Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman

by Brooke Hauser

This cinematic story about legendary Cosmopolitan editor and champion of the single girl Helen Gurley Brown chronicles her rise as a cultural icon who redefined what it means to be an American woman.

In 1965, Helen Gurley Brown, author of the groundbreaking bestseller Sex and the Single Girl, took over an ailing Cosmopolitan and soon revamped it into one of the most bankable—and revolutionary—brands on the planet. At a time when women’s magazines taught housewives how to make the perfect casserole, Helen spoke directly to the single girl next door, cheekily advising her on how to pursue men, money, power, pleasure, and, most of all, personal happiness.

In this retro romp that will appeal to fans of Mad Men, journalist Brooke Hauser reveals how a self-proclaimed “mouseburger” from the Ozarks became one of the most influential women of her time. Though she was married (to the renowned movie producer David Brown), no one embodied the idea of the Cosmo Girl more than Helen, who willed, worked, and flirted her way to the top. Bringing New York City vibrantly to life during the sexual revolution and the women’s movement, and featuring a rich cast of characters, including Hugh Hefner and Gloria Steinem, Enter Helen is the riveting story of a polarizing pioneer who bucked convention to define her own destiny, baiting a generation that both revered and rejected her.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Feminism, Business, Biography Memoir, Womens, History

496 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2015

About the author

Brooke Hauser has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Allure, and Premiere, among other publications. Originally from Miami, Florida, she now divides her time between New York City and western Massachusetts, where she lives with her husband Addison MacDonald. Please visit her website: www.brookehauser.com.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only is this great memorable book "Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman" the life story of this sensational feminist icon, authored by Brooke Houser; this fast paced read highlights the story of the historical American feminist movement that began with Helen Gurley Brown's spectacular revolutionary self-help manifesto: "Sex and the Single Girl" (1962).

American women everywhere identified with this national bestseller. Although HGB (1922-2012) didn't marry David Brown until she was 37 years old, she was an expert on the single life; and never fit in with the traditional housewife and mother role that was culturally expected of American women in the 1950's-1960's. Popular women's magazines advised the devoted housewife on cooking, baking, cleaning, decorating the "perfect" home and caring for her husband and children. The magazines were typically produced and published by male authors/editors. With 70% of American women being married by age 24, unmarried women were stigmatized: believed to be filled with unhappiness, anxiety and depression in their meager unfulfilling working lives unable to achieve the goal of attracting a suitable husband.
HGB bestselling book demonstrated that there was an new modern exciting alternative path. Single women were encouraged to use their single life as an opportunity for growth and character development, Advising on all subjects from employment, recreation and vacationing, glamour and dress to appear "sexy" and appealing to men, sexual fulfillment and survival in affairs with married men, and encouraged women to go to college entering higher paid professional professions. The book was denounced by many religious and political leaders.. The "Feminine Mystique" (1963) by Betty Friedan followed, as cultural and social norms regarding American women began to change. A new commercial market appealing to single men and women emerged.

In 1965 Cosmopolitan Magazine was about to cease publication when David and HGB took it over, changing the format to a women's self-help format. Despite some public protest over the racy new content, no one could have predicted the enormous award winning magazine success that followed, demonstrating that the American reading public was ready to depart from traditional thinking and expectation. The July 1965 issue featured a story on "The Pill". HGB called everyone "Pussycat", the mascot of Cosmo became a cat-- as a bunny was to Playboy Magazine. HBB called the "Iron Butterfly", Cosmo was worth over 100 million dollars shortly after its launch, the most wildly successful magazines ever known.

HGB relished her "rags to riches" life story: raised in small town Arkansas, by her widowed mother with her sister, who in youth was stricken with polio. Her father was killed in a freak accident that left them nearly penniless, when HBB was 10. Extremely bright and articulate HGB was accepted at the Texas State College for Women in Denton, TX. Quickly discovering that college academic study wasn't anymore appealing to her than the duty sacrifice associated with the traditional feminine role, she moved to the excitement in NYC. As a working girl she would set her sights on marriage to improve her status, wealth and social standing. With her 1959 marriage to David Brown, she became a step-mother to his son Bruce, the couple never had children together. For many of HGB radical views and focus on sexuality the WLM remained at a noticeable distance. By 1996, HGB at 74, had aged out of spokesperson role of a "Cosmo Girl" and was replaced by Bonnie Fuller. The lifetime papers and huge archive HGB built went to Smith College where she became an honorary member of the class of 1962.
With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.

