310The coalition also called for women across the country to ban four products: Background from Linda Charlton, “Women Seeking Equality March on 5th Ave. Today,” New York Times, August 26, 1970; and photo, “Betty Friedan Speaking at Press Conference,” Corbis Images, www.corbisimages.com, August 25, 1970.
310“I can’t believe they’ve been reading Cosmopolitan”: “Boycott of Products Amazes Beholders,” UPI, republished in Lebanon Daily News, August 26, 1970.
311“the Mao Tse-tung of Women’s Liberation”: “Who’s Come a Long Way, Baby?” reported by Time women staffers, led by Ruth Mehrtens Galvin, Time, August 31, 1970.
311“the movement had no coherent theory” and following: Ibid.
311“Whatever the ‘real’ differences between the sexes may be”: Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000), p. 29.
312“[They] backed me up against a radiator”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, November 1985.
312“It’s hard for me to understand how any self-loving, man-loving woman”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, November 1970.
313they demanded an end to sexist articles . . . as well as $15,000 “in reparation”: “Women’s Lib Pickets Meet with Editor,” UPI, republished in Milwaukee Journal, December 3, 1970.
313“I don’t know who sent it because it wasn’t signed”: Walter Meade, interview with the author.
313They didn’t even have permission: Background is from Marcia Cohen, The Sisterhood: The Inside Story of the Women’s Movement and the Leaders Who Made It Happen (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1988), p. 280.
313Among their ranks: Ibid.
314“WOMEN’S STRIKE DEMONSTRATION”: August 26 Strike Committee, undated, 1970 flyer, Phyllis Birkby Papers, SSC.
314On the morning of the strike: Jacqui Ceballos, interview with the author, October 2014.
314Other women liberated: Mary Breasted gave a great play-by-play of these events in her article, “Women on the March: ‘We’re a Movement Now!’” Village Voice, September 3, 1970.
315“By five o’clock I was exhausted”: Jacqui Ceballos, interview with the author, October 2014.
315“OPPRESSED WOMEN: DON’T COOK DINNER!”: “Women Strike for Equality March,” photo by Michael Abramson, August 26, 1970, Getty Images, www.gettyimages.com.
315“When the cops blow the whistle”: Betty Friedan, “Women Take the Streets,” “Voice of New York,” New York, April 11, 1988.
315“Take the streets!”: Ibid.
315They pushed past policemen . . . “Bitches!”: Background is from Marcia Cohen, The Sisterhood, p. 285.
316“Why can’t you light your own fucking cigarettes?”: Mary Breasted, “Women on the March: ‘We’re a Movement Now!’”
316a ragtag group of women’s magazine editors: Mary Thom, Inside Ms. (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), p. 11.
316“It was exhilarating”: Pat Carbine, interview with the author, January 2014.
316“‘Ms.’ is used by women who object”: Linda Charlton, “Women March Down Fifth Avenue in Equality Drive,” New York Times, August 27, 1970.
43: PITIFUL PEOPLE
317“Failure is always at your heels”: David Brown, Let Me Entertain You (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1990), p. 131.
317“We definitely have a double standard”; “We are totally possessed by each other”: Helen and David Brown, respectively, in Diana Lurie, “Living with Liberation,” New York, August 31, 1970.
317“I think Helen is taking on a decision” and following: Ibid.
318cosmically connected to his every physical and emotional need: David Brown, Let Me Entertain You, p. 70.
318“the Working Girl and the Producer”: Faith Stewart-Gordon, The Russian Tea Room: A Love Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), p. 146.
31820th Century Fox fired David for the second time: David Brown, Let Me Entertain You, pp. 123–25.
318three controversial movies: Ibid., p. 128.
318“We were—because of our concern”: Ibid., p. 124.
318Zanuck’s habit of creating cinematic showcases: Background on Darryl Zanuck from Martha Smilgis, “In Darryl Zanuck’s Last Drama, a Forgotten French Lover Sues for $15 Million,” People, July 14, 1980; and Steven Daly, “Myra Breckinridge: Swinging into Disaster” in Vanity Fair’s Tales of Hollywood: Rebels, Reds, and Graduates and the Wild Stories Behind the Making of 13 Iconic Films, ed. Graydon Carter (New York: Penguin Books, 2008).
319“It was a dangerous area with a high crime rate”: David Brown, Let Me Entertain You, p. 124.
