Friday, November 15, 2024

THE MAYBELLINE STORY : Miss Maybelline, the pied piper and Hobby the clow...

THE MAYBELLINE STORY : Miss Maybelline, the pied piper and Hobby the clown...: My Grandmother Evelyn Williams aka Miss Maybelline was killed, her house started on fire and 3 million dollars in Bonds stollen.  Listen the Coroner's Report. 6 episodes and about 40 minutes each. Tighten your safety belt it's going to be a bumpy ride!



Monday, November 11, 2024

Veterans Day 2024 Thank You For Your Service





WASHINGTON — Before the United States was born, there was a Marine Corps. For the last 240 years Marines have fought tirelessly to preserve the freedom of the United States and the traditions of the Corps.



Veterans Day, formerly Armistice Day, is an annual United States holiday honoring military veterans. It is a federal holiday that is observed on November 11. It coincides with other holidays such as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, which are celebrated in other parts of the world and also mark the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War 1. 



Veterans Day has always had special for me, because my grandfather William Preston Williams fought overseas  for his country.  He returned with Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD,) a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma.

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Maybelline's contribution during World War ll, included promoting War Bonds, raising moral and honoring all branches of the Service.



 This Maybelline ad says - Save your money the safest way - Buy U.S. War Bonds Regularly.


Read more about my grandfather, Preston and my father Bill, during the Wars, in The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It. 

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Miss Maybelline, the pied piper and Hobby the clown on The Coroner's Report Podcast. A true crime 6 episode series.





My Grandmother Evelyn Williams aka Miss Maybelline was killed, her house started on fire and 3 million dollars in Bonds stollen.  Here is what actually happened after months of private investigation, 45 years later. Can be very disturbing to listen to. 




Join us on a gripping journey back to 1978 as we unravel the mysterious death of Evelyn Williams aka Miss Maybelline. Was it a tragic accident, or could it have been a carefully orchestrated crime? Dive deep into the intriguing life of this cosmetic heiress as we unearth clues and explore theories that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew. Tune in to the Coroner's Report Podcast for aJoin us on a gripping journey back to 1978 as we unravel the mysterious death of Evelyn Williams aka Miss Maybelline. Was it a tragic accident, or could it have been a carefully orchestrated crime? Dive deep into the intriguing life of this cosmetic heiress as we unearth clues and explore theories that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew. Tune in to the Coroner's Report Podcast for a riveting investigation to keep you on the edge of your seat! riveting investigation to keep you on the edge of your seat!


Episode one

 


Episode two




Episode 3








Saturday, September 21, 2024

Sharrie Williams interview with Gregory Joseph, the Mean Machine




https://youtube.com/watch?v=9aWKU7S29bY&si=bp0JHPI8v18VgNax


Watch this shockingly true and in-depth interview with host Gregory Joseph from NJ 88 WGAT as he delves into the mysteries surrounding Sharrie Williams, original Maybelline Family descendant through her journey of truth, trauma, and growing up in the shadow of a beauty legacy. Guest Co-Host Erin Gray joins the discussion as well, so get ready for another "Mean Machine" wild ride! Gregory Joseph from NJ 88 WGAT as he delves into the mysteries surrounding Sharrie Williams, the Maybelline heiress, and her journey of truth, trauma, and growing up in the shadow of a beauty legacy. Guest Co-Host Erin Gray joins the discussion as well, so get ready for another "Mean Machine" wild ride!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9aWKU7S29bY&si=bp0JHPI8v18VgNax








Friday, August 30, 2024

Maybelline Family Ladies share their favorite dessert recipes




Maybelline Recipes


LADIES OF THE MAYBELLINE STORY - FAVORITE DESSERTS.

SHARRIE MAKING HER GRANDMOTHER EVELYN'S PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE ON ARIZONA TV, MORNING SCRAMBLE. 

SHARRIE MAKING HER AUNTIE MABEL'S DAINTY DATE BARS AND HER AUNTIE EVA'S PEACH COBBLER.


PART ONE OF AUNTIE FRANCES CHOCOLATE ICEBOX DESERT


PART TWO OF AUNTIE FRANCES CHOCOLATE ICEBOX DESERT.