[Christina McLain]

I think this book is at its best when it describes the mindset of the mid-sixties and Helen Gurley Brown's masterful branding of Cosmopolitan magazine as the voice of the period's "single girl". It is very interesting to read how this self-described "mouseburger"---albeit with the aid and direction of her husband --made the magazine her own. However, one of the problems with this book is that the character of Helen Gurley Brown was just not that interesting. True, she had tremendous drive and towering ambition, but she was difficult to like or understand and in the end, as the author said, quite simply impenetrable. I think that in order for a biography to be interesting, the main character should be really evil or very compelling, and she was neither. In fact she seemed to be a rather shallow soul who longed to be beautiful and famous and essentially lacked the courage to be herself. Because of an admittedly difficult childhood and the death of her beloved father, Gurley Brown spent most of her early life trying to mold herself into a woman she thought men would really want by adopting excessive exercise regimes, extreme dieting, and tons of pancake makeup. She used a mixture of promiscuity and flattery to date exciting but married lovers. That in itself is no big deal but she often seemed willing to want to sell a version of herself that was both superficial and untrue even after her happy marriage and successful career.
It is interesting to note that she deeply admired the author of the ubertrashy Valley of the Dolls Jacqueline Susann and Hugh Hefner. In reinventing the venerable Cosmopolitan magazine into a kind of sex guide for single girls, she claimed to teach other women to enjoy the single life by following her example, but admitted candidly to Gloria Steinam that she had never told her followers how lonely her earlier life really had been. And she was a liar. She had had a tough childhood but told people her parents were hillbillies though her dad had been a lawyer and her mother had attended college. Though the family did have some bouts with poverty and tragedy, they were hardly the Joads. Though she made Cosmopolitan magazine into a trendy goldmine, by the 90s she was seen as old fashioned and irrelevant. She wrote an article for instance, after the Anita Hill debacle, downplaying sexual harassment and downplayed the dangers of Aids for heterosexual women. Ironically in her old age she spoke longingly of Arkansas and became fat as she stuffed herself with all the fattening sweets she had denied herself in life.

[Addison MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I know the author pretty well, but this book is still full of surprises. It's cinematic and entertaining, and while it might seem like an obvious choice for a women's book group, it's also a great read for guys. It's for anyone interested in business, media, fame, and power. I highly recommend it.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The challenge with reading a biography of a single person is that you have to LIKE that person, and in the case of Helen Gurley Brown, I just... didn't. Hauser worked hard (sometimes NOTICEABLY hard) to paint a sympathetic portrait of the famous Cosmo editor, but I just couldn't connect with her. The most interesting parts of the book turned out to be not about Helen at all, but more about the role of women in the media in general and how those roles (and the way magazines were written for and marketed to women) evolved over the course of Helen's tenure.

It's one thing to academically understand that Cosmo broke down barriers that provided a platform for more feminist viewpoints to circulate, but it's another to spend untold hours with Helen as your protagonist on that journey. I would have preferred a magazine article about the Cosmo phenomenon in publishing over a thick bio of its creator, personally.

[Migdalia Jimenez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining book on the intriguing, fabulous and at times contradictory Helen Gurley Brown. I had heard her name but knew very little about her apart from the basics. I now know what a towering and polarizing figure she is for women, feminists, and the publishing industry.
It’s so easy for us at this point in time to laugh at and spoof Cosmo magazine but at the time, Helen Gurley Brown did something so groundbreaking, in making it ok for women (or ‘girls’ as she called them) to have desires, not just for romance and sex, but in the workplace.
In a way, being ahead of her time was what made her amazing but also what made it hard for her to fully understand the feminist movements of the late 60’s and beyond. That said, no matter her blindspots and sometimes out-dated ideas, she was a force to reckoned with and I’m glad I got to know her a bit through this book.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable biography

I never read Cosmo, not sure why. But I certainly knew the name Helen Gurley Brown and the title "Sex and the Single Girl." It was great to read this biography to learn about the woman and what she did with the magazine.

