Not Pretty Enough

by Gerri Hirshey

  By the beginning of 1960: Account of the trip to Chicago to woo Carl Sandburg and Stevens’s quote in Brown, Let Me Entertain You, 194–95. Helen’s recollection of Sandburg’s visit to their home in HGB, “autobiographical work,” HGB-SSC.

  In the Brown home, another wave of intrusions: HGB, “autobiographical work,” HGB-SSC.

  “We’ve lost Buddy”: David’s account of Buddy Adler’s death and funeral in Brown, Let Me Entertain You, 50–53, 130.

  The choice rested with the studio head: Biographical information on Spyros Skouras from ibid., 177–79.

  One humdrum day, Helen was summoned: Account of her salary cut at K&E from HGB, “autobiographical work,” HGB-SSC.

  15. FOR ALL THE SINGLE LADIES …

  “In those days, the only people”: Renata Adler, Pitch Dark (New York: New York Review of Books Classics, 1983), 13.

  “I guess it was a pippy-poo little book”: Brown/Tornabene tapes, HGB-SSC, Box 36A.

  David was searching for something in a storage room: Helen’s notation about David’s finding her correspondence with the Chicagoan Bill Peters is attached to the letters between them, HGB-SSC, Box 9, Folder 4.

  “You have a delightful writing style”: Helen’s recollection of their conversation from her participation in a “Playboy Interview,” Playboy, April 1963.

  “My God, that’s my book, that’s my book!”: Ibid. Helen’s version of the book’s origin also from Brown, Let Me Entertain You, 103–107.

  “They would have said, ‘To hell with it!’”: Brown/Tornabene tapes, HGB-SSC.

  “I got into something more personal”: Ibid.

  She was still fuming: The article that incensed Helen: Eleanor Harris, “Women Without Men,” Look, July 5, 1960, 43–46. Statistics for women working during and after World War II and quotes from Dorothy Thompson from Mary P. Ryan, Womanhood in America: From Colonial Times to the Present (New York: New Viewpoints, 1975), 315–20.

  “There is a tidal wave”: HGB, Sex and the Single Girl, 4.

  “I think a single woman’s”: Ibid.

  “Make voyages”: Ibid., 266.

  “It’s one of the regrets”: Brown/Tornabene tapes, HGB-SSC.

  “This then is not a study”: HGB, Sex and the Single Girl, 11.

  She worked on the book all day: For the Browns’ accounts of the publication process: HGB-SSC, Box 19, letters between Helen and David Brown and Berney Geis and Letty Cottin Pogrebin, as well as from author’s interview with Letty Pogrebin.

  “I am not beautiful or even pretty”: HGB, Sex and the Single Girl, 3.

  “most of the advice givers”: HGB in Brown, Let Me Entertain You, 106.

  There would be much to admire: Page references for the following quotes, in order of appearance in this text, are: from HGB, Sex and the Office, “chinning bar,” 44; from HGB, Sex and the Single Girl, “Give the man who showers,” 137; “Negotiate with,” 107; “Try to like kidneys,” 111; “I know that everybody is always tugging,” 266; “Perhaps you will reconsider,” 257; “I needn’t remind you,” 103; “Creep up on decorating,” 131; “There is a catch,” 8, “I think marriage is insurance,” 8.

  “There apparently aren’t many men who”: HGB in Brown, Let Me Entertain You, 105.

  “I never would have been me now”: Ibid.

  16. WE HAVE LIFTOFF!

  “We stand today”: JFK speech accepting Democratic nomination, delivered in Los Angeles, July 15, 1960, available at www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25966.

  “You can fail in your brazenry”: HGB, Sex and the Single Girl, 248.

  Helen made some bold aesthetic adjustments: David Brown’s description of Helen as he first met her mentions her salt and pepper hair, in Brown, Let Me Entertain You, 38.

  “Plastic surgery is admittedly expensive”: Helen’s account of having her nose revised appears in HGB, Sex and the Single Girl, 222. See also “Dr. Michael M. Gurdin; Leader of Plastic Surgery Societies,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 1994.

  With peace came a sharp decline: For the history of plastic surgery, Elizabeth Haiken, Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).

  Americans even saw themselves differently: Basic facts on the space race, the rise of color television, and the approval of the Pill for contraceptive use from David Halberstam, The Fifties (New York: Villard Books, 1993).

  Being a habitual early adopter: Helen’s dating her use of the Pill from a letter to her cosmetic surgeon Dr. Norman Orentreich, HGB-SSC, Box 9, Folder 3.

