Loretta Young, Maybelline's Hollywood Madonna

I guess nobody loves old Hollywood movies and Movie Stars more than I do. Not just because so many of them endorsed Maybelline ad's between 1920-1960, but because my mother's father Andrew Mac Donald was a Motion Picture Pioneer in Hollywood from 1915 to 1967.  I grew up surrounded by Maybelline history from my great uncle Tom Lyle Williams, founder of the Maybelline Company and stories from my grandfather Andy who knew most every Star that worked for MGM.

 My grandfather's story is lightly glazed over in my book, The Maybelline Story, because it's so extensive it needs to be a book itself, but you do get a brief picture of what his life was like during the Golden Age of MGM.  That being said, you can understand why I was so fixated on wanting to be a Star myself, or at least a Maybelline Model.

I used to ask my grandfather questions about the different stars at MGM and once inquired about Clark Gable, who I adored as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind.  I was shocked when he said  "Gable was a very bad man," but wouldn't elaborate on the subject.  I never knew what he meant until this book about Loretta Young, came out last year.  I now realize my grandfather disrespected Gable for abandoning Loretta Young after she got pregnant with their child, during the making of Call of the Wild in 1935 and rejecting their daughter all his life.  This story is clearly spelled out in Loretta Young's book, Hollywood Madonna, and though it makes me sad, I also realize how the Hollywood Star System worked at MGM and how any scandal could destroy a Stars career.  Gable and Young put their careers over their daughter and ruined her childhood.

Loretta Young's Daughter talks about her mother and father during the making of Call of the Wild.

Here is a post I did on Maybelline's model Loretta Young.

THE LORETTA YOUNG SHOW TRANSFORMED WOMEN'S ROLES.

The Loretta Young Show, put women front stage and center, and created a vehicle for Maybelline to reach a larger target market in the 1950's.

The Loretta Young Show ran from 1953 to 1961. Her trademark was to come through a door dramatically at the beginning in various high fashion evening gowns.

Maybelline capitalized on Loretta Young's fashionable image.... with a series of ads that illustrated her persona..... and affirmed postwar ideas, that true happiness, was possible, within the domestic/heterosexual

sphere of the middle-class home.

The Lorette Young, TV series, worked through the image of the glamorous Hollywood star, and would forever remain a phenomenon of 1950s television, the period in which the Hollywood studio system that had created larger-than-life stars came to a close.

Her program ran in prime time on NBC for eight years,the longest-running prime-time network program hosted by a woman up to that time.

In 1988, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award. for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the

entertainment industry.

Young was married to actor Grant Withers from 1930 to 1931. After that she was involved in affairs with Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable and in 1935 had Gable's child, a daughter.

View video of "The Loretta Young Show" US TV series (1953--61.)


Read all about Maybelline's influence on Women's culture in the 1950s, in my book, The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It.

ANITA LOUISE ADLER, Maybelline's Scarlett O'Hara.

Anita Louise, may not have won the part of Scarlett O'Hara, but she was most assuredly, one of Maybelline's most stunning models in 1938.

Maybelline ad, featuring Anita Louise, who  stared in opulent costume dramas such as Madame DuBarry (1934), A Midsummer’s Night Dream (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936), and Marie Antionette (1938). She was selected to do a screen test for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind in 1938, but of course, the role went to Vivien Leigh.

Anita Louise was described as one of cinema's most fashionable and stylish women.  She and her husband Buddy Adler, were known for their parties, attended by Hollywood's elite.  

Gorgeous Anita Louise with her striking husband, Buddy Adler on their Wedding Day, 1940.

At the time Anita was cast for the role of the loving and caring mother Nell McLaughlin in My Friend Flicka, she had been married to Buddy Adler—a top executive with 20th Century-Fox.

From Here to Eternity winners: director Fred Zinnemann, supporting actress Donna Reed, producer Buddy Adler and screenwriter Daniel Taradash.

Thank you for checking in on the Vintage Maybelline Docu-Blog.  The first extensive Documentary Blog on the Internet.

Paulette Goddard, playing the Hollywood game.

One of Tom Lyle Williams, favorite Maybelline Models, in the late 1930's and early 1940's.... Paulette Goddard, was a Woman of Mystery. 

This Maybelline ad, featuring Paulette Goddard was in popular Movie Magazines, while filming

"The Women," in 1939. Trailer for "The Women."

Did you know that, Katherine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, Susan Hayward, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, Bette Davis and Lana Turner all auditioned for the part of Scarlett O'Hara.  Of Course it was Vivian Leigh, who got the part in Gone With the Wind and will always be remembered as the ideal Scarlett.

Paulette - The Adventurous Life of Paulette Goddard.
click on Amazon.

This book, tells the truth about the Paulette/Chaplin marriage. The real reason she didn't get the part in Gone with the Wind. The feud with director Cecil B. DeMille becomes clear. The famous under the table moment at Ciro's with a Director all nicely covered with help from the FBI files.

Gone With The Wind Tests. Auditions and screen tests for Gone With The Wind Appearing : Tallulah Bankhead, Susan Hayward, Margaret Tallichet, Frances Dee, Mary Ray, Lana Turner, Paulette Goddard.

Nobody worked the Hollywood Star System better than Paulette Goddard and won.  Check out her book and while you're at it check out the little Lamarr/Maybelline bags.

Maybelline Prince meets MGM Princess in 1939.

Pauline Elna Mac Donald born Jan 17, 1924 in Santa Monica, California.  She met Bill Williams at University High School , in West Los Angeles in 1939.  They were 15.   


Pauline's father, Andrew Mac Donald was the main construction boss at MGM - the biggest, richest, and most productive studio in Hollywood.   It’s twenty-two stages and hundred acre back lot of standing sets produced forty two feature films a year.  The largest output of any studio in the history of the cinema.  In the 1930's M.G.M came into its golden age.  It was a magical period, and with it’s perfection - achieved more by hard labor than magical thought - and behind the beautiful facade of glamour and glitz  - the studio was truly a brutal, vulgar, grasping place that produced great art. This was the backdrop of Pauline's life.

Pauline's mother Elna Mac Donald created a home fit for a movie executive. Her home and family where her life.  She didn't drive a car and spent most of her time dressed in a cotton house dresses like a well kept Victorian housewife. Pauline was her pride and joy and she raised her only daughter to be a little Princess.  

There was a sweet natural chemistry between Bill and Pauline and she made him feel at ease, She was  the sweet, wholesome type - went to church, cared about others, and was a good listener.  Bill asked her about her dad, and she told him he was very busy working  on
“The Wizard Of Oz,” and “Gone with the Wind.” His men built every set ever made at MGM.

Pauline wanted to be a dancer at the studio and Bill hoped to be an art director as well.  It seemed like a match made in heaven.  Except for one thing. Evelyn wanted more for her only son and never accepted Pauline as being good enough.

Read more about Bill and Pauline and the magical era at  MGM and Tom Lyle's Villa Valentino in Hollywood Hills, in The Maybelline Story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nACj50uq6_s