Post by ۞Quaalude™۞ on Aug 14, 2012 22:40:35 GMT -5
Helen Gurley Brown, who created the idea of a modern woman with her book "Sex and the Single Girl" and was editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for three decades, has died at age 90, the Hearst Corporation said Monday.
Gurley Brown died Monday morning at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia after a brief hospitalization, the publisher said.
"Helen was one of the world's most recognized magazine editors and book authors, and a true pioneer for women in journalism -- and beyond," Hearst Chief Executive Frank Bennack said.
It was Gurley Brown who invented today's notion of a modern woman -- one who could have both a successful career and an exciting, satisfying sex life, said Bonnie Fuller, the influential Young women today don't realize the legacy that they owe her," Fuller said in an interview with CNN.
Gurley Brown's 1962 book "Sex and the Single Girl" encouraged young women to enjoy being single, find fulfillment in work and non-marital relationships with men, and take pleasure in sex, Hearst said. The book was on the bestseller lists for more than a year and became a movie starring Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, Lauren Bacall, and Henry Fonda.
When Betty Friedan's book "The Feminine Mystique" ushered in the modern women's movement in 1963, the two books and their authors helped lead the growing national dialogue about the place of women in society and popular culture, Hearst said.
Dr. Ruth: Brown told women the truth about sex
Two years after publishing "Sex and the Single Girl," Gurley Brown followed it up with the 1964 bestseller "Sex and the Office."
Gurley Brown was born in Arkansas in 1922 to schoolteacher parents and moved with her mother and sister to Los Angeles after her father's death.
After graduating high school as valedictorian, Gurley Brown put herself through Woodbury Business College (today Woodbury University) and earned a business degree.
A string of secretarial jobs finally landed Gurley Brown at the advertising agency of Foote, Cone, and Belding, where her "witty notes" so impressed boss Don Belding that he encouraged her to become a copywriter, according to Hearst.
Gurley Brown excelled in the job, winning awards and rising to become the highest-paid female copywriter on the West Coast by the late 1950s, Hearst said.
Together with her husband, David, who died in 2010, Gurley Brown began pitching more books and new magazines targeted at single women. One of the magazines caught the eye of Hearst, but instead of a new title, they asked her to revive Cosmopolitan magazine, according to the company.
It was 1965 when Gurley Brown became editor in chief of Cosmopolitan. She was 'tireless" in the job, growing the magazine in the 1980s to 300 pages -- a third of which were lucrative advertisements, Hearst said.
The magazine is now one of the top selling women's magazines in the world, published in 35 languages and in more than 100 countries, Hearst said.
Fuller said Gurley Brown was a "brilliant" woman who articulated ideas that were considered risque at the time.
"Helen was a modern career woman in a time when there weren't very many," Fuller said. "She saw that the next generation of women would be her. She 'created' Cosmopolitan to talk to that woman and to liberate her from the idea that she didn't have to become June Cleaver -- and that she could grow up to have a career that was just as fulfilling and exciting as any man's career."
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg called Gurley Brown a pioneer who reshaped not only the entire media industry, but the nation's culture as well magazine editor who took over at Cosmopolitan when Gurley Brown stepped down in 1997 R.I.P
QC
Gurley Brown died Monday morning at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia after a brief hospitalization, the publisher said.
"Helen was one of the world's most recognized magazine editors and book authors, and a true pioneer for women in journalism -- and beyond," Hearst Chief Executive Frank Bennack said.
It was Gurley Brown who invented today's notion of a modern woman -- one who could have both a successful career and an exciting, satisfying sex life, said Bonnie Fuller, the influential Young women today don't realize the legacy that they owe her," Fuller said in an interview with CNN.
Gurley Brown's 1962 book "Sex and the Single Girl" encouraged young women to enjoy being single, find fulfillment in work and non-marital relationships with men, and take pleasure in sex, Hearst said. The book was on the bestseller lists for more than a year and became a movie starring Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, Lauren Bacall, and Henry Fonda.
When Betty Friedan's book "The Feminine Mystique" ushered in the modern women's movement in 1963, the two books and their authors helped lead the growing national dialogue about the place of women in society and popular culture, Hearst said.
Dr. Ruth: Brown told women the truth about sex
Two years after publishing "Sex and the Single Girl," Gurley Brown followed it up with the 1964 bestseller "Sex and the Office."
Gurley Brown was born in Arkansas in 1922 to schoolteacher parents and moved with her mother and sister to Los Angeles after her father's death.
After graduating high school as valedictorian, Gurley Brown put herself through Woodbury Business College (today Woodbury University) and earned a business degree.
A string of secretarial jobs finally landed Gurley Brown at the advertising agency of Foote, Cone, and Belding, where her "witty notes" so impressed boss Don Belding that he encouraged her to become a copywriter, according to Hearst.
Gurley Brown excelled in the job, winning awards and rising to become the highest-paid female copywriter on the West Coast by the late 1950s, Hearst said.
Together with her husband, David, who died in 2010, Gurley Brown began pitching more books and new magazines targeted at single women. One of the magazines caught the eye of Hearst, but instead of a new title, they asked her to revive Cosmopolitan magazine, according to the company.
It was 1965 when Gurley Brown became editor in chief of Cosmopolitan. She was 'tireless" in the job, growing the magazine in the 1980s to 300 pages -- a third of which were lucrative advertisements, Hearst said.
The magazine is now one of the top selling women's magazines in the world, published in 35 languages and in more than 100 countries, Hearst said.
Fuller said Gurley Brown was a "brilliant" woman who articulated ideas that were considered risque at the time.
"Helen was a modern career woman in a time when there weren't very many," Fuller said. "She saw that the next generation of women would be her. She 'created' Cosmopolitan to talk to that woman and to liberate her from the idea that she didn't have to become June Cleaver -- and that she could grow up to have a career that was just as fulfilling and exciting as any man's career."
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg called Gurley Brown a pioneer who reshaped not only the entire media industry, but the nation's culture as well magazine editor who took over at Cosmopolitan when Gurley Brown stepped down in 1997 R.I.P
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