  As the next election cycle churned: Don Belding’s work with Richard Nixon’s political campaign and that of his wife, Alice, are described in Belding’s memo “My Contacts with Nixon,” DBP-SWC. Helen confesses to switching parties in DAP, which also contains a history of her voting records in several presidential elections, along with the reasons behind her choices.

  When the Beldings gave a party for the Nixons: Belding, “My Contacts with Nixon,” DBP-SWC.

  As David Brown settled into his new role: Helen’s description of the continued difficulties with Bruce Brown in HGB, “autobiographical work,” HGB-SSC, Box 35, Folders 9 and 10. Information and dates on Bruce’s life in New York City and his college years from author’s interview with his college roommate Marc Haefele.

  “David and I both felt that whoever”: Brown, Let Me Entertain You, 105. The publishing backdrop for the selling of Sex and the Single Girl was drawn from these sources: Dick Schaap, “How to Succeed in Publishing Without Really Publishing,” The New York Times Book Review, August 13, 1967; Douglas Martin, “Oscar Dystel, Who Saved Bantam Books, Dies at 101,” The New York Times, May 2, 2014; and the section on Bernard Geis (chap. 22, “Berney and Company”) in Barbara Seaman, Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann (New York: William Morrow, 1987). Also author’s interview with Letty Cottin Pogrebin; and Brown/Tornabene tapes, HGB-SSC, Box 36A. Details on Geis’s life story and spending patterns from Riva Davis, “Bernard Geis, Celebrity Publisher, Dies at 91,” The New York Times, January 10, 2001.

  The deal was structured: 1961–63 correspondence between David and Helen Brown and Berney Geis, and Lucy Kroll, Helen’s agent, HGB-SSC, Box 19, Folder 1.

  “when he crossed out or rewrote”: From Helen’s account of her writing process in Brown, Let Me Entertain You, 106; author’s interviews with Letty Cottin Pogrebin. Comparison of the final book was done against a copy of the original edited manuscript, HGB-SSC, Box 20. Helen’s accounts of Geis’s excisions from her description of the edit process in “The Playboy Interview,” Playboy, April 1963.

  “I’m sure your problems”: Helen’s quotes on lesbians and gay men, HGB, Sex and the Single Girl, 30–31.

  “Babies, rump roasts”: Ibid., 235.

  characterized the era as “optimistic philoprogenitive”: Halberstam, The Fifties, 587.

  “I could never bring myself”: HGB, Sex and the Single Girl, 4, 5.

  The “ticking biological clock”: Childbearing information from Sharon E. Kirmeyer and Brady E. Hamilton, “Childbearing Differences Among Three Generations of U.S. Women,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (National Center for Health Statistics), NCHS Data Brief, no. 68, August 2011.

  “I guess if you’ve gotta foal”: HGB, Sex and the Single Girl, 91.

  “Letty Pogrebin is an impish”: Schaap, “How to Succeed in Publishing.” Quotes and background from author’s interview with Letty Cottin Pogrebin.

  Months before the publication date: Account of coaching Helen for opposition on her publicity tour, author’s interview with Letty Cottin Pogrebin.

  17. ROADSHOW

  “I understand that if I do not feel”: Geis guarantee in ad for the book. Original ad obtained on eBay.

  As publication grew near: The preparations for launching Sex and the Single Girl draw upon correspondence between Helen and David Brown and Bernard Geis and Letty Cottin Pogrebin, HGB-SSC, Box 19. Letter on author photo from Geis to HGB, December 26, 1961. Further details
on marketing from author’s interview with Pogrebin. The copy of the condensation of Sex and the Single Girl by The American Weekly was published by Hearst on June 2, 1962. All information from an existing copy of that issue as it ran in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

  The sale of the movie rights was the subject of Shana Alexander, “Single Girl’s Success,” Life magazine, March 1, 1963. Comments in Variety on the difficulties with her book from November 12, 1963, issue. Quote from Jack Warner from Charlotte Pagni’s academic study of sexology and film, “Does She or Doesn’t She? Sexology and Female Sexuality in Sex and the Single Girl,” The USC Spectator (University of Southern California journal of film and television criticism), n.d.

  Despite all the good news: The dread Helen felt in sending the galleys to her mother and father-in-law, and their reactions, are detailed in Brown/Tornabene tapes, HGB-SSC, Box 36A, and in two letters from Cleo to Helen, HGB-SSC, Box 6, Folder 5. Quote on married men from HGB, Sex and the Single Girl, 24.

  Cleo’s first blast was devastating: Cleo’s reaction to reading the manuscript of Sex and the Single Girl from her May 3, 1962, letter to Helen, HGB-SSC, Box 6, Folder 5. In June, Cleo would write a more conciliatory note professing great hopes for its success. Helen discussed her own reaction to Cleo’s first letter and her belief that Cleo deluded herself into thinking Helen was still a virgin in Brown/Tornabene tapes, HGB-SSC, Box 36A.