319the Zanucks would be in and out of court: Ralph Blumenthal, “End of Fox Suits Is Indicated,” New York Times, May 15, 1973.
319After getting the bad news: David Brown, Let Me Entertain You, p. 125.
319“Look at the table they’re giving us” and following dialogue: Ibid.
320she cried her eyes out in George Walsh’s office: Helen briefly recounted this scene in a memo that she wrote to herself and titled “PROBLEMS,” November 1973, HGB Papers, SSC.
320“She and Jackie Susann had a husband-watch agreement”: Walter Meade, email exchange with author, January 2015.
322“To go home, for her, took a ton and a half of Valium”: Walter Meade, interview with the author.
322“Didn’t you work in order not to have to work someday?” and following dialogue: David Brown, Let Me Entertain You, p. 252.
322she felt like a character out of a Kafka story: Helen Gurley Brown and Lyn Tornabene, audio recording no. 2268, tape 10, “HGB Interview,” 1970–71, HGB Papers, SSC.
322“I can hear him telling her she was just like one of Kafka’s characters”: Meade, email exchange with author, January 2015.
323“That’s me!” and following: Helen Gurley Brown and Lyn Tornabene, audio recording no. 2268, tape 10, “HGB Interview.”
323countless treatments and surgeries: These are well documented by Helen Gurley Brown herself in her books, I’m Wild Again: Snippets from My Life and a Few Brazen Thoughts (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000) and The Late Show: A Semiwild but Practical Survival Plan for Women Over 50 (New York: William Morrow, 1993).
44: SOME NOTES ON A NEW MAGAZINE . . .
324“We were talking about women who wanted to make their own decisions”: Pat Carbine, interview with the author, January 2014.
324It started with a simple idea that was revolutionary at the time: The bulk of the historical background in this chapter comes from two major sources: Mary Thom’s personal and well-observed Inside Ms.: 25 Years of the Magazine and the Feminist Movement (New York: Henry Holt, 1997); and Abigail Pogrebin’s fascinating and deeply researched oral history, “How Do You Spell Ms.,” New York, October 2011.
325Around the same time, Gloria asked Letty: Letty Cottin Pogrebin, follow-up interview with the author, May 2015.
325Gloria had hosted two of three meetings: Patricia Cronin Marcello, Gloria Steinem: A Biography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004), p. 120.
325Gloria had been satisfied, but: Abagail Pogrebin, “How Do You Spell Ms.”
325Then there was the question of the name: Ibid.
325“All are designed to tell the woman”: “Some Notes on a New Magazine . . . ,” April 1971, Ms. Magazine Records, SSC.
326Assuming its readers were “intelligent and literate”: Ibid.
326Stories with headlines like and following headlines as examples: Ibid.
326Notoriously difficult and prone to yelling: Abigail Pogrebin, “How Do You Spell Ms.”
326“My plan was to get Ms. going”: Pat Carbine, interview with the author, January 2014.
327The Ms. Bill would forbid federal agencies: Carl C. Craft, Associated Press, “Sex Prefix Is New Target of Bella Abzug,” Gettysburg Times, July 27, 1971.
327“not as the wives of individuals”: Ibid.
327“Hello, I’m calling from Ms. magazine”: Abigail Pogrebin, “How Do You Spell Ms.”;
and Mary Thom, Inside Ms., p. 14. Thom explained how anyone working for Ms. in the beginning had to pronounce it and spell it repeatedly. Author based dialogue on these accounts.
327Carbine and Steinem borrowed friends: Pat Carbine, interview with the author, January 2014.
328Ms. would be approximately eighty-eight pages: Stats from “Some Notes on a New Magazine . . .”.
328“Do you have The Globbies?”: Slimmers Glove System.
328“Relax”: and following: Cupid’s Quiver. Time wrote about the ad for Cupid’s Quiver in “Advertising: The Unlikeliest Product,” December 26, 1969.
328“We did not go for cosmetics at all”: Pat Carbine, interview with the author, January 2014.
329“I talked about the spirit that was animating women”: Ibid. 329 “When push came to shove about comparing us to Cosmo”: Ibid.
45: ENTER HELEN
330“I’m a materialist”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Big Sister,” Time, February 9, 1968.
330Working as a kindergarten teacher: Biographical details about Lou Honderich per Honderich, email exchange with the author, January 2014.
330“Even back then, as a such a young woman”: Ibid.
