OLD HOLLYWOOD,- Maybelline print ads that rocked the world between 1930's - 1960's, now considered works of art.

1933 black and white Maybelline ad.

1938 full page color Maybelline ad.

                            Maybelline black and white ad from 1952

Maybelline two page color ad in 1960

JOAN CRAWFORD - MILDRED PIERCE - HEDY LAMARR - PAUL HESSE HOLLYWOOD - 1945 ACADEMY AWARDS

I'm very excited to show you this private letter from Maybelline ad man, Emery Shaver (Tom Lyle Williams partner for over 50 years) - written from the Villa Valentino, to his sister Elizabeth Shaver, and graciously shared with me by his nephew Floyd Shaver-Welles.  I think you'll enjoy its significant value, especially if you love Vintage Hollywood and pure Advertising genius...... 

1923, from the left, Tom Lyle Williams, Elizabeth Shaver and her brother
  Emery Shaver seated.

April 14, 1946.

Life goes on rather calmly here, as usual.  We had a slight flurry of activity here last week in working on an assignment with Hedy Lamarr for a new ad.  She is a rather temperamental woman, although much more beautiful than she appears on the screen, and it was with some difficulty that we were finally able to pin her down to an appointment with Paul Hesse, Hollywood's leading Photographer, for a color portrait, and then get her to write her promised autographed testimonial.  All this took some diplomacy, but it was finally accomplished.  And from the first black and white proofs, it would appear we are going to have perhaps the most beautiful of all  of our growing list of color ads.  Presume you saw the one we have of Joan Crawford, which is now running currently for us in most of the magazines.  It was most fortunate for us that Miss Crawford was awarded the Academy Award for the Best Actress of 1945 for her picture "Mildred Pierce," just as our ad was first appearing.  Our ad created quite a sensation in the Advertising world and has been generally admired, so now many other Motion Picture Celebrities are eager to have the enormous benefit of such beautiful color ads, and we have more offers than we care to take advantage of.  Nothing succeeds, like success, they say, and this instance proves it. Hope the Lamarr ad gets as much attention and I think it will.

Hedy Lamarr.

Joan Crawford.

The actual letter.

Merle Oberon followed in a Maybelline color ad by Paul Hesse Hollywood.

Maybelline Art Deco ads transform from black and white into eye-popping color during the 1930s

                  Vertical ad in Photoplay magazine 1935

                  Full page black and white ad in 1936

       Same image used on first carded merchandise in 1936

During the 1930s Depression. Maybelline mascara was no longer sold through the classifieds in magazines, it was now sold in dime stores, produced in smaller boxes and dropped from 75 cents to 10 cents.  Profits soared and were put right back into advertising.  This full page, glossy color ad from 1937 is a perfect example of Maybelline's transformation from black and white to color.

Maybelline was the first to develop carded merchandise.


Read the whole story in my book, The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It.  

Maybelline's Wonder Woman, Linda Carter.

Provocative and Sexy Maybelline's

 Super Hero!!!

best known for being Miss World USA and as the star of the 1970s television series, The New Original Wonder Woman (1975–77) and The New Adventures of Wonder Woman (1977-79).

Maybelline's Wonder Woman, 1984.

Wonder Woman is a warrior Princess of the Amazons (based on the Amazons of Greek mythology) and was created by Marston, an American, as a "distinctly feminist role model whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men."[2] Known in her homeland as Diana of Themyscira, her powers include superhuman strength, flight ( even though the original Wonder Woman did not have this ability), super-speed, super-stamina, and super-agility. She is highly proficient in hand-to-hand combat and in the art of tactical warfare. She also possesses an animal-like cunning and a natural rapport with animals, which has in the past been presented as an actual ability to communicate with the animal kingdom. She uses her Lasso of Truth, which forces those bound by it to tell the truth, a pair of indestructible bracelets, a tiara which serves as a projectile, and, in some stories, an invisible airplane.

Click on Video to see Linda Carter, Wonder Woman in a 1984, Maybelline commercial.

          Click video to see Wonder Woman in action.

Maybelline's use of color skyrocketed their ads to new heights!

What a difference color can make when it comes to grabbing the eye.

Tom Lyle's "Before and After," Maybelline Ads went from Plain Jane Sweet, to Over the Top "Hollywood," when he added color in the late 1930's.  By the early 1940's he contracted Film Stars - Joan Crawford, Hedy Lemarr, Betty Grable and Merle Oberon as well as many other gorgeous actresses to represent Maybelline and it's new level of penetrating color. I will be posting their faces as well as the bombshell pin-up girls next week, so stay tuned for more fabulous Maybelline advertisements during the War Years and some of Tom Lyle's never before told inside stories. 

Maybelline ads went from half a page black and white, to full-page color, eye-popping extravaganzas, A Maybelline First!

Tom Lyle Williams was more than the man who invented mascara - he was truly the King of Advertising!

Read more about the man and his genius in -

The Maybelline story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind it.