"It all began with the "eyes." 100 years ago

Maybelline Mascara Super Model Joan Crawford taken in 1946.  Photograped by Paul Hesse, Hollywood.


"It all began with the "eyes." In the book, The Maybelline Story, by Sharrie Williams, with Bettie Youngs, she tells the fascinating account of the early beginnings of her family in rural Kentucky, from 1911, to their glory days in Hollywood with Joan Crawford appearing in Maybelline print ads in the late 1940's, to the 1970's as fortune affected the family.

By 1953, the cosmetics company was known throughout the world for their print ads of gorgeous flirty models catching everyone's attention with their Maybelline mascara eyes. Williams' great uncle is Tom Lyle Williams, a marketing genius who built a billion dollar cosmetics empire over many years from just $500. he borrowed from his older brother, Noel.

The Beginning of Maybelline Mascara

Tom Lyle loved movies. As a fifteen-year-old who ran the projector room at the local nickelodeon, he was mesmerized by starlet Mary Pickford's eyes, as she flirted with them in her movie, Sultan's Garden. What made her so alluring? A very motivated, self-starter, Tom Lyle began finding out ways to make money by figuring out what people wanted.

He left the family farm in Morganfield, Kentucky, when he was still just a teenager, to join his brother, Noel, 23, who was working as a bookkeeper for Illinois Central Railroad in Chicago. The year was 1912. Chicago's population was 1.7 million. The brothers lived in Noel's boarding house near a slum of overcrowded tenement buildings.

It was in this environment that the brothers, driven by Tom Lyle's passionate courage, began a mail-order business. Tom Lyle sacrificed. He invested every penny he could scrape together. By 1914, at the age of 18, he was making serious money with his novelty-catalog business. In 1915, he had asked his sister, Mabel, to join them. He put her to work counting orders. The business was making $36,500. a year, which is the equivalent of over a half a million dollars today.

Mabel's Accident Births a Maybelline Mascara Fortune

Tom Lyle's sister insisted on cooking for her brothers. While Mabel was making cake frosting one morning by melting sugar in a pan, the liquid got too hot. Flames shot up and singed Mabel's eyebrows and eyelashes. She looked like a bare-faced mannequin. But, Mabel was not deterred, either. She had been secretly reading movie star magazines. She had read that these starlets, like Gloria Swanson, used a concoction called, "harem secret," to make their eyes beautiful.

Mabel mixed ash from cork she burned, with coal dust, and blended this mixture by using petroleum jelly. She dabbed this goo onto her eyebrows and the tips of her eyelashes. The transformation was amazing. Mabel's eyes were stunning. Then, an idea struck Tom Lyle like a bolt of lightening. Of course, it wasn't the clothes or smiles that made Hollywood goddesses glamorous. It was their "eyes." Mascara was born. The name Maybelline came from Mabel and the Vaseline mixture.

Miss Maybelline and Mascara's Destiny

By the time the 1920's came roaring into Chicago, women had claimed the right to vote, hold hands with men in public, smoke cigarettes, and a whole lot more. They took full advantage of their new-found freedom. Tom Lyle's entire family was in Chicago at this time, helping in the business of making Maybelline mascara. Tom Lyle's younger brother, Preston, incredibly handsome, a WWI hero, was watching a Memorial Day Parade when he and Evelyn Boecher spotted each other. Evelyn also spotted Tom Lyle.

"She fell in love with both brothers on the same day," says Sharrie Williams, of her grandmother, Evelyn Boucher. Evelyn was one of three daughters of John Boucher, a wealthy plumber, who spoiled his girls rotten. Always dressed in fine clothes, refined by music lessons, Evelyn, Bunny and Verona defined elegance. It was Evelyn, however, who became Tom Lyle's muse, and helped catapult Maybelline into the mascara cosmetics market. Sharrie relates in her book, The Maybelline Story: "Destiny arrived right on time, in the form of Evelyn Boucher."

Miss Maybelline Stops Traffic

Evelyn married Preston, but she continued to be the eyes and ears for Tom Lyle when it came to women and what they wanted. She contributed many ideas for the Maybelline mascara ads that put the company on the map around the world.