She sounds driven, but happy enough in her driven-ness. I think this bio teams up well with "Not Pretty Enough," with its look at her emotional life.

[Anjali Gupta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frankly I could not relate to this book at all. Maybe it was another time, maybe all the writer did is describe a series of events without actually going into the head and heart of Helen. I took a long time to finish it - I guess because I don't just read one book at a time, and there was nothing compelling about this one that drew me to it. Very mediocre. It could have made so much more interesting

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Regressive politicians in USA this year make this book a timely reminder of where we came from, how far we've come and how often we've had to fight to keep the rights acquired and how easy it would be to lose them if we are not vigilant.

[Ary Chest · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an interesting book. HGB is an interesting subject. But what's more interesting is this book isn't about HGB as a whole. It's about a specific time in her life. This biography starts just as Sex and the Single Girl was about to be published, and ends at the peak of her Cosmopolitan fame. So it's a biography about HGB the brand, not the person. And she was a brand, just as much as Cosmo. She was a celebrity editor before Anna Wintour.

There's already a full biography out there on her by Jennifer Scanlon. That focuses on HGB's life as whole, including the personal side and her early childhood. This book doesn't focus on Helen's private and early life. It stays on her work life, and public image. There was a lot of good information, here.

Helen was, by today's standards, an industry plant. Her husband David bounced between the film and publishing industries. He encouraged Helen's writing career. She was unhappy with the career in advertising she worked so hard to get. David wanted her to write a book, of sorts. He happened to be writing a book similar to Sex and the Single Girl from the male perspective. She appropriated his idea for her work.

With the success of Sex and the Single Girl, she took over Cosmopolitan. With this book, it makes more sense. Cosmo was floundering and had many identity crises. They tried anything. They tried everything, to Helen was the last roll of the dice. She proved to be in tune with women, in a way no one was acknowledging.

There was a lot of other interesting details. Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra was David's idea. He had many rises and falls in the film industry, and was attached to a lot of famous projects. Gossip columnist Liz Smith was working at Cosmo, when Helen took over, and HGB caused the writer to go out on her own.

Brooke Hauser does a good job of showing HGB's eternal battle with the rest of the feminist movement. She said she was a feminist, but she did do a lot of things that actively harmed her own cause. I liked the description of Helen's relationship with Gloria Steinem, at the end. The famed editor tried to educate herself, but kept defaulting back to her old ways. She neve really learned her lesson, but she was somewhat aware how blind she could be. The Me Too scandal with the male sex columnist by a psychiatrist was cringe worthy, and showed how much, deep down, HGB believed women should be devoted to men.

[Lois R. Gross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helen: the Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman, by Brook Hauser
Reviewer: Lois Rubin Gross

It started with Seventeen, the teenage girl’s bible. Each month, I would wait anxiously for the thick, glossy magazine to arrive on the magazine rack at the corner candy store. Every month I would scout the corner candy store until the thick, glossy magazine arrived on the stand. I especially loved the August book, full of clothes for the school year. There were stylish, yet modest A-line dresses, heather sweaters paired with pleated skirts, and lots and lots of tips. Seventeen taught me to style my unmanageable hair, cover my occasional zits, minimize my prominent nose, and get a date for prom even if it wasn’t the date I’d hoped for. I read Seventeen far beyond the titular age of interest.

After that, I graduated to Mademoiselle and Glamour, which had the same basic themes as Seventeen but cranked up the interest level to a college student or a young working girl. This was about the time that a scandalous book called Sex and the Single Girl hit the stores. Looking back, I must have read my sister’s copy. She was a secretary, then, and could purchase her own reading material without approval from my mother. I probably sneaked it from her closet and read it in the gap time between my arrival home from school and her return from work.