331Lou never stopped relying on Helen’s advice, and in 1971: Ibid.
331“Enter Helen,” Lou says: Ibid.
331“The point is, Helen believed in me”: Ibid.
332Someone saw her at an organizer’s house: Susan Brownmiller shared this secondhand story in interview with the author, January 2014.
332“She was indicating that women have to put up this front”: Ibid. 332 “‘This is reality, kiddos’”: Ibid.
46: THE BLUE GODDESS
333“You not only enjoy being a girl—you thrive on it!”: “How Feminine Are You?” Cosmopolitan, April 1971.
333“I said a mighty yes”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, September 1971.
334the founders of Ms. were having a difficult time: Background on the beginnings of Ms. and securing financial backers is from “Personal Report from Ms.” Ms., July 1972, SSC.
334Then they had a couple of breakthroughs: Background from “Personal Report from Ms.”; Mary Thom, Inside Ms. (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), p. 15; and Clay Felker, “Editor’s Letter: What Is Ms. and What Is It Doing in New York?” New York, December 20, 1971.
334In a small, cramped workspace: Stephanie Harrington provided a great description of the Ms. headquarters in “Ms. Versus Cosmo: Two Faces of the Same Eve,” New York Times, August 11, 1974.
335labeled “Spring” just in case: Abigail Pogrebin, “How Do You Spell Ms.,” New York, October 2011.
335“A sexually liberated woman without a feminist consciousness”: Anselma Dell’Olio, “The Sexual Revolution Wasn’t Our War,” Ms., Spring 1972 preview issue.
335“Those clicks are coming faster and faster”: Jane O’Reilly, “The Housewife’s Moment of Truth,” Ms., Spring 1972 preview issue.
336The artist Miriam Wosk painted: “Remembering Miriam Wosk, First Ms. Cover Artist,” Ms. magazine blog, December 22, 2010; and Abigail Pogrebin, “How Do You Spell Ms.”
336“Until now, the Women’s Movement has lacked”: Clay Felker, “Editor’s Letter: What Is Ms. and What Is It Doing in New York?”
336they sold out in eight days: Abigail Pogrebin, “How Do You Spell Ms.”
337Cosmopolitan’s art department was in crisis: Linda Cox, interview with the author, June 2015.
337“Boom-boom-boom, one after the other”: Ibid.
337“Marni called me and said, ‘Please come back’”: Ibid.
337By the following year, his American disciples: Background on Guru Maharaj Ji from Ted Morgan, “Middle-Class Premies Find Oz in the Astrodome,” New York Times, December 9, 1973.
337“She was so completely swept away”: Linda Cox, interview with the author, June 2015.
338Not long after that, Helen promoted Linda: Ibid.
47: COSMOPOLITAN NUDE MAN
339“I thought it was a hoot”: Hugh Hefner, interview with the author, November 2013.
339“Helen Gurley Brown of Cosmopolitan”: “Knees Up, Mother Brown,” “Eye,” Women’s Wear Daily, January 29, 1970, access to article courtesy of ProQuest.
339“You really are so naughty”: “Letter to Eye,” “Eye,” Women’s Wear Daily, February 9, 1970, access to article courtesy of ProQuest.
339“The Further Adventures of Mother Brown and the Great Male Nude Foldout Caper”; “relatively coy pose”; “collecting pornography”: “Phone Call to Eye,” “Eye,” Women’s Wear Daily, February 12, 1970, access to article courtesy of ProQuest.
340Men liked to look at women’s bodies, and women: Irin Carmon, “Helen Gurley Brown, Objectifier of Men,” Salon, August 13, 2012.
340Inspired by the Italian painter Caravaggio: Photographer Guy Webster told the story of shooting James Coburn for Cosmo in a video online: “Jim Whitney Documentary on Guy Webster,” YouTube.com, September 12, 2014.
340“Apparently he is in his mystical phase”: Helen Gurley Brown to Richard Deems, “COSMOPOLITAN NUDE MAN,” December 4, 1968.
341The rejections piled up: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, January 1971.
341“Mr. Average household face”; “You may or may not ever see a male nude”: Ibid.
341“Like fire and gasoline”: Burt Reynolds, My Life (New York: Hyperion, 1994), p. 173. The bulk of what follows—dialogue, descriptions, scenes—is per Reynolds’s version of the story in chapter 33 of his book.
341“Are you a sexist?”; “I bet in ten years”: Ibid.
