Old Hollywood Glamour at the Star Studded Premiere of... "All This and Heaven Too"

Tom Lyle Williams, Jane Allen, Emery Shaver, Annette Williams, Arnold Anderson, 1940 at the Villa Valentino.

Wednesday June 13, 1940

Excerpt from Jane Allen's diary while visiting her uncle at the Villa Valentino. 

This has been one grand day. Annette and I were up at a quarter of ten for an appointment at the hair dressers.

Emery picked us up in time for breakfast at one. At 4:14 we went toMax Factors for make-up. Glamour girls no less.

The big affair of attending the world premier of “All This and Heaven Too,” started about eight o'clock

when a limousine picked up Annette, Arnold, Emery, Tom Lyle and me, and drove over to get Emery's friend, Lona Woolsey.

The whole party were certainly dressed up, all the boys in tuxedos and the girls in formals.

The premiere was at Carthay Circle. The crowds simply jammed the streets as we arrived. The police, both on foot and mounted, were trying to hold the people back, but each person was trying to get a glimpse of the Stars.

The limousine stopped to let us out amid hundreds of lights and lots of cameramen. An announcer with a microphone was in front to announce the different stars as they arrive. They stared at us too, but we fooled them. We were just ordinary people. The long pass way from the front to the entrance of the theater seemed miles, with thousands of people staring, hoping each would be a Star. The walkway was lined with large gorgeous bouquets of flowers. These I didn't see as I walked in because I was so excited and nervous. 

After we were inside the theater, we stood around to see as many stars as possible. We saw Jimmy Stewart with Olivia de Haviland,

Jeffry Lynn,

Andrea Leeds,

Ann Miller,

Preston Foster,

Stewart Erwin,

and Don Ameche.

After walking around for a while we went into the Theater. Carthay Circle Theater is not very large but very beautiful. Furnished without consideration for cost. Carpet was beautiful red velvet and gold curtains.

At intermission we were in the lobby again.

Saw Ken Murray,

 Edgar Bergen,

Charles Boyer,

and more that I just can't remember now. The picture was very good. Was over about Twelve midnight. We had our long walk from the entrance to the driveway again, with lots of spectators looking for stars.

On our way out, we saw Gene Lockhart, 

Elsa Maxwell

and Hedda Hopper.

The announcer gave us a thrill calling Mr. TL Williams' car waiting. We were just like the big shots.

From Carthay Circle we drove to Ciros, the swankiest nightclub in Hollywood. Certainly couldn't have gotten into the place without reservations, as the club was jammed. Ciros is a beautiful place, very modern and very colorful.

Just as we entered we saw Robert Taylor,

Barbara Stanwick,

Jack Benny, Mary Livingston,

Edward Arnold and his wife,

Andrea Leeds and her husband,

Bette Davis and her party sat right next to our table. In fact her chair was bumped right up next to my chair.

Constance Bennett and her party was a table on the other side next to our table.

William Powell and his wife Diana Lewis, had a table behind us.

Across the way was Norma Shearer and her party.

Also saw Geraldine Fitzgerald,

George Jessel with his sixteen year old bride, Lois Andrew,

and Louise Fazenda.

 Most of the stars we saw at the Premiere were also at Circos. Never in my life have I ever seen, heard of or expected to attend such a gala affair It was the height of formality and considered the social occasion of the season in Hollywood. After several drinks, frosted daiquiris, we had something to eat and got home about 3:30 am. Believe our party was the last to leave Ciros. Don't think I ever enjoyed any activity so much in my life. The memory will be something to go over again and again.

The Maybelline Story - Sharrie Williams (Guest) Bridge City News

Interview with Bridge City News, Canada.  

Maybelline started as a little mail order business in the classified section of Movie magazines. Tom Lyle Williams a 19 year boy with a 10th grade education, was an advertising genius. His great niece, Sharrie Williams tells a bit of his story and the great success he became when his little cosmetic company  took off during the Silent Film Era.  

1930's Maybelline ad painted by Zoë Mozert, the most famous female pin-up artist of her day

1930's Maybelline ad painted by Pin-Up artistZoe Mozart.

Zoe Mozart painted hundreds of magazine covers and movie posters during her career. Mozert frequently was her own model, using cameras or mirrors to capture the pose. Her paintings are best known for their pastel style and realistic depiction of women.

 

Daniel Vancas, pinup and glamour artist, art restorer, art publisher of 25 years. Paints in the style of Elvgren Vargas, Moral and Zoe Mozart.Vancas is an artist for commission work in his field of expertise.  He also owns branding and (c) on over 100 pinup and glamour art images. He has a large art archive of works as well.  Vancascan be commissioned for new works, or licensed existing works. He also have several other artist and photographers with whom he has working contracts and they often work together on projects. 