SHARRIE MAKING

Recipes

Evelyn's Pineapple Unside Down Cake 


1/2 cup butter 1 cup packed brown sugar 1 can 20 oz sliced pinapple 4 eggs seperated 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt Maraschino cherries  


Directions Melt butter in 10-12 in ovenproof skillet Add brown sugar mix well until sugar is melted Drain pineapple, reserving 1/3 cup juce arrange 8 pineapple slices in a single layer over sugar set aside 


In a large bowl, beat eggs yolks until thick and lemon-colored Gradually add sugar, beating well Blend in vanilla and reserved pinapple juice


combine the flour, baking powder and salt add to batter, beating well In a small bowl, beat egg whites on high until stiff peaks form fold into batter. 


spoon into skillett Bake at 375 for 30 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center is clean Let stand for 10 minutes before inverting onto serving plate Yield 10 servings. 




Mabel's Dainty Date Bars 


Filling: 8 oz. chopped dates 3/4 C. sugar 1 C. water 1 C. chopped nuts Boil together the dates, water and sugar until thick. Mix in nuts. Set aside.


Crust: 1/2 lb. butter, softened 1 C. brown sugar, firmly packed 2 C. old-fashioned oats 1-1/4 C. flour 1/4 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt Combine well. Pat 2/3 of mixture into 9" X 13" pan. Spread with filling. Sprinkle reserved mixture over top. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. 




Eva's Old Fashioned Peach Cobbler


Sift one tsp. baking powder and 3/4 cup flour. Mix 1 cup of sugar with flour. Add 3/4 of milk. Melt one stick of butter. Pour mixture over 3 to 4 cups of Peaches. Pour melted butter over the top and bake 350 for 55 minutes to one hour. Serve warm with whipped cream or vinalla ice cream. 




Frances' Chocolate Icebox Dessert


3 – 8 oz packages of Bakers German sweet chocolate 3 eggs 1 pint whipping cream 1 ¼ Tbsp. Vanilla 3 Tbsp. Powdered sugar 2 boxes of Social Tea Biscuits Melt chocolate in double boiler Separate eggs, beat yolks with sugar Add to melted chocolate, Beat egg whites and add- Add Vanilla Add ½ pint whipped cream, (save ½ pint for topping.) 


Line loaf pan with cookies Add layer of chocolate mixture Continue layering cookies and chocolate mixture, ending with chocolate. Store in refrigerator a

Monday, August 5, 2024

Interview with The York Management School The Center for Evolution of Global Business and Institutions (CEGBI)


Maybelline 1915

The original Maybelline Company formed in 1915 to 1967, though incorporated in 1954, was a private family owned company, based in Chicago. Tom Lyle Williams was President and was responsible for all advertising. Noel J. Williams, followed by Tom Lyle Williams Jr. was Vice President and ran the administrative part of the company. Rags Ragland, headed the Marketing department. Chet Hewes, (Maybelline’s namesake Mabel Williams’s husband,) headed the division of the company that produced mascara, called De Luxe Mascara.  Ches Haines, (TL’s sister, Eva Williams husband) was in charge of transportation. In other words these few men ran the entire world wide company,  that today takes hundreds of people, executives and employees. Maybelline was known as the “Wonder Company.”  Today it would be impossible to operate a corporation with such a small group of family executives.

 
Maybelline Founder, Tom Lyle Williams 1915
The original Maybelline Company focused on one idea. Eyes.  Tom Lyle Williams put every dime back into the company to expand its Advertising and Marketing as well as develop their product line. The secret to Maybelline’s success was the having a quality product at a price every woman could afford. Maybelline was and still is a dime store luxury, priced modestly and advertised in beautiful displays.

 
Maybelline's namesake, Mabel Williams


What is your opinion about the fact that so many top cosmetics brands were created by diaspora entrepreneurs?  



Tom Lyle Williams was an entrepreneur who didn’t want to work for anyone. There was a need in the market place and he was there at the right time in history. Beauty and creativity go hand in hand. I believe young dispora entrepreneurs have their own beauty secrets and don’t want to give them away. They don’t want to work or can’t get work, they are driven by their own need to produce something and be a success in their own right. Many dispora entrepreneurs have old fashioned beauty secrets handed down to them through the generations and are inspired to share them with other women. Like Maybelline… being concocted with ash and Vaseline a secret of the harem, according to a vintage movie magazine…it filled a need and it took off because women were ready for it.

