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.

Vintage Hat Designers Lilly Dache' and Marion Valle' agree - EYE MAKE-UP IS AS NECESSARY TO CHIC AS THE SMARTEST HAT.

1936 Cocktail hats would not have been quite as exciting... without Maybelline Eyes lighting up a woman's face.

According to Marion Valle'..... Modern Eye Make-up is as Necessary to CHARM as the SMARTEST HAT.

In 1936 Maybelline changed their look and product line to be more fashionable and appeal to a younger market. 

A new 10 cent size of Maybelline replaced the 75 cent larger size in the 1930's, so every woman could afford to be fashionable during the Great Depression.

Lilly Dache' Hollywood's Mad Hatter, read all about her on Kay's,  Movie Star Makeover Blog.

Vintage American Girl by Marion Valle' on Ebay for $34.99

Want to know more about Vintage Hollywood Glamour and Fashion in the 1930's and 40's? Get the whole scoop in
The Maybelline Story... Buy my book directly from my site,
or Amazon and Barnes and Noble...on my right column..


Also be sure to visit my new Blog.....SAFFRONS RULE.....Taken directly from my 1964 High School Diary.  http://saffronsrule.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/216/

Maybelline was the first to advertise Before and After Ads

Be sure to check out my new SAFFRONS RULE Blog,
taken from my 1964 High School Diary. 
/http://saffronsrule.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/told-my-history-teacher-i-lost-my-term-paper-in-the-baldwin-hills-flood/

VINTAGE HOLLYWOOD GLAMOUR - BLACK AND WHITE MAYBELLINE ADS, 50's STYLE

Vintage 1960s Maybelline print ad slideshow

If my makeup bag ever dumped out of my school locker, slipped down bleachers during Football games, or slid under car seat at the drive-in….I quickly scrambled for my  mascara, because Ultra-Lash was clearly the key to my enchanting doe-eyed sex appeal.

A woman’s expressive eyes can say “Come look at me.”  “Coax me out of my bashfulness.”  “Yes, I’m flirting.”  “I’m interested in you.”  My great uncle, Tom Lyle Williams, appreciated beauty in all women and their beauty spoke to him straight through their eyes.  Here is a tribute to Maybelline during the 1960s.