Daniel Vancas web site http://www.vanguard-gallery.com 

Jean Harlow painted by Zoe Mozert between 1933-1936

Zoe Mozert painting a Pin-Up Model in the 1940's.

Zoe Mozert Painting a reflection of herself in the mirror.

Zoe Mozert being painted in the nude by artist Ed Moran

Jane Russell in The Outlaw. Poster painted by Zoe Mozert.

Zoe Mozert's Maybelline ad would appear in a Movie magazine like this.....painted by the artist.

Past posts I've done featuring Zoe Mozert.  http://www.maybellinebook.com/search/label/Zoe%20Moezert

Perry Como singing "So I Love You So." featuring Pin-Up Girls painted by Zoe Mozert.

How Maybelline changed the cosmetic industry

Make-up is as old as the first civilizations. From the beginning of time, people loved to alter their appearance by putting various mixtures on their face. This is something that lasted and persisted through centuries. It is within our nature to try and improve the way we look. It gives us a necessary confidence and makes us more attractive to opposite sex. Today, it is an unavoidable part of our culture and important aspect of every woman’s life.

“Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline”

Chicago from 1915

Photo credit:
http://www.choosechicago.com/blog/post/2013/10/Haunted-Chicago-The-Most-Supernatural-Locations-in-Chicago/1068/

The real cosmetic revolution started at the turn of 19^th century. First beauty salons opened their doors to customers and the first franchises started appearing all over the USA. Almost at the same time, in 1915, Tom Lyle Williams from Chicago made his first mascara. His sister Mabel gave him an idea to make this product, so in her honor, when he started selling his products; he named the newly founded company Maybelline. Williams created the first, modern mascara in 1917 and named it Maybelline Care Mascara.

During the years, company was sold and resold to many entrepreneurs. It changed its headquarters a few time, finally settling in Brooklyn, New York. Today, it is a part of giganticconglomerate L’Oreal from Paris, France, which bought it off in 1996. This made Maybelline a global, recognizable trade mark, sold all over the world. Nowadays, similarly to many other cosmetic products, you can even find it in American and Canadian drugstores. Onereputable Canadian pharmacy in Winnipeg, is You! Drugstore. 

The companies such as Maybelline were pioneers of this beauty revolution. Back in the day, it was a first, real cosmetic company and it made many entrepreneurs try their luck in this field. It made our lives prettier and nicer. This is an important aspect of every woman’s life and it brings joy to many of them. As the industry progresses, we still need to see what kind of new products are we going to use in future. Hopefully, the firms will be similar like Maybelline, providing us the best that money can buy.

Thomas Lyle Williams, founder of Maybelline Cosmetics, left a trust in favor of CARE and The Salvation Army because, in his judgment, these two organizations “cared for the poor within their means better than any other groups.”

The Trust was drawn up in 1958 and the terms gave CARE two million dollars a year and the Salvation Army one million. If the interest did not cover the three million to be paid out, then the balance had to come from the capital. And for a year or two this was the case. However, management brought in an investment team and, still following the specific intentions of the trust, wise investments have over the years brought commendable dividends and increased value, so much so that now CARE and the Army have the income from this trust “in perpetuity.”

A plaque honoring the T.L. Williams Trust and its years of generosity is on display at NHQ, a permanent recognition of this trust and the benefit it has been to Salvation Army programs throughout the U.S. 

Tom Lyle Williams, also set up two trust funds in Chicago held by JP Morgan Chase - each worth today approximately $1.5M . They started with $1M each back in the late 70's when he passed away. One benefits the Braille Institute and the other benefits the American Humane Association. Each receive approximately $65,000 per year from the trusts - a significant annual sum for any charitable organization!

Beauty Hurts when appearances mean everything

remember the familiar advertising slogan, “Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe It’s Maybelline

 ” It might be one of the last legacies handed down from the original family of an American dynasty. Although the company now known as Maybelline New York was acquired by L’Oréal Paris in 1996, Maybelline remains a household name.

One of the original family’s direct descendants, Sharrie Williams, has authored, The Maybelline Story…and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It, to tell her family’s own fascinating story.

The office in her attractive, yet beautifully stylish adobe-style North Scottsdale home, is neatly stacked with a rich collection of photos and memorabilia. She tells the story of how the vision of her grandfather’s brother founded the American make-up giant, Maybelline Cosmetics.