 
Tom Lyle and Mabel's brother Noel J. Williams and his wife Frances 1916


How do you think the management of the cosmetics brand changes in periods of crisis such as the current recession?



When the economy is down, cosmetic sales are up. Women will give up a lot of luxuries, but they won’t give up their beauty products. With Maybelline, it’s even more pronounced, because of the price that most women can afford even though their money is limited.




I am looking at two periods in time such as the Great Depression and World War II. What are the marketing and branding strategies of your brand? Do you have an idea of what it was like during these two periods and what changed substantially?



During the Great Depression, Maybelline moved from being a product women ordered from the classified section of magazines and newspapers, to being a dime store product. Maybelline was the first to create carded merchandise in the 1930s. They also were the first to create swirling displays, we take for granted today. They went from black and white small ads in movie and fashion magazines to full page color ads. They were the first to come out with “Before and After” print ads. Thom Lyle was a visionary always ahead of the curve. He also targeted the youth market, who were going to the movie theatres to see Hollywood Stars, and wanted to look like them. He stalked the dime stores with new products that even teenage girls could afford. Maybelline went from a large 75 cent box mascara to a small 10 cent box. He sold in volume… that was his secret. He also had a quality product that would endure for over 100 years today.




During WW ll, Maybelline was shipped to All the Army and Navy Barrack stores, where they carried ciggerates, beer, candy, chewing gum etc.  Enlisted women, and wives of the enlisted men,  insisted on having their Maybelline. (The American Government almost stopped the production of mascara during the War, because petroleum was rationed. Whoever, Tom Lyle went to the Pentagon and said, “You stop us from producing Maybelline and the moral of our soldiers will go down. Maybelline kept its doors open.)  One the War ended, Maybelline took off Globally, because though the Army Barracks stores closed, women all over Europe, who were also able to shop at the stores, demanded access to their Maybelline.  It was during this time, Tom Lyle Williams, contracted the biggest Hollywood Stars to represent Maybelline in full color, glossy ads, on the back of movie magazines. Women in the States and Soldiers, overseas, pinned these pictures up in their bedrooms or in the lockers of the barracks’. They were signed by the Stars and looked like they were personally autographed to them. This was a huge advertising campaign helped sell War Bonds. Maybelline also produced a more glamorous line of products that young women enjoyed carrying in their purses while out dancing in clubs. It was all done to boost morale.




In your opinion, do you think the motivation has changed from that on the date of the brand’s creation and why? 


I believe Maybelline today wants to reach a larger market of women, women of color especially. They now have a much larger line of beauty products that cater every woman’s needs. Face makeup, nails, lipstick, powder you name it they do it. Maybelline is about to come out with Organic products. Yes they are going Green. They don’t do animal testing anymore and they are still the premier cosmetic brand in the world. Ever 1.5 second a Maybelline mascara is being sold in the world. To think it started 104 years ago, by my Great uncle, a 19 year old entrepreneur with a 500 dollar loan is really unbelievable. I believe the Brand today is still motivated by Tom Lyle Williams original concept of producing a quality product at a sensible price that all women can have access to and afford. And, to continue producing the most beautiful print ads and TV commercials in the Cosmetic field

Thursday, July 25, 2024

The Maybelline Story starts out with fire and ends with fire and the fierce love Evelyn had for the two brothers burned in her until her untimely death in 1978.



Beauty And The Dirt review.



Book Synopsis:
One of the first Maybelline posters

In 1915 sister Mabel Williams burned her lashes and brows, Tom Lyle Williams watched in fascination as she performed what she called ‘a secret of the harem’—mixing petroleum jelly with coal dust and ash from a burnt cork and applying it to her lashes and brows.Mabel’s simple beauty trick ignited Tom Lyle’s imagination and he started what would become a billion-dollar business, one that remains a viable American icon after nearly a century. He named it Maybelline in her honor. Throughout the twentieth century, the Maybelline company inflated, collapsed, endured, and thrived in tandem with the nation’s upheavals—as did the family that nurtured it.