"Nana had very good insight, " says Sharrie. "She was an observer, a people-watcher. She loved to go to public places. She'd watch what women were wearing, what they talked about, laughed about. She would take it all in, then she would be able to condense this information and tell Tom Lyle. They would have dinner together and she would let him know - this is what women are looking for. This is what they want."

One day, Tom Lyle asked Evelyn to pick up some flyers from the printers, that he was going to mail to dime stores around the country. This was the time when Al Capone and other gangsters practically owned Chicago. Drive-by shootings and loud-mouthed gangsters were part of the city's fabric. Clutching an arm-load of flyers, Evelyn was almost to the Maybelline building when a car backfired. Everybody ducked, thinking it was gunshot. Evelyn jumped and threw her arms into the air, releasing the flyers, which were picked up by the wind.

An astute newspaper reporter snapped her photo. The next day, the newspaper printed Evelyn's photo with this title: "Miss Maybelline Stops Traffic." Orders for Maybelline mascara came pouring in. As Sharrie recalls, in her book, The Maybelline Story: "My uncle said to Nana: ' Evelyn, with that one photo you've accomplished more for marketing Maybelline than any flyer ever could."

Copyright Anne Mount. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

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Honoring the men in the Maybelline family who served in the Armed Forces

This Memorial Day marked the 7th anniversary of my father's death. I honor him and the Heroes in the Maybelline Family.  

This is what Chicago looked like when my grandfather William Preston Williams joined the Navy in 1917.  He was just 18 years old with visions of being a War Hero.  Like so many boy's from the Lost Generation he imagined the war would quickly end and he'd return unscathed by the ravages of battle - only to be greatly disillusioned with a broken spirit.

This is what was going on in the Maybelline Family at the same time.  Tom Lyle introduced Maybelline to the public as Silent Film became popular and Silent Film Stars were seen on screen with heavily made up eyes.

Theda Bara "THE VAMP" - 1917.  This is what was going on in Hollywood when WW1 broke out.  Women began to be conscious of the their eyes and buy Maybelline.  An interesting fact -  Maybelline was sent in an unmarked package insuring the buyer her privacy since Maybelline was so frowned upon at the time.

1917 Maybelline became available through mail order. 

Scene from the Silent Film WINGS.  This is what Preston was heading into.  He was a rear gunner on one of those Flying Sticks in the sky.

My grandfather, Preston Williams, with his parents Susan and TJ.  His mother was grief stricken after already losing her first son, Pearl to TB and the thought of losing another son to War was too much for her.  TJ on the other hand was proud his son was fighting for his Country like so many Patriots that went before him in the Williams Family.  He also thought the Navy might straighten his wild card son up a bit. 
                                                                               

Preston would return from WWl, with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.  Here he is with his little sister Eva on the left, Frances Allen, Tom Lyle Williams Noel James Williams and Bennie Gibbs.

Mabel Williams on the left with her brother Preston, Helen, one of the first Maybelline models, Frances Allen Williams, Bennie Gibbs and Tom Lyle Williams in front of his new "PAGE "Convertible in Chicago. 

Tom Lyle enlisted as well but was denyed service because he was the sole supporter of his entire family according to his draft card in 1917.  Noel was married to Frances and also supported the family managing the Maybelline Company. He might have been too old for service at the time. 

Maybelline Ad during WW11, promoting War Bonds.

My father, Bill Williams, in the Philippines 

                        Maybelline Ad during WWll.

My Father's first cousin, Noel A. Williams,  joined the Navy right out of High School.

            Noel A. in his Navy uniform during WWll.

My father's first cousin - (on his mother Evelyn Boecher Williams side) - Bill Stroh, on the right.,during WWll.

I have done several posts about Bill Stroh and his 1965 Shelby, gt350 Mustang racing car.

For 100 years, "Maybelline" has been synonymous with "eye cosmetics"-- yet little is known about how a tiny company offering a single product by mail order managed to grow into an international institution.

The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It,  aims to change that.  It could only be written by someone with insider knowledge. Sharrie Williams is the great-niece of Tom Lyle Williams, the charming and creative, yet remarkably secretive man who founded Maybelline along with his tight knit family, including his brothers and sisters -Noel, Preston, Mabel and Eva - catapulting a little mail order business in 1915 into the most successful and famous eye cosmetic company in the world.   

