Take a glance at the fascinating topics featured in my book

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Maybelline, Cosmetics,  Great Lash Mascara, beauty, Chicago, Hollywood, Morganfield KY, Tom Lyle Williams, L’Oreal, Great Depression, Bix Beiderbecke, Marketing Strategist, History, Family Dynasty, Mabel Williams, Noel J. Williams, Preston Williams, Evelyn Williams, Eva Williams, Chester Haines, Chet Hewes

Nickelodeon, Mary Pickford, Sears Roebuck and Co, Popular Mechanics Magazine, The Mayflower Families, Mercy Hospital, Mail Order Catalogues, The Household Guest, Weeghman Park, Balaban and Katz Theatre, Charlie Chaplin, The Little Tramp, World War 1, Cecil B. DeMille, Rudolph Valentino, Boston Opera Company, Jazz-Bo, Erte’, Art Nouveau, Harry Houdini,

 The Lusitania, Lillian Gish, Birth of a Nation, Photoplay magazine, Vaseline, Victorian Era, Marshall Fields and Co., Park-Davis, Mascaro, Police Gazette, Saturday Evening Post, Gibson Girl, Coco Chanel, Powder, Rouge, Wall Street Journal, Lost Generation, Lord and Taylor, The Jazz Age, Louis Armstrong, Al Capone, Flappers, Chicago Institute of Music, Theda Bara,

 Miss America Pageant, Lake Zurich, Scabs, Cleveland, Pinkerton Agents, Mildred Davis, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Cubs Park, Wrigley Field, Mayo Clinic, Charlie Chase, Viola Dana, Lefty Flynn, Beverly Hills Hotel, The Polo Lounge, Tom Mix, Miss Mixit, Will Rogers, Clara Bow, Mildred Davis, Gloria Swanson, Malibu Colony, Wings the film, 

The Jazz Singer, Argentina, gangsters, St Valentines Day Massacre, Herbert Hoover, Academy of Motion Picture Arts, Douglas Fairbanks, Roosevelt Hotel, The Circus (film), Marion Davies, Roaring Twenties, Art Deco, Ponds Cold Cream, Helena Rubenstein, Duke University, Actress Natalie Moorhead, Actress Norma Shearer,

Eastman-Kodak Camera, Tarzan of the Apes, Amos and Andy, “The Little Engine That Could,”  Jimmy Shield, William “Bill” Haines, MGM Studios, Baby Face Nelson, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, The New Deal, The San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge,

 Adolf Hitler, Tower Hill Military School, Dundee Illinois, Jean Harlow, Bombshell, National Recovery Act, FDR, The Maybelline Hour, WFNT, Penthouse Serenade,

 Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, Dust Bowl, Biograph Theatre, Biograph Studio, Lady In Red, Joan Crawford, Technicolor Film, 1934 Packard Automobile, The 1934 Worlds Fair, Jake the Barber, William Randolph Hearst,

 Marion Davies, Vogue Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, Max Factor, Charles Revlon, Merle Norman Cosmetics, Production Code Administration, (PCA), Hays Code, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, California, Marlene Dietrich actress, Lilly Dache’, Carmen Miranda, Laguna Beach, The Great Ziegfeld, Deanna Durban actress, Judy Garland,

 Biltmore Hotel,  Musso and Franks restaurant, Hedy Lamaar actress, Carole Lombard actress, True Confession Magazine, World War 11, Eleanor Fisher actress, Santa Anita Racetrack,
 Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Bing Crosby, Seabiscuit,

 Benny Goodman band leader, Alice Faye actress, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Fox Studio, The Fleishmann Hour, Times Square, Merle Oberon actress, Glenn Miller bandleader, The Wizard of Oz, Gone With The Wind, King Kong, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Eleanor Powell actress, Tommy Dorsey,

 Jimmy Dorsey bandleader, Tommy Dorsey bandleader, Frank Sinatra, Winston Churchhill, Tony Martin, Daryl Zanuck, Betty Grable, Phil Harris, Shirley Temple, Jane Withers, Busby Berkeley, Gene Krupa drummer,

 Cedric Gibbons, Douglas Aircraft, Louie B. Mayer, Mickey Rooney, Jeanette MacDonald, Glamour magazine, Ronald Reagan, Combat Camera, Bette Davis, Hollywood USO, Rita Hayworth , Mocambo restaurant, Xavier Cugat, Desi Arnaz, Greer Garson actress, Edgar Cayce, Jitterbugging, The Palladium, Romanoff’s restaurant, Humphrey Bogart, Lana Turner, The Coast Guard, Elyse Knox pinup girl, Linda Darnell, Maria Montez Susan Hayward, Virginia Mayo, Barbara Stanwyck, Fort Riley, Fort Ord, Philippines, General Douglas MacAuthur, Lois Collier actress, Ava Gardner,

 The American Dream, Norma Christopher, 1947 Tournament of Roses, Carlyle Blackwell Jr. Photography Studio, Hess Photography, Monoplies, McCarthyism, Bel Air Fire, Baldwin Hills Flood, Tungsten, Adlai Stevenson, President Eisenhower, Walkie Talkie Dolls, Dorian Gray, Chinatown in LA, Olvera St in LA, Frederick’s of Hollywood, Rosie the Riveter, James Dean, Bill Haley and the Comets, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry Maybellene the song, Grace Kelly, Prince Rainier 111 of Monaco,

 Marilyn Monroe, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Ben Hur, Camarillo State Mental Hospital, Manic-Depressive disorder, F.W.Woolworth, Patricia Stevens Modeling School, Dream Girl, The Gong Show, The Dating Game, Plough Inc, Schering-Plough,  Martin Luther King Jr, Robert Kennedy, The Vietnam War, Neil Armstrong, Balboa Bay Club Newport Beach CA, Conway Twitty, Arson Fire In Hot Springs AK.