Surely, I didn’t understand the message, that young women should be free to choose not to be married, to enjoy extra-marital affairs, and to behave flirtatiously whether at work or on social occasions. Internalizing that message came later and was mostly outside my understanding. However, this history-making book also encouraged women to learn to budget and to care for themselves without calling upon a man for assistance. Later, I owned a spin-off cookbook that offered recipes for two designed for date night at home.

All of these ideas came (mostly) from the brain of Helen Gurley Brown, a self-described “mouseburger” from Arkansas who traveled from an impoverished home to life as a secretary in Los Angeles. Despite her lowly status and lack of college degree – always a sore spot for Ms. Brown – she worked her way up from manual typist (she never used electric) to well-paid advertising copywriter. Despite skin pocked with adolescent acne and thin hair, Helen managed a transformation in which, under layers of Revlon pancake makeup (the company was one of her accounts) and beautiful wigs, she became a “career the woman” in the style of the Rosalind Russell movies that she loved.

It could have stopped right there, but she met David Brown who was the love of her life and her Svengali. Under David’s tutelage, she promoted her book and parlayed it into media fame enough to get an offer from Hearst Publishing to reboot a homely magazine called Cosmopolitan, and thus was history made.

With zero magazine experience, Helen reconceived Cosmo in the style of her best-selling book. It featured beautiful models in seductive fashions spreads, and pushed a lifestyle unheard of until this time. Cosmo told young women, especially small town “mouseburgers”, that if they couldn’t have it all, they could grab a huge chunk of success, sex, beauty, and marriage if they wanted it. She pushed flirty behavior to her “pussycat” readers, including “teddy bear tricks” which involved making oneself seem small and dependent, but being in total control of the progress of the flirtation.

The cover “slugs” for articles largely came from David, and made no secret that they were about sex, sex and sex. Cosmo promoted the brand new birth control pill, despite the fact that it was found the cause cancer in some women. Cover photos by the brilliant photographer Scavullo were unabashedly seductive. Scavullo was also responsible for the game-changing centerfold of Burt Reynolds naked save for a cigar in his mouth. It nearly killed Reynolds’ career until it become so iconic that the demand for his “talents” became overwhelming.

At the same time that Helen Gurley Brown was writing down to her army of office girls, a new wave was sweeping the nation and some of its founders had worked for Cosmo at one time or another. Freelancers Gloria Steinem and Nora Ephron became mainstays of the feminist movement and its magazine, MS. Letty Cotten Pogrebin also became a mainstay of the magazine. While Steinem initially sought Brown’s participation and financial support, Helen Gurley Brown did not see it as a natural marriage so Steinem launched her magazine under the auspices of New York Magazine.

The two magazines could not have been more dissimilar in their tone, their voice, and their subject matter. Still, their missions ran parallel to each other. Both were advocating a new kind of life for young women, one that did not rely on the traditional “happy endings” of husband, home, and children.
Brown actually dipped her toe into the feminist pool, supporting the ERA, marching down a Manhattan street with hundreds of other women demanding pay parity, and even attending consciousness-raising groups in full make-up but without her jewelry.

I expected Helen Gurley Brown’s story to be different based on my knowledge of her through TV appearances and her monthly column in Cosmo. I haven’t read an issue of the magazine in decades but the events of Helen Gurley Brown’s life and the trajectory of her rise to power made me reflect on the world in which I came of age. It was a time in which college was still optional for many women because who would marry an educated woman (my father’s words when I went for my Masters). It was a time when friends of mine moved in together but maintained separate phone lines so her parents never knew their relationship status. It was a time when boys went to college to start down a career path and girls majored in education or nursing while trying to get an MRS degree. Over the years, our expectations changed and the bravest of us went on to build careers in law, medicine and business, all the time making $.76 to every man’s dollar and working forty hours in the office and another thirty hours caring for husband and family.