The book is a true page-turner, each chapter leaving the reader wanting more. In the Preface, Alan Andrews Ragland, describes company founder, Tom Lyle Williams, as “a self-made man—a boy from small- town American who, through determination, great ideas and plain old hard work, created an astonishingly successful company called Maybelline.”

In 1915, Mabel Williams, inspired her brother, Tom Lyle, to formulate an eye-beautifying product called, “Lash-Brow-Ine.” Today’s version of that original product still claims to be the best-selling mascara of all time. Tom Lyle, bought the company that became known as Maybelline with a $500 loan he borrowed from his brother, Noel J. Williams

That company, named in sister Mabel’s honor, would eventually become the leading cosmetic industry giant in America.

As the story goes, after witnessing his sister Mabel, “replacing” her singed eyebrows and lashes with a mixture of burnt cork and petroleum jelly, Tom makes a tremendous discovery. He realized that the way actresses made their eyes so compelling on screen could be easily replicated for non-starlets with a few ingredients in their proper ratios.

Sharrie Williams relates a colorful story of how her great uncle, the middle son of an American family (with roots going back to the 1600s, that include Benjamin Franklin, the founder of West Point and a leader of the Boston Tea Party) played a pivotal part in American history, creating a company with a product that has become a familiar household name.

During the “roaring ‘20s,” the “flapper era” would provide a devoted following for the eyelash and eyebrow beautifiers that Maybelline produced. The demand for Maybelline products was so great that even through the Depression the company remained successful.

“Hollywood and Silent Films were a key ingredient in making Maybelline, the great company it became during the 20th century,” Sharrie explains.

Some of the famous faces over the years who have represented the Maybelline Cosmetics Company have included: Gloria Swanson, Jean Harlow, Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Lana Turner and Loretta Young.

After the company sold in December 1967, Linda Carter of Wonder Woman fame became the face of Maybelline for a time. After it sold again to Loreal Paris, Maybelline New York’s famous Super Models representatives have been the likes of Christy Turlington, Kirstin Davis, Miranda Kerr, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Melina Kanakaredes, and Sheetal Mallar. Julia Stegner, Jessica White, Emily DiDonato, Lisalla Montenegro, and Shu Pei.

The author grew up in Southern California leading a middle class lifestyle until the sale of the Maybelline Company made her father an overnight multi-millionaire, which she says turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. Sharrie reveals candidly her own realization about beauty, from the inside out.

Order a signed copy of the Maybelline Story directly from me

Click to Order a signed copy of the Maybelline Story directly from the author. 

Maybelline  1915 - 2018  The Maybelline Story Embraces the drama, intrigue and history behind the Iconic Maybelline Brand and the family behind it. 

Available at 

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FOREWORD by Legendary Publicist, Michael A. Levine

“A woman’s most powerful possession is a man’s imagination.”

Tom Lyle Williams, 1934

I think every girl I ever dated as a teenager had one of those pink and green tubes of Maybelline Great Lash mascara stashed in her purse.  How on earth would I know this?  Because the contents of all those purses regularly spilled out of school lockers, behind bleachers, under the seats of cars….  If they weren’t scrambling to hide their other feminine products, then they were diving for the mascara because THAT wasclearly the key to their enchanting doe-eyed beauty. 

As I’ve grown older, gotten married, divorced, and dated all over again, I’ve seen the contents of many beautiful women’s cosmetic bags.  And there has always been a Maybelline product inside.

I recognize things like this because I’m a brand man myself.  At an early age I discovered the power of perception…specifically, the perception of value, which can be even more important than price itself.  For example, the Tiffany brand is indomitable because one need only see the powder-blue box and white satin ribbon to think that whatever is inside is premium simply because it comes from Tiffany.

So I was delighted when I was asked to read The Maybelline Story and learn about the origins and growth of this modest company into the best-known eye beauty brand around the world.  What a story it is!

From humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to gangster-ridden Prohibition Chicago, to Hollywood in the ‘30s and ‘40s, pin-ups, the Pentagon, and eventually, the whole world, this is a classic tale of a makeshift product that developed out of one woman’s innovative need to fix something else, and her brother’s prescient understanding that she was onto something BIG!

In 1915, Mabel Williams singed her eyelashes and brows while cooking.  Horrified that she no longer looked feminine, she concocted a mixture and applied it to her remaining lashes and brows, giving her some added sparkle and sheen.  One of her brothers, Tom Lyle Williams, noticed the successful effect.

