PAULETTE GODDARD AND "HOLLYWOOD'S PHOTOGRAPHIC ZIEGFELD" PAUL HESSE,

Paul  Hesse’s fascinating career mirrors the rise and fall of the Hollywood studio system and you can trace the history of photography through his work. His photos present Hollywood as a mythical and slightly surreal place where blemish free beauties with perfect teeth smile endlessly for our pleasure. The Hollywood fantasy that Paul Hesse helped create is still being used to sell movie tickets today but it has lost some of its luster.....
                 Old Movies Nostalgia.

Paulette Goddard best known for her film performances 

and her marriage to Charlie Chaplin and Burgess 

Meredith.  You can see the meticulous attention to detail

and use of lighting in this photograph.  Hesse  

selected his models clothing, created the scene and  

assisted in the makeup. When a Maybelline ad was 

being shot, Tom Lyle Williams, Emery Shaver and 

Arnold Anderson were also present, making sure 

Maybelline's Brand was perfectly presented.

A child fashion model - Paulette Goddard moved to Broadway as a Ziegfeld Girl, performing the elaborate Ziegfeld Follies productions. Goddard went on to become a major star of the Paramount Studios and was  one of Tom Lyle's favorite Maybelline model's throughout the 1940s.

"Glamour photography started to lose its appeal when the powerful Hollywood studio system that had been in place for decades began to crumble. Major studios were no longer interested in grooming young stars or signing long-term contracts with them." From the blog, Old Movies Nostalgia.

Burgess Meredith with his wife Paulette Goddard and Merle Oberon with Lucien Ballard.

Charlie Chaplin and his wife Paulette Goddard.

    ANOTHER WORD FOR GLAMOUR WAS MAYBELLINE.

I argue that glamour is an enticing and seductive image that is woven around people places and things to make them seem more magnificent than they really are. It rests on a series of values including beauty, wealth, sex appeal, mobility, theatricality, dynamism and leisure. The most effective bearers of glamour in the last two hundred years have not been aristocrats or the established rich, but those, like Otero, who were outsiders who rose from nothing by sheer determination and force of personality. They captured the dreams of the masses with an aura that combined exclusivity with accessibility. In the twentieth century the major motion picture studios would learn how to manufacture this aura as a corporate product linked to consumption.

Learn more about Glamour: A History at the Oxford University Press website. Visit Stephen Gundle's faculty webpage.

Paulette Goddard

"A WOMAN'S GREATEST POSSESSION IS A 

MAN'S IMAGINATION." 

Quote by, TOM LYLE WILLIAMS.....MAYBELLINE.

Read more about Tom Lyle Williams and the  Stars who appeared in Maybelline's glamorous color ads in.....

The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty 

Behind It.

MARK HARMON'S MOTHER, MAYBELLINE MODEL, ELYSE KNOX DIES AT 94.

During the ’30s to the ’60s movie magazines around the world were overflowing with glamorous photographs of movie stars. One of the most interesting photographers working during this period was Paul Hesse who helped pioneer the use of color film in commercial art. (Old Movies Nostalgia.)

Paul Hesse and Elyse Knox.

Elyse Knox married fashion photographer
Paul Hesse, who had shot many of her print ads and magazine covers. 

                                            Elyse Knox

MAYBELLINE LIGHTS THE WAY TO NEW EYE BEAUTY, signed Elyse Knox.  By 1938 Paul Hesse had earned his reputation as one of the best commercial photographers working in New York. He was traveling to Hollywood several times a year to shoot glamorous photos of the stars for Photoplay magazine and he became the first photographer to use color in a national advertising campaign. 

Elyse Knox

Hesse enjoyed working with actors and he created many popular celebrity endorsed ad campaigns for companies such as  Maybelline, Rheingold Beer, Chesterfield Cigarettes, Lipton Tea, Royal Crown Cola and Studebaker automobiles. He also shot many photos for American Magazine.

     Elyse Knox

His colorful and hyper-realistic portraits of celebrities had a very distinct style that is still noticeable today. 

Elyse Knox.

The actress Greer Garson once said that Paul Hesse was, “greatly in demand by the leading national magazines to create cover-portraits to delight the eye. The result would be a true-to-life likeness but idealized, or glamorized if you will, by his superb technique in producing only delectable color values.”

Elyse Knox.

In 1940 Hesse decided to move to Los Angeles where he opened a new studio on Sunset Boulevard that became a gathering place for Hollywood stars and industry bigwigs. According to the book Masters of Starlight: Photographers In Hollywood, he was awarded the title of “Hollywood’s Photographic Ziegfeld” by a committee of unnamed movie stars in recognition of his contribution to their careers. 

Elyse Knox dies at 94; 

B-movie actress inthe 1940s.

