Enter Helen (46 page)

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: N
OBODY OVER
T
HIRTY

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.

252
  
They 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.

254
  
A kind of
Life
for college kids,
Eye
: Eugenia Sheppard, “Nobody over Thirty.”

254
  
One 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.”

256
  
like
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: T
HE
W
ORLD'S
M
OST
B
EAUTIFUL
B
YLINE

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.

262
  
Gloria 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.

265
  
her 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.

36: F
AKE
P
ICTURES

269
  
“That's the whole enchilada, darling”: Liz Smith, “The Park Avenue Call Girl,”
Cosmopolitan
, July 1968.

269
  
“We'll tape it,” Liz said: Liz Smith,
Natural Blonde
(New York: Hyperion, 2000), p. 205. Additional background information on trying to find a call girl as a source per interview with the author, May 2013; and in Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,”
Cosmopolitan
, July 1968.

270
  
sweet “civilian girls”; “Too much free stuff around”: Liz Smith, “The Park Avenue Call Girl.”

270
  
“The day before at lunch”: Ibid.

270
  
Liz got a call from the director Alan Pakula: Liz Smith,
Natural Blonde
, p. 205.

271
  
“It was a great feat of imagination on my part”: Liz Smith, interview with the author, May 2013.

271
  
blood on the streets: Account of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago from Anthony Lukas, “Police Battle Demonstrators in Streets,”
New York Times
, August 29, 1968.

271
  
it was meant for simple, small-town girls: Helen Gurley Brown, “chat with david” memo, December 9, 1973, HGB Papers, SSC.

272
  
“On
this
cruise, you can even board ship”: Harriet La Barre, “The Travel Bug,”
Cosmopolitan
, September 1968.

272
  
“Oh, hundreds! Hundreds!”: Mallen De Santis, interview with the author, October 2012.

272
  
George Walsh brought the fewest: Helen Gurley Brown complained about Walsh's lack of original story ideas in a miscellaneous note to herself, “PROBLEMS,” November 1973, HGB Papers, SSC.

272
  
“One day I found myself taking a swipe at my
mother
”: Helen Gurley Brown, “NOTES ON GIRLS WHO GET HIT OR VISA VERSA,” alternatively titled, “FAMILY FISTICUFFS,”
Cosmopolitan
article ideas, 1970s–1980s, HGB Papers, SSC.

273
  
“major emo” or “major non-emo”: Account of
Cosmo
's story-assigning process came from various interviews done by the author, as well as from a folder labeled “article ideas,” in which Helen collected examples of pitches for
Cosmopolitan
, HGB Papers, SSC. In addition to explaining her filing process in a separate note, Helen labeled many of the sheets according to these designations of “major” emotional stories, etc.

273
  
“THOSE
OTHER
PEOPLE . . . the ones who
belong
”; “more intellectual”; “even when you
belong
at them”:
Cosmopolitan
article ideas, 1970s–1980s, HGB Papers, SSC.

273
  
“now, the reason all this is occurring to me is that
i
am one of the kinky ones”: Helen Gurley Brown, “THE YOU NOBODY KNOWS,”
Cosmopolitan
article ideas, 1972, HGB Papers, SSC.

274
  
“She grew up in an age when movie stars”: Walter Meade, email exchange with author, February 2014.

274
  
“I think Scarlett is closer to Helen”: Ibid.

37: T
HE
A
CTRESS

275
  
“To be a woman is to be an actress”: Susan Sontag, “The Double Standard of Aging,”
Saturday Review
, September 23, 1972.

275
  
“too serious a step”: Background on Linda LeClair story per Judy Klemesrud, “An Arrangement: Living Together for Convenience, Security, Sex,”
New York Times
, March 4, 1968.

276
  
they handed out leaflets calling their case “a Victorian drama”: Background on the LeClair Affair from Paul Starr, “LeClair Trial Set for Today; Seen as Housing Rule Test,”
Columbia Daily Spectator
, April 11, 1968; Deirdre Carmody, “Barnard Considering Decision on Student Living with a Man,”
New York Times
, April 17, 1968; Deirdre Carmody, “President Delays Action on Defiant Girl,”
New York Times
, May 9, 1968; William A. McWhirter, “‘The Arrangement' at College,”
Life
, May 31, 1968; and David Allyn,
Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution: An Unfettered History
(New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 96–98.

277
  
“A sexual anthropologist of some future century”; “unalluring”: William A. McWhirter, “‘The Arrangement' at College.”

277
  
What connection did Helen . . . “
None
”: Susan Edmiston, interview with the author, May 2015.

278
  
Shulamith Firestone, a twenty-three-year-old rabble-rouser: Background on Firestone from Martha Ackelsberg, “Shulamith Firestone: 1945–2012,”
Jewish Women's Archive Encyclopedia
, jwa.org; Margalit Fox, “Shulamith Firestone, Feminist Writer, Dies at 67,”
New York Times
, August 30, 2012; and Susan Faludi, “Death of a Revolutionary,”
New Yorker
, April 15, 2013.

278
  
She also called pregnancy “barbaric”; “shitting a pumpkin”: Shulamith Firestone,
The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution
(New York: William Morrow, 1970); referenced by Susan Faludi in “Death of a Revolutionary.”

278
  
“WE SUPPORT”; “AUNT TOM OF THE MONTH”: New York Radical Women, “NOTES FROM THE FIRST YEAR,” June 1968, Duke University Digital Collections.