pucci dress”: Gael Greene detailed Helen Gurley Brown’s relationship with “21” and her famous Cosmopolitan luncheons in “That Cosmo Girl at ‘21,’” New York, January 18, 1971.
227Playing the hostess, Helen used her charms: Description of Helen’s hosting skills per former Cosmo beauty editor Mallen De Santis, interview with the author, October 2012.
227“She would go through the dummy”: Ibid.
228Change didn’t necessarily mean improvement: Helen Gurley Brown, statement for advertisers, 1965, HGB Papers, SSC.
228a woman between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four: Helen Gurley Brown described her target reader in many articles, including an early Q&A she did with The Writer, “New Direction for Cosmopolitan,” Writer, July 1965.
229The Cosmopolitan cover girl was a different species altogether: Jennifer Scanlon wrote about this disconnect between the Cosmo reader and the Cosmo cover girl in Bad Girls Go Everywhere (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), p. 170.
31: THE IRON BUTTERFLY
230“The U.S. Weather Bureau did not track”: Chris Welles, “Soaring Success of the Iron Butterfly,” Life, November 19, 1965.
230By November, the magazine would average about a million copies per issue: Ibid.
230“Congratulations, Chieftess”: Helen saved the actual gold record, HGB Papers, SSC. There are also great photos of the champagne party accompanying Welles’s story.
230Shortly after penciling “Life Mag”: Helen Gurley Brown, red diary, 1965, HGB Papers, SSC.
231“It’s just a half-baked crusading idea, I guess”: Chris Welles, “Soaring Success of the Iron Butterfly.”
231“Helen’s terribly polite, terribly innocent”: Ibid.
231“She had a nickname: the Iron Butterfly”: Vene Spencer, interview with the author, September 2014.
232“quite obscene”; “utter contempt for women,” and following quotes: Chris Welles, “Soaring Success of the Iron Butterfly.”
32: RESOLUTIONS
233“This is it. The turning point”: David Lachenbruch, “Everything’s Coming Up Color,” “TV Set Buyers Guide,” TV Guide, 1966.
233In the beginning of 1966: Charles Mohr, “Raids on North Vietnam Resumed by U.S. Planes as 37-Day Pause Is Ended,” New York Times, January 31, 1966.
234screen-tested potential book covers: Martin Kasindorf, “Jackie Susann Picks Up the Marbles,” New York Times Magazine, August 12, 1973.
234“A new book is just like any new product”: Requoted by David Streitfeld in “Book Report: Writing to Sell,” Washington Post, March 25, 1990.
234“Take 3 yellow ‘dolls’ before bedtime”: Letty Cottin Pogrebin, press release for Valley of the Dolls, 1966, requoted by Barbara Seaman in Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1987), p. 303
234Using Sex and the Single Girl as a model: Barbara Seaman, Lovely Me, p. 282.
234In early May, Dolls took the number-one slot: Amy Fine Collins, “Once Was Never Enough,” Vanity Fair, January 2000.
234“What matters to me is telling a story that involves people”: Jane Howard, “Happiness Is Being Number 1,” Life, August 19, 1966.
235“He must have gotten very far down the list”: Gloria Steinem, interview with the author, December 2013.
235“MADDENINGLY SEXY”: Helen Gurley Brown’s blurb on the back of the Valley of the Dolls paperback (New York: Grove Press, 1997).
235Helen titled the last talk “What Business Men Should Know About Girls”: John W. Fisher, “Packed House Hears Helen Gurley Brown’s Tips on Making Ads Appeal to Distaff Side,” Adcrafter, March 25, 1966.
235“Women are interested in everything men are interested in” and following: Ibid.
236Toward the end of 1966, they went to Europe: Helen wrote about her trip in detail in “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, December 1966.
236London was such a male city: Ibid.
236From London, they continued on to: Ibid.
237In 1966 alone, Helen spent $3,343.30: Helen recorded her expenditures and her measurements in a file, “Clothes: drawings, measurements, and expenditures,” 1966–71, HGB Papers, SSC.
237“We lunched at the Tea Room”: Lyn Tornabene, interview with the author, November 2014.
237“fewer but better clothes”; “There’s no use resolving anything major, of course”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, January 1967.
237“None of us had ever been there”: Vene Spencer recalled Helen taking her and Les Girls out for lunch at “21” in interview with the author, September 2014.
23
8“But you ladies stay”: Ibid.
238“Where do you live?”; “Do you have a boyfriend?”; “Do you want to get married?”: Helen Gurley Brown and Lyn Tornabene, audio recording file no. 2549b, “General Personality” tape 5, (side B), 1970–71, HGB Papers, SSC. Note: Dialogue is slightly altered, but meaning is similar.