Elyse Knox appeared in nearly 40 films. She was

perhaps best known for the only horror film she ever 

made, 'The Mummy's Tomb,' with Lon Chaney Jr. as the

 

monster who kidnaps her.

Elyse Knox and Tom Harmon.

While appearing on the Bing Crosby radio show, Elyse 

Knox met football star Tom Harmon. 

They were engaged to marry, but ended the relationship 

when Harmon entered the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942.

Later that year, Knox married fashion photographer

Paul Hesse  The marriage was brief. Following her

divorce and Tom Harmon's return from World War II

during which he survived two plane crashes and being 

(lost in the jungle), she and Harmon married in 1944.

Knox's wedding dress was made from silk from the

parachute Harmon used when bailing out of his crippled 

plane.

   

Tom Harmon

 The couple remained together until his death in 1990. 

Please click on link below for past post on Elyse Knox.

http://www.maybellinebook.com/2011/06/maybelline-pin-up-girl-elyse-knox-1944.html

Link to past post about NCIS and Maybelline cousin, Brian Dietzen, Jimmy Palmer in the show.

http://www.maybellinebook.com/2012/02/congratulations-ncis-and-brian-dietzen.html

Stay tuned for more Maybelline Stars

 photographed by the Great Paul Hesse.

AFTER THE FIRE, "I DANCE WITH MY FATHER."

For eighteen months we watched our home spring out of the ground into a structure that would usher in one of the happiest periods of our lives.  Who would have dreamed I'd have to lose everything to gain it back ten fold

I think the most exciting part about building a house is seeing it framed..... and that first time you turn on the electricity.....  The thrill of seeing what was only a blueprint turn into a real home is awe inspiring. 

The biggest cost of building my home was the foundation and retaining walls.  Normally a fire wouldn't cause so much damage that you'd have to rip out the old foundation, but a firestorm that melts cars to the ground is a different story.

Another thrill in the building process is seeing the roof go on.  At that point you know the job is someday going to end.  Which up to that point doesn't seem possible.

What's really hard is spending the whole day with contractors and having no place to sit.  Gloria made a chair out of a cement block while my dad inspected the work being done on the floor.

The windows arrived and my dad checked them out to make sure they are all accounted for.  He'd built homes  before and knew the importance of checking and double checking every detail on the spot.

At last the structure takes on the appearance of a real home, but we are still months away from moving in.

My dad was fanatical about the paint job being done right.  He fired the first crew of painters because they didn't have an eye for perfection.  He wanted the walls so smooth that when you ran your hand over them, they would feel like glass.  That's what 1930's Art Deco was all about as far as he was concerned.

Getting close to finishing the job, we gained a new respect for working together as a team.  I'm not saying it was ideal, there were times we wanted to kill each other, but in the end I have to say, my dad was the wind beneath my wings.  He showed me I could start and finish anything with the right state of mind.

When the landscapers added the tropical plants to the outside of the house the whole thing popped with color and became a beautiful little Mediterranean Villa.  It was More than I ever dreamed I would have.

When the house was finally done and the contractors pulled away, my dad continued to come over everyday and add the magical details that made the inside of the house look like a movie set..... Here he is with the 1977 Series 1, Clenet, # 13, I've talked about so much on my blog.  We now enter it in Concours de' Elegance shows.

It was my dad who put the blue glass Cross on the fireplace to give the feeling of a sanctuary and the light from all the windows made the room an artist's dream.

DANCE WITH MY FATHER, BY CELINE DION.

Check back tomorrow to see the finished product as Georgia and I show you around our home.

MIRACLE AFTER THE LAGUNA BEACH FIRESTORM.

My great uncle Tom Lyle Williams had given me a Baby diamond ring in an Art Deco setting when I was born. It remained in a Floor Safe under an oriental rug in our garage, along with other valuable items and important papers.

After the remains of our house had been cleared off the lot, the safe was excavated and taken to a locksmith to be blow-torched open.  Hoping for a miracle, Georgia and I held our breath as a gush of black mucky slush... a combination of important documents mixed with rain water...poured out of the safe.  We almost lost hope when all of a sudden Georgia yelled, "wait Mom, look!"  

There in the middle of the muddy black ash sparkled the tiny diamond ring, like a beam of light in a dark scary night.  It reminded me of the saying, "It's always darkest before the dawn." and "Don't give up five minutes before the miracle." 

How that tiny ring survived the crematorium of that firestorm is a mystery.  I took it as meaning no matter how small and insignificant we think we are - the bright spirit inside us will endure even on the brink of hopelessness. 

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I realized that maybe the glory day's were gone... along with my precious heirlooms..... but my memories were still in tact and I can at least pass them on to Georgia. Nothing can take them away from her and she can pass them on to her kids someday.

That night in deep meditation a flash of light appeared in my mind and my great uncle, Tom Lyle, came to me.  He looked the same as he did in a dream I'd had about him the night he died.  I got the distinct feeling he was trying to tell me something.  