But he also noticed something more profound: a woman’s eyes were her calling card.  “Come look at me.”  “Coax me out of my bashfulness.”  “Yes, I’m flirting.”  “I’m interested in you.”  He appreciated beauty in all women, and their beauty spoke to him straight through their eyes.  Tom Lyle wanted to reproduce his sister’s “formula” to see whether regular women would pay a little to “up” the glamour in themselves.

All he needed was $500 and a rudimentary chemistry set to give his idea a real try.  But gathering $500 in 1915 wasn’t easy.  So when his brother Noel offered to loan him the money, he promised to repay him in full.  Little did any of them realize then that Noel would receive a return on his investment similar to the original investors in Microsoft or Apple!

For over a half century, Maybelline operated as a private company owned by the Williams family.  What Tom Lyle, his brother and sister started as a small, mail-order business eventually became an internationally recognized brand purchased 82 years later by French conglomerate L’Oreal for over 700 million.

I can tell you: it’s one thing to recognize a winning product discovered by accident, and quite another to turn it into an empire that, for decades, transcended all competition and remains an icon to this day.

How does one do that?  Precisely by branding.  By taking an exceptional product and equating it with excellence in every way.  By having a constant, relentless drive to promote a desirable image through that product.  By turning that product into the sine qua non of, in this case, eye beauty. 

Tom Lyle Williams packaged and sold artifice – the importance of beautiful eyes.  He made eye beauty the singular defining quality of a beautiful woman, and he branded Maybelline as representative of perfect beauty.  His genius was in convincing millions of women the world over to buy Maybelline with the absolute conviction that using Maybelline eye products would truly make them perfectly beautiful.

Unlike most folks in Hollywood, this unlikeliest of legends kept a low personal profile and let his creativity speak through his work.  In my opinion, Tom Lyle Williams can teach us more about branding than Colonel Sanders, Calvin Klein, and Coco Chanel combined.  He was first to enlist movie stars to promote his products.  One of the first companies to promote corporate social responsibility by supporting war bonds.  First to take advantage of advertising on broadcast television.  First to employ market research.  And first to truly understand the buying power of women.

Surely such a creative man must have had a muse…perhaps some woman he thought the ideal version of his own vision of beauty?  Indeed!  While he named the company for his sister, his muse was actually his sister-in-law, Evelyn.  She was gorgeous, smart, and often too smart for her own good.

The drama of this family-business-story, as with many such sagas, lies in deciphering where the family and the business intersected, frequently came to loggerheads, and sometimes went to court.  Secrets existed, lies were told, and facades masqueraded as truth – often to protect the family from itself, and always to protect Maybelline above all else. 

Edison made light bulbs.  Ford manufactured cars.  Here’s another great American rags-to-riches story.  This time the name is Williams.  The cash cow wore mascara and Maybelline. 

by Michael A. Levine 

Review By Kate Farrell of Kates Reads
www.katesreads.com
@KatesReads
“The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Dynasty Behind It”, by Sharrie Williams is a gripping memoir of the cosmetics company and her own family.  It is vintage Hollywood, with all of the glamour, greed, passion and intrigue you would expect.


Tom Lyle, the company’s founder and patriarch of the family, discovers the idea for mascara from an incident with his sister, Mabel.  He turns the idea into a business venture and begins a successful mail-order marketing campaign.  He names the company Maybelline in honor of his sister.  Over the years the business will grow and then reach the brink only to be brought back to success by Lyle’s business and marketing savvy.  He was truly an entrepreneur.

The extended family is filled with interesting and colorful personalities.  Most of them are involved in the company in some shape or form; or at least dependent on their share of the family fortune. How they interact with each other and get tangled up in drama makes for titillating reading.  The author does not seem to have left any skeletons in the closet or stones unturned.

This is a very engaging memoir.  Williams’ writing brings all the players to life and makes the reader anxious to know what happens to them next.  It has all the ingredients for a great piece of fiction but is even better when you realize it all really happened.  A great read!

Another great review of The Maybelline Story from a guys point of view

By James Pringle.

I just wanted to let you know that your book captivated my attention, from beginning to end.The Maybelline Story, your family history, is a mixture of joy and sadness, complete with a full array of emotions, as well as plenty of adventure and drama to stimulate the imagination.

Throughout your book, I drew mental pictures of locations and events which you eloquently described.  The photos in your book helped to complete my mental images of your family.  While reading your book it was as if I were watching a movie of "The Maybelline Story" in my mind.

In fact, I would be very surprised if "The Maybelline Story" is not someday showing in theaters as a full-length movie or as a  mini-series on TV.  Indeed.