This week, we reached a pinnacle in our fight for equality when Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first major party nominee for President of the United States. Many of you may not like of you. Many of you say “any woman but that woman,” but Secretary Clinton is undeniably the product of decades of ascending the ladders that rested on the recognizable shoulders of the founders of MS, and the unlikely shoulders of Helen Gurley Brown. Mouseburgers, unite! That glass ceiling is just a little bit closer.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book! The book discusses Helen Gurley Brown’s life and career. The author highlights how Brown’s tragic and poor childhood with a single mother shaped her into the fashionable and funny woman who would become the author of Sex and the Single Girl, and the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine for more than 30 years, beginning in the 1960s. For those unfamiliar with Helen Gurley Brown, Brown worked as a secretary in her youth and essentially revolutionized the lives of young and single women in the 1950s and 1960s and beyond.

Throughout her career as an author and editor,
Brown spoke directly to single young women and offered them an almost blueprint of how to flirt with men, tips for better sex, how to make money, and how to gain power, pleasure, and happiness.

Brown was a trailblazer for the women’s movement, even if she wasn’t regarded as one during her career. She sold sex without guilt to young women. She sold female pleasure, excitement, and above all else, happiness. While she may not have regarded herself as a feminist, her efforts and activism helped progress societal ideas about women and the women’s liberation movement forward.

I learned so much about Helen Gurley Brown from this book. I honestly can't wait to pick up Brown's Sex and the Single girl! I can't believe I haven't picked it up sooner!

[Joyci · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started another bio on HGB, “Bad Girls Go Everywhere” and despite the snappier title on that one, this book was definitely the more interesting and well researched. I was a little disappointed that it kind of skimmed over all of the 80s and early 90s when HGB was still firmly the editor in chief, but it more than covered her earlier years as Cosmo EIC, while firmly rooting the events in time with goings on in the news. I loved the tone of this book and it honestly got me teary eyed at the end when talking about her passing and final years on earth. Fantastically written and I can see how it served well as a reference to “Park Avenue Summer”

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a female in Journalism & then further studying magazine writing in college, HGB has always been kind of a hero to me. I still consider her a hero & have a better understanding of exactly how groundbreaking she was. HGB was certainly a complicated, divisive person & there's plenty to dislike about her as well. But I really didn't know how instrumental her husband was in the process & how much of a team they were.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feminists come in all shapes and sizes, Helen Gurley Brown was no exception. The author does not shrink away from Helen's imperfections or at times grossly anti-feminist viewpoints, but instead shows her life and work as it was, complicated and multifaceted.

[Rebeccareadsbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was incredible. I'm only just venturing into biographies and non-fiction (if I've read maybe 200 books in my lifetime, I'd say I've read 40 that aren't fiction, at best), but this was such an interesting deep-dive into a really complex figure in the feminist movement and the sexual revolution

[Chris Risley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an interesting exploration of what makes a woman 'liberated.'

[Sarah Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an uncorrected proof copy of this book from HarperCollins.

This work of non-fiction details the life of Helen Gurley Brown, author of Sex and the Single Girl and editor of Cosmopolitan beginning in the mid-sixties. Helen was groundbreaking in that she championed the cause of the independent, single but man-loving woman during a time when most magazines still detailed recipes for housewives to fix for their husbands. She knew this woman because, until her marriage to Hollywood producer David Brown at the age of 37, she was this woman. Born to a relatively low-income family, Helen's father died when she was young and she later dropped out of college after one semester to help her mother care for her sister was who paralyzed by polio. She rose from being an assistant to a copy editor before becoming a bestselling author. Throughout her career she displayed fierce ambition and work ethic that, along with her connections, eventually made her a very wealthy and well known woman.

Helen based her bestselling (and controversial) book off of her own life, which shaped her firm conviction that "a woman who had taken the time to date around and develop herself as a full person would be more interesting and prepared for marriage when she did find the One" (32). Helen also firmly believed that having a career would also benefit married women and urged women to "Explain to your husband, if he doesn't already understand, that you will be a better companion, a more adoring wife and loving mother if you are allowed to take a job," adding "Don't you see that by working you could have it all?" (97).