342“Why?” he finally asked; “Because,” she cooed, “You’re the only one”: Ibid. 342 “On the back of the foldout”: Ibid., p. 174.
342using masking tape, Vaseline, bobby socks, baseballs: Booth Moore, “Cosmo’s Eyes,” Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2004.
342The day of the shoot: Burt Reynolds, My Life, p. 174.
343“Fabulous! Fabulous like that!”: Per photographer Harry King, this is what Scavullo regularly exclaimed during shoots; interview with the author, September 2014.
343“I always know . . . I’ve caught the butterfly”: Burt Reynolds, My Life, p. 174.
343he pretended to hump the bearskin rug: Ibid., p. 175.
344“Cosmo’s Famous Extra Bonus Takeoff!” and following: Cosmopolitan cover, April 1972, SSC.
344“just lusty and honest in their appetite for an appreciation of attractive men”; “As for you (that COSMOPOLITAN girl)”: Barbara Creaturo, “Cosmo’s Playmate of the Year!—Why?” Cosmopolitan, April 1972.
345He had liked a shot where he was laughing: Burt Reynolds wrote about visiting Cosmo and seeing the images in My Life, 174.
345“The original slide was lost”: Mallen De Santis, interview with the author, October 2012.
345“Apparently the people at Cosmo took this thing more seriously than I did”: Mary Alice Kellogg, Newsweek Feature Service, “Redskin to Bearskin: Burt Reynolds Soars,” Boca Raton News, April 13, 1972.
345“Hey, I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on”: Burt Reynolds, My Life, 175.
345“And a major factor in his ascendancy”; “Face it, these women wouldn’t be going crazy”: Mary Alice Kellogg, “Redskin to Bearskin: Burt Reynolds Soars.”
346and in Huntsville, Alabama, members of the English Department: This detail and others collected from readers’ letters, “Dear Cosmopolitan,” Cosmopolitan, July 1972.
346After the issue came out: Burt Reynolds described the frenzy that followed his Cosmo appearance in My Life, pp. 174–76.
346Back in the States, the Catholic Church issued a critical statement: Ibid., p. 175.
346letters poured in: “Dear Cosmopolitan,” Cosmopolitan, July 1972.
347“While leafing through COSMO, what did I behold”: Ibid., poem by Donna Visione, reprinted with permission.
48: PROBLEMS
348“Helen saw a shrink all the time I knew her”: Walter Meade, interview
with the author.
348“Relax chin, stay at 105 pounds . . . torture!”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, January 1973.
348British Cosmo was an instant, red-hot success: Linda Grant, Sexing the Millennium: Women and the Sexual Revolution (New York: Grove Press, 1994), p. 124.
348“Like Coca-Cola, Helen Gurley Brown and her message”: James Brady, “La Fille Cosmopolitaine,” “New York Intelligencer,” New York, February 12, 1973.
348He and Richard Zanuck finally had started their own production outfit: David Brown, Let Me Entertain You (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1990), pp. 143–44.
349George Walsh declined: Still furious, Helen detailed her version of the story in a miscellaneous note to herself, “PROBLEMS,” November 1973, HGB Papers, SSC.
349“screw that . . . public relations are where it’s at”: Ibid.
349“George Walsh has some kind of personality defect”: Ibid.
349Cosmo Girls could read all about the man who “runs the office”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,” Cosmopolitan, August 1970.
350“one doesn’t want to get personal”: Helen Gurley Brown, “PROBLEMS,” November 1973.
350Helen couldn’t remember him once complimenting her, or even saying “well done”: Ibid.
350Instead, he played the resigned man: Ibid.
350“Keep George”: Ibid.
49: TWO FACES OF THE SAME EVE
351“Cosmopolitan is talking to women one by one”: Suzanne Levine in Stephanie Harrington, “Ms. Versus Cosmo: Two Faces of the Same Eve,” New York Times, August 11, 1974.
351“I think a certain girl who just married”: Cosmopolitan ad in New York Times, April 18, 1974.
351“Why, if she’s so smart”: Stephanie Harrington, “Ms. Versus Cosmo: Two Faces of the Same Eve.”
352After making her way up to the fourth floor: Ibid.
352“Have we done anxiety lately?”; “That is like asking if you’ve eaten in the last week”; “We have depression in the works”; “This one is totally ridiculous—‘Are Lesbians Ecological?’”: Ibid.
Enter Helen Page 41