Tom Lyle Williams—to avoid unwanted scrutiny of his private life—cloistered himself behind the gates of his Rudolph Valentino Villa and ran his empire from the shadows. Now, after nearly a century of silence, this true story celebrates the life of an American entrepreneur, a man forced to remain behind a mask—using his sister-in-law Evelyn Boecher—to be his front.

Stories of the-great-man-and-how-he-did-it serve as a traditional mainstay of biographies, but with the strong women’s book-buying market, a resurgence of interest in memoirs that focus on relationships more than a single man and his accomplishments are more likely to be discussed in women’s book groups. The Maybelline Story combines the best of both approaches: a man whose vision rocketed him to success along with the woman held in his orbit.


Tom Lyle and his siblings


 Evelyn, her son Bill, Sharrie and Tom Lyle)


In the way that Rhett Butler ignored the criticism of his peers to carve his own destiny, Tom Lyle Williams shares similar grit and daring. But Rhett without Scarlet wouldn’t be much of a story. Evelyn Williams provides the energy of an antagonist. Like Scarlet, we sometimes hate her and want to shake her, but sometimes, we must admit that we hold a grudging respect; we get a kick out of her and even occasionally, love her for her guts and tenacity, and certainly because she carved out a life for herself and insisted on having a voice, even if she was a fly in the ointment for others.

The Maybelline story provides other kinds of classic literary satisfaction. We are especially fascinated to slip vicariously into the lives of the rich and privileged yet cheer for the underdog who overcomes obstacles to astound doubters with his success. We are enthralled with the historical sweep of events whose repercussions live on to the present, all elements of The Maybelline Story—which reads like a juicy novel, but is in fact a family memoir, distilled from nine hundred pages of family accounts from the 1920’s to present.

An engrossing and captivating saga that spans four generations and reveals the humanity, the glamour, and the seedy underside of a family intoxicated by the quest for power, wealth, and physical perfection. It is a fascinating and inspiring tale of ambition, luck, greed, secrecy—and surprisingly, above all, love and forgiveness, a tale both epic and intimate, alive with the clash, the hustle, the music, and dance of American enterprise.

Monday, July 1, 2024

Sharrie Williams is an award-winning Celebrity Columnist, Commentator and author of The Maybelline Story.


 


She is none other than Tom Lyle Williams’ great niece, the founder of Maybelline, which is now one of the most popular makeup brands worldwide. Tom Lyle revolutionized the world of beauty with his innovation of the Maybelline Cake Mascara and changed an entire industry. In The Maybelline Story she describes Tom Lyle Williams’ humble beginnings when he started out with his first creations for a darker, fuller eyelash look, inspired by his sister Mabel. In her honor, he named the company Maybelline which became a huge success over the years thanks to his keen business acumen and his imaginative mind for beauty products.

Sharrie Williams has been very committed to spreading her great uncle’s legacy and reviving the history of the Maybelline empire by engaging in public speaking. 

Nevertheless, at some point, all went wrong. Her grandmother squandered all her money and was murdered. This incident was followed by a painful divorce and several hard years of struggling with personal troubles and recovering from addiction. She almost lost everything - but not her strength.

Saturday, May 4, 2024

The Coroner’s Report: Miss Maybelline, the Pied Piper, and a Clown Named Hobby-Episode 2

The Coroner’s Report Episode 2 on Youtube













Join former coroner and state crime lab director Steve Nawojczyk and Tracey Carrington as they revisits the 1978 fire that took the life of Maybelline heiress, Evelyn Williams. Was the fire a horrible accident or was it murder? Maybe, it was something in between. Episode 2 begins in the mid 70s following Evelyn’s divorce from Hobby Derrick. Evelyn moves her wigmaker, Danny King, to Hot Springs, Arkansas to help her run the roller rink, but Danny has other plans involving a dinner theater and country music sensation Conway Twitty. Follow Evelyn through all the twists and turns of this crazy story leading up to the death of the Maybelline Queen.

Podcast available on all streaming services. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and all social media platforms. 

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