Helen Gurley Brown
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Helen Gurley Brown | |
|---|---|
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| Born | February 18, 1922 Green Forest, Arkansas[1] |
| Occupation | International Editor, Cosmopolitan |
| Title | International Editor, Cosmopolitan; Former editor-in-chief, U.S. Cosmopolitan |
| Spouse(s) | David Brown |
| Ethnicity | English-American |
| Notable credit(s) | Editor-in-chief, Cosmopolitan |
Helen Gurley Brown (born February 18, 1922 in Green Forest, Arkansas), is an author, publisher, and businesswoman. She was editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for 32 years.[2]
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[edit] Personal life and career
Brown was born to parents Cleo and Ira Marvin Gurley.[3] Her mother was born in Alpena, Arkansas and died in 1980.[3][4] Brown's father was once appointed Commissioner of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.[5] The family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas after Brown's father won an election to the Arkansas state legislature.[4] He died in an elevator accident on June 18, 1932.[6] In 1937, Helen, Mary (her sister), and their mother moved to Los Angeles, California.[7] A few months after moving, Mary contracted polio.[7] While in California, Brown attended John H. Francis Polytechnic High School.[8]
After graduation, the family moved to Warm Springs, Georgia.[9] Brown attended one semester at Texas State College for Women and then moved back to California to attend Woodbury Business College.[9] She graduated in 1941.[10] In 1947, Cleo and Mary moved to Osage, Arkansas while Brown stayed in Los Angeles.[11]
After working at the William Morris Agency, Music Corporation of America, and Jaffe talent agencies she went to work for Foote, Cone & Belding advertising agency as a secretary.[12] Her employer recognized her writing skills and moved her to the copywriting department where she advanced rapidly to become one of the nation's highest paid ad copywriters in the early 1960s. In 1959 she married David Brown who was producer of Jaws, The Sting, Cocoon, Driving Miss Daisy, and other motion pictures.
In 1962, at the age of 40, Brown authored the bestselling book Sex and the Single Girl.[13] In 1965 she became editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan and reversed the fortunes of the failing magazine. During the decade of the 1960s she was an outspoken advocate of women's sexual freedom and sought to provide them with role-models and a guide in her magazine. Brown claimed that women could have it all, "love, sex, and money", a view that even preceding feminists such as Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer did not support at all and has been met with notable opposition by advocates of grass-roots devotion of women to family and marriage.[14] Due to her advocacy, glamorous, fashion-focused women were sometimes called "Cosmo Girls." Her work played a part in what is often called the sexual revolution.
In 1997 Brown was ousted from her role as the US editor of Cosmopolitan[15] and was replaced by Bonnie Fuller. When she left, Cosmopolitan ranked sixth at the newsstand, and for the sixteenth straight year, ranked first in bookstores on college campuses.[15] However, Brown stayed on at Hearst publishing and remains the international editor for all 59 international editions of Cosmo.[15]
In September, 2008, she was named the 13th most powerful American over the age of 80 by Slate magazine.[16]
[edit] Awards
- 1995 - Henry Johnson Fisher Award from the Magazine Publishers of America
- 1996 - American Society of Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame Award
[edit] Works
- Sex and the Single Girl (1962)
- Lessons In Love - LP Record on How To Love A Girl & How To Love A Man (1963) Crescendo Records - GNP #604
- Sex and the Office (1965)
- Outrageous Opinions of Helen Gurley Brown (1967)
- Helen Gurley Brown's Single Girl's Cookbook (1969)
- Sex and the New Single Girl (1970)
- Having It All (1982)
- The Late Show: A Semi Wild but Practical Guide for Women Over 50 (1993)
- The Writer's Rules: The Power of Positive Prose — How to Create It and Get It Published (1998)
- "Vanity Case" (2008) short story in The Sunday Times Jan 20th (online text)
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Scanlon 2009, p. 1.
- ^ Garner 2009.
- ^ a b Scanlon 2009, p. 2.
- ^ a b Scanlon 2009, p. 3.
- ^ Scanlon 2009, p. 6.
- ^ Scanlon 2009, p. 7.
- ^ a b Scanlon 2009, p. 12.
- ^ Scanlon 2009, p. 14.
- ^ a b Scanlon 2009, p. 17.
- ^ Scanlon 2009, p. 18.
- ^ Scanlon 2009, p. 22.
- ^ Scanlon 2009, p. 26.
- ^ Scanlon 2009, p. ix.
- ^ Cook, Peter S. (2004). "Feminism, childcare, and family mental health: have women been misled by equality feminism?". The Natural Child Project. http://www.naturalchild.com/peter_cook/feminism.html. Retrieved April 28, 2009.
- ^ a b c Scanlon 2009, p. xiv.
- ^ "80 Over 80: The most powerful octogenarians in America". Slate. September 11, 2008. http://www.slate.com/id/2199926/. Retrieved April 22, 2009.
[edit] References
- Garner, Dwight (April 21, 2009). "Helen Gurley Brown: The Original Carrie Bradshaw". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/books/22garn.html. Retrieved June 16, 2009.
- Scanlon, Jennifer (2009). Toff, Nancy. ed. Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-534205-5.
[edit] External links
- (26 June 2003) "Sex and the Octogenarian" (Telegraph Interview)
