MGM, Louie B. Mayer, and the Star Factory is very much part of The Maybelline Story

 

My Grandfather, Andrew Mac Donald, known as Mac at MGM started his career in 1915 at Metro Pictures and when Metro joined Goldwyn and Mayer he continued working in the construction department and went on to oversee 7 departments altogether.  Upon his retirement in 1968, MGM gave him this beautiful pin and a gold watch for his lifetime service. He was a Motion Picture and Special Effects Pioneer for over 55 years.

Mac, shown in his white overalls, ran the construction department at MGM. His crew was responsible for building every set and sound stage at the Studio. He was closely connected with Louie B. Mayer and was known for always coming in under budget, after Cedric Gibbons, MGM's Art Directer, gave him the set designs to be used for a picture. I'm very proud of My MGM roots and love this amazing piece of Film Industry History. 
My Great uncle Tom Lyle Williams, founder of the Maybelline Company in 1915 also had a history with MGM and Louie B. Mayer.

Louis B. Mayer, the Godfather of The Hollywood Star System, created Super Stars out of starlets. But not without the help of Tom Lyle Williams and Maybelline.

The star system was the method of creating, promoting and exploiting movie stars in Classical Hollywood cinema.

MGM was one of the most powerful and most prestigious of all the major motion picture studios.

Studios would select promising young actresses and glamorise and create personas for them, often inventing new names and even new backgrounds.

Louis B. Mayer, the most powerful , highest paid man in Hollywood, created the Hollywood myth, "that anything is possible, regardless of class or money."  He didn't want real life scandals to tarnish that dream, and diminish his audiences. 

The star system put an emphasis on the image rather than the acting. Women were expected to behave like ladies, and were never to leave the house without makeup and stylish clothes.

Part of creating the ideal image of emerging stars, was to promote them in Maybelline ads,

Jean Harlow on the cover of Picture Play, would also appear in a Maybelline ad inside the magazine.

Tom Lyle Williams kept his private life hidden from public scrutiny, to protect Maybelline's image.  However, he was as big, if not bigger, than any Hollywood Studio head and like Louis B. Mayer,  created Super Stars, by  grooming and promoting them in Maybelline advertisements.  

Jean Harlow, illustrated in a Maybelline ad, appeared in all the popular gossip, Hollywood movie magazines, in the early 1930s.

Mabel Williams, 'Secrets from the Harem,' from Photoplay Magazine...1915, inspired the birth of Maybelline

After accidently burning her brows and lashes in 1915, Mabel Williams  found a trick in Photoplay magazine, called "Secret of the Harem."  It allowed her to get the desired fuller darker lash look by using simple house hold products. Vaseline & soot or coal dust, was mixed into a black gel and then applied to the lashes with a fine brush. It was this simple trick that inspired her brother, Tom Lyle Williams, to formulate and name his new beauty product, Maybelline, in honor of his sister who gave him the idea.

                                           Elsie Ferguson

Jean Harlow

                                     Phyllis Haver

                                    Gloria Swanson

Greta Garbo

Joan Crawford

 Hedy Lamarr

Throughout the decades, Tom Lyle Williams, continued to contract these beautiful Hollywood Stars as the faces of Maybelline, while he kept his personal life and family, private from the public eye.

 Being in the right place at the right time was partly the secret of Maybelline coming into the world.  That and the fact the world of women were starving for something to allow them to enhance their natural beauty.  I know that if I didn't have my Maybelline, I would have always been the plainest of Jane's for sure.  My daughter once remarked that without makeup, my face looked like a blank slate.  With make up I can transform into a completely different persona.  So thank goodness my auntie Mabel, had the accident that caused her to need to invent something quick to save her face and to save all of our faces.

Read more these beautiful Photoplay Stars who represented Maybelline, in my book, The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It.


Be sure to visit my Hilarious 1964 High School Blog called Saffrons Rule at http://saffronsrule.com/

Maybelline's Super Star Models, during the Golden Age of Hollywood

Maybelline was synonymous with Hollywood Glamour in the 1930s.

Before and After Maybelline ad, with Paulette Goddard.

Carole Lombard, one of Tom Lyle's favorites.

Betty Grable, Maybelline Star.

Paulette Goddard, a personal friend of T L Williams.

Gloria Swanson, a Maybelline model from the 1920s.

Jean Harlow, another Maybelline model, Tom Llye, helped groom.

Marion Valle' brought fashion and Maybelline together.

Maybelline box, in the 1930s.

Black and white Maybelline ads appeared in the gossip magazines.

Typical Maybelline ad found in Photoplay.

Tom Lyle Williams, with his son Tom Lyle Jr in 1934.

Read all about the Golden Age of Hollywood in The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It. 

Visit my Hilarious 1964 High School Blog...Saffrons Rule at http://saffronsrule.com/

Maybelline - Queen of the Drug Store in the 1930s

Vintage Drug Store Advertising Banner announcing Maybelline sold in it's original 75 cent box.

The original Maybelline box was sold only through classifieds in newspapers and magazines and wrapped in brown paper to protect a woman's reputation between 1915 and 1933.

Today this original Maybellne box is almost
 100 years old.

Maybelline brought a new flux of young customers into Drug Store's hoping to be discovered in Hollywood.

Maybelline was positioned at the front door of the drug store to encourage impulse buying.

Another drug store strategy was to place a carton of Maybelline boxes on the lunch counter and near the cash register to encourage ladies to grab it before they left the store.

A vintage Maybelline sign found in early drug stores.

The original Maybelline brush fit perfectly in the
 little red box.

During the Depression, the price of Maybelline was dropped to 10 cents and packaged in a much smaller box than the 75 cent version.  Now every woman could afford a box of maybelline and have beautiful eyes.

The Maybelline Girl now on carded merchandise, was introduced in the early 1930's at the drug store.

Color was added in the late 1930's.

A 10 cent Depression size brass tin of Maybellne Eye Shadow, featuring the original Maybelline Girl.

It was the beautiful advertising that brought the crowds of women into their local drug store for a box of Maybelline in 1932.

Maybellilne's Before and After Ad's were first seen in vertical  advertising found in news papers and magazines in the early 1930s.

The Film Cleopatra staring Claudette Colbert, inspired this before and after ad in 1934. 

Big Stars like Jean Harlow along with the Good Housekeeping seal of approval expanded Maybellines credibility in the 1930
http://www.maybellinebook.com/2011/07/maybelline-targeted-average-housewife.html


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Actress Alice Faye and Maybelline's Tom Lyle Williams, mistaken for Jean Harlow and Howard Hughes in the 1930's

                    Times Square 1938, during the filming of 
                             "Alexander's Ragtime Band" 

Alice Faye

Tom Lyle Williams

My aunt Verona said she remembered once running into Tom Lyle and Alice Faye at a posh restaurant in 1938, right after the filming of “Alexanders Ragtime Band.” She said Tom Lyle and Alice Faye made a devastatingly handsome couple, he so tall dark and handsome, and she so petite, blond and glamorous.  “For a second,” she said, “I thought it was Howard Hughes and Jean Harlow.”

Howard Hughes

Jean Harlow

Harlow had already died, of course, but Alice Faye, was a blond bombshell that did have a Harlow aura. Verona went on to tell me that at that time Maybelline had a giant neon sign in Times Square and believed it was Alice who insisted that particular view of Times Square be shot and used in the film.  Verona was sick I didn’t tell Alice who my uncle was, and she knew Tom Lyle would  be very disappointed as well.



Excerpt taken from my book, The Maybelline Story.

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