As I slowed my mind down I felt him saying..... "if you tell my story, I don't want to be remembered as the man who invented make-up, I want to be remembered as
                    "THE KING OF ADVERTISING." 

Now I knew I couldn't have a professional writer tell my story like William Morris wanted.  I had to write the book myself... with my dad's help..... so that the heart and soul of the family would remain in tact through my voice.  My story would be about an era gone with the wind, a company that remains a giant in its field today and a family whose love endured the triumphs and tragedies of success, while remaining as strong and resilient as a Baby diamond ring.

The Maybelline Story took another 17 years to finally be published, by Bettie Youngs Books in September of 2010.  My dad helped me write a 968 page manuscript that had to be edited a dozen times, but in the end it was my voice telling my story.  My dad didn't live to see The Maybelline Story in print.  However, the last thing he said to me two weeks before he died in 2006, was,

 "don't give up...It will happen."

My dad and I rebuilt a beautiful home together and Georgia and I finally began our new lives two and a half years after the firestorm.....But that's a new chapter!!!!

 Stay tuned tomorrow and the rest of the week as I post pictures of the house being built from the ground up.

EPIPHANY AFTER THE LAGUNA BEACH FIRE.

I yearned to finish my book someday and eventually live in my new home as a published authorof TheMaybellineStory. 

My 16 year old daughter, Georgia and I received fire-survivors counseling through FEMA and she began working through the post-trauma that had thrown her into a deep depression.  I tried to make the apartment and her room as luxurious as possible, but was so distracted with the rebuilding process, I seemed emotionally unavailable. She yearned for a boyfriend and within a year of the fire she found him and fell in love.  

My life however, had become a nightmare of red tape and paperwork... trying to give the Insurance company an idea of what I lost.  Georgia told me I cared more about money than anything else and was mad I wasn't more sympathetic about her feelings for her boyfriend.  I didn't approve of him and soon became the enemy.

The stress was killing me and the only place I felt safe was at the beach looking out at the rocks on the coastline.  I yearned for the past and cried for my mother, who's mental health prevented her from being emotionally available for years...... 

so I sought comfort and love from Mother Nature.....as I peacefully sat and watched the rocks being bathed by the crashing foamy waves.  With my life twisting and turning in chaos, the rocks with their sense of permanency gave me soul peace and soothed my broken spirit.

The busy people scurrying by on the boardwalk seemed so out of balance with the undisturbed rocks and It struck me how temporary life was and how material things come and go.  You just have to enjoy the stuff while you have it and then let it go. 

I reflected on my relationships as well, realizing they too are only temporary and could be washed away with the tide at any time. 

I'd close me eyes and think about America as far back as

possible and felt compassion and empathy for those who had lost everything in the Civil War, the holocaust, the Titanic, WWI, and WWII and cried for all the lost lives..... the lost dreams.  I pictured Abraham Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg address and thought about how freedom is really the greatest loss to endure and how fortunate I really was to only have lost my material things.

Suddenly it occurred to me that the rocks were here since the beginning of time and would probably remain until the end.  I reflected on how my family fit into the scheme of history..... like a deck of cards..... and began placing my family pictures into the stack.  I saw my grandparents, parents, siblings, Gene, Georgia and even my future grandchildren flowing through the deck and slowly my mind slowed down enough to filter through the lost boxes of pictures in the garage that had been destroyed by the fire.

Eva, Frances, Tom Lyle, Bennie, Preston Williams

 

Mabel Williams,

All of a sudden my imagination came back to life and I was able to see my great uncle Tom Lyle, smiling as he posed with his family in 1916, right after he renamed his little company Lash-Brow-Ine, Maybelline, in honor of his sister Mabel.

Day after day I looked forward to my quiet times at the beach listening to the hypnotic rhythm of the waves lulling me into deeper and deeper meditation.  I had discovered another world inside myself and as the birds called to each other from the rocks, my imagination turned their sounds into words.  My family's history came to life as tears poured onto my lap and quickly dried as if they never existed.

A deep sense of loss for my grandfather, Preston,... my dad's father, whom I'd never known, came over me and I felt the passion and romance of his spirit.  Stories of him unfolded as the waves misted my face..... and I knew he'd live forever in my heart.

Week after week, I put the puzzle of my past together and the clearer the picture became, the more I realized it was impossible to put a number on my loss without telling The Maybelline story. 

I called my agent at the Greenspan Co. and told them what I'd discovered and they agreed with me. My loss wasn't just a slam dunk situation, it was very unusual, almost on the level of a celebrity.  

"Where do I begin," I asked.

"From the beginning," my agent said, "we'll tell them the whole story as you remember it."

Stay tuned tomorrow, as the picture of my loss finally unfolds......