After a second successful book, several promotional tours, and a advice column, Helen's husband used his connections to negotiate a deal for Helen to serve as editor of Cosmopolitan for two years. Her entry was rocky because she had no experience and many of the magazine's employees resented reporting to someone with far less experience. Many people on staff viewed her as "an imposter and a hack, just an ad woman who had written a sex book" (140). Yet under her bold new vision, targeting young women like herself, the magazine quickly soared in popularity. The first issue published with Helen as editor sold 954,000 newsstand copies, nearly 260,000 more than the previous month.

Helen's insistence on large-breasted women and sex-filled articles did garner critics, as did many of her other bold choices - such as the first nude male centerfold, articles on abortions and sleeping with married men, and polling her female staff to find out how they liked their breasts caressed as research for an article. She was criticized by the women's rights movement for arguing that women could achieve their goals through sex and for numerous articles zeroing in on how women could please their man. Yet Helen always used her position to "educate her readers on issues that directly affected their lives. She was a fierce and lifelong supporter of birth control and a woman's right to choose. Most of all, she was a fierce and lifelong supporter of women" (363).

I enjoyed reading about this plucky and driven woman, although I certainly recognize why she was considered controversial by many and did not agree with all of her choices. My main complaint with this biography was a very stilted beginning. The book leaps in with Helen meeting David Brown for the first time, with little background information. The chapters in the first 75 or so chapters have little flow and the book seemed to stagger along. Strangely, Helen's childhood and early career isn't covered until about halfway through the book. The first half of the book reads as if it needs a much firmer editorial hand. Yet after this faltering beginning, the flow of the chapters and description of Helen's life finally hit its stride and I was able to finally piece together who Helen was as a person and why she was significant in the history of gender equality and in the shaping of magazine industry as we know it.

3.5 stars

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today's post is on Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman by Brooke Hauser. It is 496 pages long and is published by HarperCollins. The cover is orange with Helen Gurley Brown in the center with her book Sex and the Single Girl. The intended reader is someone interested in women's history, biographies, and where things start. There is mild foul naguage, talk of sex, and no violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.


From the back of the book- This cinematic story about legendary Cosmopolitan editor and champion of the single girl Helen Gurley Brown chronicles her rise as a cultural icon who redefined what it means to be an American woman.
In 1965, Helen Gurley Brown, author of the groundbreaking bestseller Sex and the Single Girl, took over an ailing Cosmopolitan and soon revamped it into one of the most bankable—and revolutionary—brands on the planet. At a time when women’s magazines taught housewives how to make the perfect casserole, Helen spoke directly to the single girl next door, cheekily advising her on how to pursue men, money, power, pleasure, and, most of all, personal happiness.
In this retro romp that will appeal to fans of Mad Men, journalist Brooke Hauser reveals how a self-proclaimed “mouseburger” from the Ozarks became one of the most influential women of her time. Though she was married (to the renowned movie producer David Brown), no one embodied the idea of the Cosmo Girl more than Helen, who willed, worked, and flirted her way to the top. Bringing New York City vibrantly to life during the sexual revolution and the women’s movement, and featuring a rich cast of characters, including Hugh Hefner and Gloria Steinem, Enter Helen is the riveting story of a polarizing pioneer who bucked convention to define her own destiny, baiting a generation that both revered and rejected her.


Review- This was an interesting biography of someone I know nothing about. This biography does give some about the childhood and young adult life of Brown but not really much. It just touches on that because it is really is about her life after she married David Brown. It was after she married David when she wrote Sex and the Single Girl, it was David that got her the job of editing Cosmopolitan, it was David that pointed her in the right direction for her drive. On once Brown got started, it was Helen Brown that kept everything going. She was the one did all the work. The biography is about Helen but also about David and the life that they had together. This book talks about how difficult a figure Brown is for the women's movement. How she played both sides against the middle, as in she was all for the modern woman having her own life but she was all for a woman just to be man-hunting. This was an easy read and if you are curious about the life of Helen Gurley Brown I think that is a good book to start with.


I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I was given this book by HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review.

[Elayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sex and the single girl was published in 1961. I was too young to read it! But.. it certainly influenced a lot of people and there was a lot of discussion about it, for many years to come.

Some things I didn't know about Helen Gurley Brown and US society in 1950-60 approx:

She was married in 1959 when she was 37 years old and prior to that had had over 170 lovers, and been the mistress of many very rich and powerful men. She had deliberately chosen the chosen the role of mistress.
She was very plain in fact with thin hair. But she wore wigs and thick make-up to cover her acne scars – her acne had been treated by the doctor squeezing the spots!!! She could make herself look glamorous. She was very slender and petite.
In most US states in the early 1960s, the husband signed leases for their wives, also bank loans and credit cards. A woman alone needed a male sponsor.
Job adverts were divided into male and female sections. Female jobs were low skilled or unskilled and often advertised with such comments as attractive personality etc. Male jobs were the attorneys, accountants, engineers.
The pill provided safe birth control for women for the first time. It changed the atmosphere of a date – women were now assured of safety and thus a sexual revolution began – I remember this and going to a clinic where unmarried women were accepted!
Each chapter has a quote to start it.

Some that I like included:

‘don’t you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You wouldn’t marry a girl just because she is pretty, but, my goodness, doesn’t it help?’ From Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

For me this was an interesting book that pre-dated the era in which I grew up, but also had a profound impact on my late teens and early 20s. I found Helen an interesting character and her life was certainly quite adventurous. however, I did think that overall, the book was too long at 480 pages and thus I started to get bored about half-way through. It needed a little more 'zip' in the writing style.

My score of 4 is because I think it is a book that should be read to help young women understand a little of what life was like before the pill and before it was accepted that women were competent to manage their own financial affairs!

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars - this is a fluffy sort of biography that was a fun read. It's a good summer read. I picked it up at my local library the other day because I was curious about the actual woman behind Cosmopolitan of the 1970's when I was a reader and Sex and The Single Girl which I also read back in the day.

Hauser interviewed many of Brown's contemporaries and the book is well-written and entertaining.

Definitely worth the time to read it if you were around in the late '60s and early '70s.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful dive into the fascinating life of this incredibly driven woman. Hauser expertly weaves historical and cultural context into HGB's rise from West Coast copy writer to EIC of a major women's magazine. Helen's is an inspiring tale and Hauser doesn't skimp, drawing HGB into a fully formed, 3-dimensional figure, who dedicated her life to women, and a woman's right to be her own extraordinary person in the bedroom, boardroom, or wherever she strove to be. I learned so much! Highly recommend!

[R.J. Gilmour · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although Hauser's title promises a biography that looks at how Brown's life intersected with the rise of the single woman it really is just a badly written patische about Brown's life. While I tried to wade through Hauser's light, choppy prose in the end I gave up less than half way through the book.

"Finishing her lunch at Schraffts one day in March, Helen understood that she would never get used to the cold. Manhattan was a black and white film when she had gotten used to color. Outside, it was gray, always gray." 77

[Jameil · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I understand the need to contextualize how very revolutionary Helen Gurley Brown was, it felt like the author had so much material that she didn't even know where to cut. Early on I liked the writing style, but for me, it just dragged on for too long.

[Rania T · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book would have been a brilliant read had the author followed the advice that Helen Gurley Brown gave all her writers at Cosmopolitan, "Edit, edit and edit again." The extensive notes and Index section are great for research purposes, but a briefer book would have had more mass appeal.

[Joann Revak · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a choice in my bookclub. I knew of Cosmo and Helen, but not curious about Helen. She is not a likable character in this book. She is smart and a "go getter", which is great, especially in this time period.

[Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book about a really unique lady of our times!!!

[Mills College Library]

Biog B8781r 2016

[Caryatid · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a Cosmopolitan reader but old enough to know her name, and that's about all I do know even after reading this book. I have flipped through the magazine when it was the only choice in the doctors waiting room - the impression is one of glossy ads and very little content - the same could be said of HGB. And hence the same re this book.

[Helen Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great read! Interesting on so many levels. I learned a lot.