  There had been no loud and notorious female: Carry Nation’s brief settlement in Alpena Pass, her shelter and school in nearby Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and her death are recounted in Fran Grace, Carry A. Nation: Retelling the Life (Bloomington: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 265–74.

  In Berney Geis’s hive: In addition to the correspondence noted above among Geis, Pogrebin, and the Browns, information on Hearst’s Sunday magazine The American Weekly, with circulation figures, from Glen W. Peter’s study “The American Weekly,” Journalism Quarterly (Autumn 1971). Newsstand statistics from Gary M. Stern, “Are New York’s Newsstands Facing Oblivion?” The Observer, September 3, 2014.

  A bit of fishing on eBay: Copies of original ad for Sex and the Single Girl (with Joan Crawford quote and Berney Geis’s guarantee) and the issue of The American Weekly devoted to the excerpt obtained by author.

  Team Helen did not rest: Detail on continued promotion from Geis/Pogrebin/Brown correspondence, HGB-SSC, Box 19, Folder 5, and author’s interview with Letty Cottin Pogrebin.

  Germany would move energetically: Letters documenting the German government’s intent to have the book banned from HGB-SSC, Box 20, Folder 1.

  “She was fantastic”: Author’s interview with Letty Cottin Pogrebin.

  In New York City: Ibid.

  Joan Ganz Cooney, who would go on: Author’s interview with Cooney.

  Mr. Kirsch may have thought he did his best: Details of the column’s origins in the introduction to HGB, Helen Gurley Brown’s Outrageous Opinions. Contract detail from HGB-SSC, Box 31, Folder 11.

  Cleo had calmed down: Conciliatory letter from Cleo to Helen in June 1962 while she was on tour, HGB-SSC, Box 6, Folder 5.

  As Helen continued her triumphant march: The circumstances that led to David Brown’s firing from 20th Century Fox in late 1962 are detailed in his memoir Let Me Entertain You, 73–77. A more complete version of the Cleopatra debacle and its damage to the studio is documented in David Kamp, “When Liz Met Dick,” Vanity Fair, April 2011, as well as in Peter Lev, 20th Century Fox: The Zanuck-Skouras Years, 1935–65 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013).

  It was no small consolation: Correspondence between David Brown and Berney Geis on the subject of renegotiating Helen’s deal, as well as between Geis and Helen on the subject of her next book for his company, from HGB-SSC, Box 20.

  Helen had been working up a few ideas: In March 1962, before publication of Sex and the Single Girl, Helen wrote to Berney Geis about an idea on lesbians; he wrote back discouraging the project. Letter from Geis to HGB, March 14, 1962, HGB-SSC, Box 20.

  Gene Norman, a Los Angeles producer: Details on Norman and the LP from WFMU radio blog, http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2011/09/helen-gurley-brown-and-lessons-in-love.html; and Margalit Fox, “Gene Norman, Music Producer with an Ear for Jazz, Dies at 93,” The New York Times, November 13, 2015.

  “As for naughty words”: From Lessons in Love LP, online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl4FM5kX-2A.

  By November 1962: Helen’s account of her officemates’ departures from HGB, Sex and the Office, 83.

  18. MEET THE PRESS

  “It’s hard to stop me”: HGB, The Writer’s Rules, xiii.

  In early February 1963: Correspondence between David and Bruce Brown and Kathy Ames from HGB-SSC, Box 4, Folder 9. Like Helen, David Brown often kept carbons of his voluminous personal correspondence, which is held in the David Brown Papers, American Heritage Collection at the University of Wyoming, Laramie (DBP-AHC). Additional letters to Bruce Brown from his father, in that collection.

  Bruce had been living in an apartment: Information about Bruce Brown’s college years from author’s interviews with his roommate Marc Haefele and with professors familiar with Bruce Brown’s only published book, Marx, Freud, and the Critique of Everyday Life (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973, 2009). Background on two of Bruce Brown’s teachers from Richard Bernstein, “Sidney Hook, Political Philosopher, Is Dead at 86,” The New York Times, July 14, 1989; and William H. Honan, “William Barrett, 78, a Professor and Interpreter of Existentialism,” The New York Times, September 10, 1992. Further information on Bruce Brown’s higher education from alumni organizations and graduation programs at NYU and Washington University, and from correspondence between father and son, as cited above.

  The third Mrs. Brown: Shana Alexander, “Singular Girl’s Success,” Life, March 1, 1963.