239Helen had her nose done at age forty: Helen Gurley Brown, I’m Wild Again Snippets from My Life and a Few Brazen Thoughts (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), p. 266.
239“Both Robin and I got our noses fixed”: Vene Spencer, interview with the author, September 2014.
239In December 1966, along with show mainstays: What’s My Line? Season 18, Episode 16, 1966.
240“She wasn’t taking any chances”: Vene Spencer recalled this “dress rehearsal” of What’s My Line? in interview with author, September 2014.
240“I hope you will accept this as a little token”: Ibid.
240“I was laughing to myself”: Ibid.
240“Loosen my tie!”: Story of Bill Guy’s heart attack per Vene Spencer, his former assistant, told to the author in interview, September 2014.
240“I was buying the fiction, negotiating with the agents”: Ibid.
241In a matter of months, Helen had lost her fiction editor, her articles editor, and a resourceful assistant: Timeline and details of their departures per Vene Spencer and Walter Meade, interviews with the author.
241the office couldn’t stop talking about her: Helen Gurley Brown to Vene Spencer, undated, courtesy of Vene Spencer.
33: THE 92 PERCENT
242“Everyone has an identity”: Jacqueline Susann, Valley of the Dolls (New York: Grove Press, 1966), p. 111.
242“You’re the first lady analyst”: Judy Klemesrud, “Mrs. Brown, Your Subject Is Showing,” New York Times, December 31, 1967.
242a failure, one of the few Helen ever had: Jennifer Scanlon, Bad Girls Go Everywhere (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), p. 147.
242A tall and striking woman: Information about Mallen De Santis’s career per De Santis, interview with the author, October 2012.
243“I did what Helen referred to as ‘material evaluation’”: Ibid.
243“She really relied on Mallen being her guidepost”: Eileen Stukane, interview with the author, January 2013.
244Every four weeks, they reviewed the last issue: Helen described this evaluation process, and her doubts about the current issue, in “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, May 1967, SSC.
244“Every time an editor sees”: Ibid.
245“Everybody—and especially me—needs editing!”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Memo 1,” January 18, 1967, Cosmopolitan editing and writing, HGB Papers, SSC.
245“RULE 1. WRITING SHOULD BE CLEAR”: Ibid.
245“She was always interested in clarity”: Nat Hentoff, interview with the author, 2014.
246“All instructions for making anything”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Memo 1.”
246“She edited the magazine for three Helens”: Walter Meade, email exchange with the author, January 2015.
246“I just didn’t get David in his boutonnière”: Lyn Tornabene, interview with the author, November 2014.
247“RULE 22. DON’T ATTACK THE ADVERTISER!”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Memo 1.”
247“25 men will follow you down the street”: Ibid.
247“Show no mercy toward sloppiness”: Ibid.
248“It wasn’t that we didn’t get letters”: Barbara Hustedt Crook, email exchange with author, February 2014.
248“We made up things all the time!” Mallen De Santis, interview with the author, October 2012.
248“It’s pretty tough, as you know”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Memo 1.”
249“Very good!”: Ibid.
249“Only 8 per cent of our readers”: Ibid.
249“Hey, beautiful dark girl”: Ruth Ross, “The Negro Girl Goes Job Hunting,” Cosmopolitan, March 1967. Information about Mary, who worked in the mailroom, per various Cosmo staffers, interviews with the author.
249“a true story, told by a young woman”: “I Didn’t Have the Baby, I Had the Abortion,” Cosmopolitan, July 1967.
250“I’m still shaking!”: Anonymous reader letter, Cosmopolitan, October 1967.
250“The boys think we’re pretty special”; “It’s not that we’re all beautiful”: Iris George, “Could You Work in Vietnam?” Cosmopolitan, July 1967.
34: NOBODY OVER THIRTY
252“The trouble with most teen magazines”: Eugenia Sheppard, “Nobody over Thirty,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 11, 1967, access to article courtesy of ProQuest.
252They came by thumb and by Greyhound bus: A great history of the Summer of Love was provided by Sheila Weller in “Suddenly That Summer,” Vanity Fair, July 2012.
252“The word ‘hip’ translates”: Hunter S. Thompson, “The ‘Hashbury’ Is the Capital of the Hippies,” New York Times Magazine, May 14, 1967.
253“turn on, tune in, drop out”: Timothy Leary. Accounts of the Human Be-In and the Diggers from Sheila Weller, “Suddenly That Summer”; and the Digger Archives, www.diggers.org.
253“We wanted to signal that this was the end”: From transcript for “Summer of Love,” American Experience, PBS, pbs.org/wgbh/amex/love/filmmore/pt.html.