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.

MERLE OBERON - PAUL HESSE - MAYBELLINE AND THE STUDIO/STAR SYSTEM.

Renowned pioneer advertising Photographer Paul Hesse and exotic Merle Oberon.

Not only a genius when it came to glamour photography, Paul Hesse helped launch many starlets careers in Hollywood by introducing them to the right Studio bosses.  He also photographed the Biggest Stars on the Silver Screen as promotional advertising vehicles for products like Maybelline cosmetics. The combination of Studio, Star, film and product - helped make up 

the Hollywood Star system.  

MY MAKE-UP WOULD NOT BE COMPLETE WITHOUT MAYBELLINE MASCARA, EYEBROW PENCIL AND EYE SHADOW, Signed, Merle Oberon, 1944.

When the full page color Maybelline ad of Merle Oberon appeared on the back cover of 1944 movie magazines,  she was starring in the Gothic horror film Dark Waters.  Paul Hess shot the exotic photo of her as an advertising tool to promote her career, the Studio's name and Maybelline cosmetics.  That's one way the Studio Star/System worked up until the 1950s.

The front cover of a movie magazine would promote the film, the inside story would exploit the Studio and the back cover would display a Maybelline ad, autographed by Merle Oberon, suitable for framing.

It's easy to recognize the quality of color film used by Paul Hesse in the late 1930's and 40's.

The brilliance of Merle Oberon's eyes stand out just as much as the flowers or ruffles on her dress.

Merle Oberon's exotic features allowed her to play various ethnic rolls throughout her career and Paul Hesse captured the magic of dark eyes, red lips and raven hair in this picture of an Indian Princess.

The lighting in this photo captured the sparkle in Oberon's eyes, her smile and the energy she exuded.

During its original airing between 1955 and 1959 and in syndication as Love That Bob, The Bob Cummings Show depicted the exploits and pranks of bachelor Bob Collins, a celebrity photographer of Hollywood stars, and his network of mostly unmarried friends. 

It's been said that Bob Cummings character was taken directly from the famous Paul Hesse, Hollywood's flamboyant Star maker.

Check back tomorrow for the last day of Paul Hesse, his Stars and the Hollywood Studio/Star System.

Maybelline's first, "Big-Screen" sex symbol, Jean Harlow.

Pioneer of the Hollywood Studio System and Star System,  Jean Harlow, a product of that System, comes alive Thomas Ince, book about her life.

Harlow in Hollywood: The Blonde Bombshell in the Glamour Capital, 1928-1937, by Darrell Rooney and Mark A. Vieira (Angel City Press).  Harlow in Hollywood is the story of how a town and an industry created her, a story that's never been told before.  Buy in on Amazon

Jean Harlow, known as the “Blonde Bombshell,” was the earliest and most popular of the sex symbols–the 1930s incarnation of Marilyn Monroe.

Thomas Ince: Hollywood's Independent Pioneer, by Brian Taves (University Press of Kentucky).

  Want to know how, when and were, the Hollywood Studio System, and Star System began?  It all started with Thomas Ince.  Buy it on Amazon.


The Maybelline Story is available on kindle, at Amazon,  and on the Nook at Barnes and Noble.   Buy it today.

More new books out about Old Hollywood and it's Stars.

John Huston: Courage and Art, by Jeffrey Meyers (Crown Archetype)


Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood, by Emily W. Leider (University of California Press)


Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, by Brian Kellow (Viking)


Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood's Legendary Director, by Marilyn Ann Moss (University Press of Kentucky)


The Rise and Fall of Lou-Tellegen, by David W. Menefee (Menefee Publishing)


Spencer Tracy: A Biography, by James Curtis (Knopf)


Syd Chaplin: A Biography, by Lisa K. Stein (McFarland)

Wally: The True Wallace Reid Story, by David W. Menefee (BearManor Media)


Also just out, and so new there hasn't been time to review it is Francis X. Bushman: In His Own Words

 Tom Lyle Williams can also make claim to being a part of The Hollywood Star System, helping create Stars out of Starletts, by promoting them in his Maybelline ads.

Tom Lyle Williams,

Read his story in THE MAYBELLINE STORY AND THE SPIRITED FAMILY DYNASTY BEHIND IT.

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.

Women clamor, for the promise of Provocative, Alluring Maybelline Eyes!

 America sinks deeper into hopelessness, during the 1930's, yet, Maybelline expands as the demand for beautiful eyes, continues to grow.

 

Top picture, Billy, Preston and Evelyn, with Tom Lyle. Bottom picture, Tom Lyle and his son Tom Jr. Right, Tom Lyle, President and sole owner of The Maybelline Company, with his 1934 Packard.

Tom Lyle, brilliantly used top actresses, to advertise Maybelline in film magazines, during the golden age of the 1930's.

One of Maybelline's most popular stars, Betty Grable, highlights the joys of beautifully made-up eyes.  Grable was part of the Hollywood Star System Tom Lyle helped create.

Read more about Tom Lyle Williams, sensational advertising techniques, that helped make some of the biggest Hollywood stars, and Maybelline, a household word, in...... 

               The Maybelline Story.

  Get a signed copy today at www.maybellinestory.com.