  Within days of the Life story: Quotes from Helen’s “Playboy Interview,” Playboy, April 1963, 53–61. Introduction to the article also mentions Geis’s early sale of Sex and the Office to Pocket Books. Listings of other women interviewees and confirmation of Helen’s being Playboy’s first female interviewee provided by the research department at Playboy.

  In a subsequent issue: Helen wrote of the humiliation in a November 1972 letter to the self-help writer Dr. David Reuben, HGB-SSC, Box 9, Folder 7.

  She asked Letty Pogrebin: Return letter from Pogrebin to Helen, HGB-SSC, Box 22.

  While Helen may have been personally stung: Work on TV ideas began after Helen’s first book tour. David Brown, who was out of work by November 1962, had time on his hands to help. Proposals for all of Helen’s television ideas from HGB-SSC, Box 35. Additional notes and proposal information in correspondence between the Browns and Lucy Kroll, HGB-SSC, Boxes 19 and 35. Details on the Finkbine case from “Mrs. Finkbine Undergoes Abortion in Sweden; Surgeon Asserts Unborn Child Was Deformed,” The New York Times, August 19, 1962.

  PART THREE: NEW YORK

  “Give me such shows”: Walt Whitman, “Give Me the Splendid, Silent Sun,” in Drum-Taps (New York, 1865).

  19. SHE’LL TAKE MANHATTAN

  “New York, I soon recognized”: HGB, I’m Wild Again, 38.

  In the early spring of 1963: Travel description from Brown, Let Me Entertain You, 254.

  “Helen became—may I say?”: Ibid., 255.

  The secretarial work was: Charlotte Kelly’s accounts of working at the job David helped her get with David O. Selznick in unpublished manuscript, CKVP. Background on Helen’s long and close friendship with Charlotte Kelly, later Charlotte Veal, from author’s interviews with Veal’s friends, among them Betsy Carter, Nancy Megan, and the attorney Robin LoGuidice, who later acted as her conservator and executor.

  One column read as a book review of sorts: Column titles from HGB, Helen Gurley Brown’s Outrageous Opinions. Quotes on The Feminine Mystique from manuscript of Betty Friedan column, “Envy Anyone?” that never ran, in HGB-SSC, Box 31, Folder 12.

  Friedan could speak as one of them: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mysti
que (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963; 50th anniversary ed., 2013); for critiques of Friedan’s book and biographical details, see also Louis Menand, “Books as Bombs,” The New Yorker, January 24, 2011.

  Not long after the Browns: Helen’s account of running into the Mansfields from Barbara Seaman, Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann (New York: William Morrow, 1987), 282–83. Jackie’s domestic arrangement and the contents of the Mansfields’ hotel refrigerator from author’s interview with Michael Korda.

  “Did Helen Gurley Brown do that?”: Seaman, Lovely Me, 283.

  Sex and the Office was a financial success: From introduction to HGB’s “Playboy Interview,” Playboy, April 1963, 53–61.

  “He [Geis] thought it might hurt sales”: Ibid.

  The kinky vignettes: All quotes from HGB, Sex and the Office, chap. 13, “Three Little Bedtime Stories.” Helen’s disputes with Bernard Geis from comparing draft and final version of Sex and the Office, HGB-SSC, Box 22, as well as from correspondence between them, Box 19. In her “Playboy Interview,” Helen describes the frustrations of her publisher’s censorship of Sex and the Single Girl. Letty Cottin Pogrebin did agree with Geis on excising contraception references in Sex and the Office; see her letter to Helen in HGB-SSG, Box 19.

  Cleo arrived in New York for a visit: HGB’s reference to swatting Cleo from HGB, “autobiographical work,” HGB-SSC, Box 35, Folders 9 and 10, and from author’s interview with Lyn Tornabene.

  A draft of a will: HGB-SSC, Box 4, Folder 5.

  Mary Gurley had married: HGB, I’m Wild Again, 10–11. Helen’s efforts to help Mary and her brother-in-law, George Alford, from I’m Wild Again, 68.

  20. “HOW DARE YOU, HELEN GURLEY BROWN?”

  “I just want to say”: Quote from anonymous caller to radio show on Helen’s Sex and the Office tour, as reported by Joan Didion in “Bosses Make Lousy Lovers,” Saturday Evening Post, January 30, 1965.

  “We are getting overexposure signals”: Letter from Letty Pogrebin to the Browns, HGB-SSC, Box 22, Folder 1.

  As Letty Pogrebin began lining up the publicity campaign: Letter to Browns from Letty Pogrebin, HGB-SSC, Box 22, Folder 1.