253“We hope that we have something here for the artists and the industry”: Jann Wenner, “Letter from the Editor,” Rolling Stone, November 9, 1967.
254“If you want to swing college”: Smith-Corona Electric Portable.
254“Pick a flower”: Hanes nylons.
254“Join the cola dropouts”: Wink by Canada Dry.
254“Join the Youth Quake”: Diet Rite Cola.
254A kind of Life for college kids, Eye: Eugenia Sheppard, “Nobody over Thirty.”
254One of their first hires: Information about Judith Parker and Susan Szekely (now Susan Edmiston) per Susan Edmiston, interview with the author, May 2015.
255“a dozen girls and men all under 30”: Eugenia Sheppard, “Nobody over Thirty.”
256like Rolling Stone meets young Cosmo: Susan Edmiston detailed Helen’s involvement with Eye and her clashing vision for the magazine, interview with the author, May 2015.
256“in the quiet setting of Woodstock, an artists’ colony in New York State”: “Night Creatures,” Eye, March 1968.
256“Helen and Richard Deems would come down in the limousine”: Susan Edmiston, interview with the author, May 2015.
256“I was not directly involved”: Susan Edmiston, email exchange with the author, May 2015.
257“You could call it cosmetics of the soul”: Lillian Roxon, “Cosmetics of the Soul,” Eye, September 1968.
257“I had a meeting with her once”: Donna Lawson Wolff, interview with the author, June 2015.
258“Raquel Welch was to have been shot in full figure”: Helen Gurley Brown, untitled, undated, Cosmopolitan art and photography, HGB Papers, SSC. Note: Even though this memo is undated, Helen provided enough information to confirm that she wrote it shortly after the Welch cover was shot.
258“From lack of communication”; “costumes”: Ibid.
259“SOFTLY SEXY”; “‘chippily’ sexy” : Helen Gurley Brown, “Memo to the ART DEPARTMENT—also Fashion, Decorating, Food, Beauty and Travel,” November 14, 1967, Cosmopolitan art and photography, HGB Papers, SSC.
259“more boy-and-girl-together-pictures”; “We are the one magazine for women which can show so much love”: Ibid.
260“they were always off somewhere in an office being treated like gods”: David McCabe, interview with the author, January 2015.
260“No, silly boy”: Ibid.
35: THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL BYLINE
261“We just wanted one cover with somebody with small breasts”: Barbara Hustedt Crook, interview with the author.
261“Girls must ALWAYS look man-loving”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Fashion Photography Rules,” August 17, 1970, Cosmopolitan art and photography, HGB Papers, SSC.
262“For a jazzy
company”: Rex Reed, “Girls in the Publishing Business,” Cosmopolitan, November 1966.
262“That’s it, that’s her, that’s who”: Harvey Aronson, “The World’s Most Beautiful Byline,” Newsday, September 25, 1965.
262Gloria took the assignment for one simple reason: Gloria Steinem, interview with the author, December 2013.
262“‘Oh, God, we spent ten dollars’”: Ibid.
263“I always wear a center part”: Gloria Steinem essay in “Brunettes: A Touch of Evil Is Required . . . ,” Cosmopolitan, July 1968.
263“Gloria and Barbara didn’t try”: “At a Holiday Disco Party,” Glamour, December 1964.
263“How do I get to be Gloria Steinem?”: Reader letter, Glamour, October 1965.
264“Audrey Hepburn in the CIA . . . with bosoms”: “A Girl—Signed Herself,” Glamour, February 1964.
265her life and her lifework truly began to merge: Steinem described the disconnect between the fluffy articles she was writing and the activist’s life she was living in her essay “Life Between the Lines” in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, 2nd ed. (New York: Holt, 1995).
265“I knew him,” Gloria says now: Steinem’s account of expecting to pose with Jim Brown, in her own clothes, per interview with the author, December 2013.
265“some truly ridiculous costume”: Ibid. Photographer Gordon Munro provided additional background information about this shoot in an interview with the author, November 2013.
265“I remember her saying, ‘You mean I’ve really got to do this?’”: Gordon Munro, interview with the author, November 2013.
266“I’m trying to think of an analogy”: Steinem, interview with the author, December 2013.
266“I didn’t really know who Gloria Steinem was at the time”: Descriptions, dialogue, and quotes that follow are from Gordon Munro and Gloria Steinem, interviews with the author.
267“onetime Playboy bunny”: Steinem, “Brunettes: A Touch of Evil Is Required . . . ,” Cosmopolitan, July 1968.
267“It was a nightmare”: Gloria Steinem, interview with the author, December 2013.
268“I wanted to make amends”: Gordon Munro, interview with the author, November 2013.
Enter Helen Page 39