By digging through family documents, her own memories and the memories of the few remaining people intimately familiar with the founders of Maybelline, Sharrie slipped beneath the public facade of the company to reveal the amazing personalities at its heart. This is an exciting and thoughtful book, part memoir, part history, part family saga, that reveals the triumphs and tragedies behind the beautiful public face of Maybelline.

Chet and Mabel (Willliams) Hewes, and Ches and Eva (Williams) Haines, Hollywood, 1938.

Tom Lyle Williams with Mabel, Chet, Ches and Eva at The Villa Valentino - Hollywood, 1938.

Catalina California 1938 - left to right, My father Bill, great uncle, Tom Lyle, my Grandmother Evelyn and my auntie Eva, auntie Mabel and uncle Chet.

Read more about the founding of The Maybelline Company from 1915 to 1968 and beyond in The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It.  Buy a signed copy from Sharrie Williams 

New Video: Maybelline 1940's Classic Ads, sprinkled with a few family pictures

Hollywood Super Stars clamored to be featured in Maybelline color advertisements during the 1940s

During World War ll, Maybelline's market share skyrocketed, because so many women worked in air craft plants and refused to cut back on their cosmetics.  When the war ended Tom Lyle's thirty-year-old invention benefited mightily from the Postwar Boom when mascara and eye-shadow came out in matching colors - with new hues added every Spring and Fall - imitating the practice of fashion designers.  The increase in sales were dramatic and though in 1940 only one in four American women wore eye make-up, by 1949 this figure increased to three out of four, with Maybelline accounting for 45,000 units out of 51,000 eye products sold that year.

  

Merle Oberon Known for her sultry good looks Merle Oberon played Cathy Linton in Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier in 1939.  The 1940's proved to be a very busy decade where she appeared in no less than 15 movies. 

Tom Lyle contracted major motion picture stars to appear in Maybelline's advertisements.  War-movies showcased them as the ideal Amercan image and young girls around the world purchased Maybelline at their local dime stores.

                                             Rita Hayworth

 Merle Oberon, Betty Grable, Joan Crawford  and Hedy Lamarr (click to see) were some of the GI's favorite pin-up girls. They were top box office queens during the war years and their image represented money in the bank for Maybelline.  

Betty Grable

Tom Lyle contracted Betty Grable for her sex appeal, moxy and girl next door image.She appealed to young wannabees who saved their grocery money to buy hope in a little red box.  Maybelline turned simple shop girl's into  sex symbols - inspiring soldier boys to get back home.  In fact a G.I.'s morale was often dependent on pictures of their girls with"Those Maybelline Eyes."

 Tom Lyle spent more on his beautiful movie stars as cover-girls than any other cosmetic company in history and it paid off in the 1940's beyond his wildest dreams.

Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford became the official face of Maybelline in 1945 after she won an Oscar for "Mildred Pierce."  Be sure to watch HBO's new version of "Mildred Pierce" with Kate Winslet airing Sunday March 27th.  This mini-series depicts the era, clothes and background painted in The Maybelline Story.  I'm sure if you watch the series and read the book at the same time you'll see The Maybelline Story come alive.

Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress. Though known primarily for her extraordinary beauty and her celebrity in a film career as a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age.  She had a seductive look in her eye that appealed to Tom Lyle, because she targeted a certain audience of women who sought her sex appeal. 

Maybelline was synonymous with fashion, style and indisputable Hollywood glamor.  Here are a few of Tom Lyle's favorite movie queens of the silver screen during the 1940's. 

Dorothy Lamour starred in the "Road to..." movie series with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in the 1940s and 1950s. The movies were enormously popular during the 1940s, and they regularly placed among the top moneymaking films each year

The Unique Beauty of Gene Tierney - Excerpted from Michael Atkinson's essay, Dec 1994 Movieline magazine.  "Among faces, Gene Tierney's is a tournament rose, an Opaline study in serene, sexualized perfection, a mad musky Egyptian daydream of cat thoughts."

Lana Turner was discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen.

                Nothing has changed in 100 years 
                     Girls still want to stand out 

Maybelline in the middle of Times Square, with eyes that stop traffic!

Read it all in The Maybellie Story
 and the Spirited family Dynasty Behind It.