Saturday, September 21, 2024
Sharrie Williams interview with Gregory Joseph, the Mean Machine
Friday, August 30, 2024
Monday, August 5, 2024
Interview with The York Management School The Center for Evolution of Global Business and Institutions (CEGBI)
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| Maybelline 1915 |
The original Maybelline Company formed in 1915 to 1967, though incorporated in 1954, was a private family owned company, based in Chicago. Tom Lyle Williams was President and was responsible for all advertising. Noel J. Williams, followed by Tom Lyle Williams Jr. was Vice President and ran the administrative part of the company. Rags Ragland, headed the Marketing department. Chet Hewes, (Maybelline’s namesake Mabel Williams’s husband,) headed the division of the company that produced mascara, called De Luxe Mascara. Ches Haines, (TL’s sister, Eva Williams husband) was in charge of transportation. In other words these few men ran the entire world wide company, that today takes hundreds of people, executives and employees. Maybelline was known as the “Wonder Company.” Today it would be impossible to operate a corporation with such a small group of family executives.
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| Maybelline Founder, Tom Lyle Williams 1915 |
The original Maybelline Company focused on one idea. Eyes. Tom Lyle Williams put every dime back into the company to expand its Advertising and Marketing as well as develop their product line. The secret to Maybelline’s success was the having a quality product at a price every woman could afford. Maybelline was and still is a dime store luxury, priced modestly and advertised in beautiful displays.
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| Maybelline's namesake, Mabel Williams |
What is your opinion about the fact that so many top cosmetics brands were created by diaspora entrepreneurs?
Tom Lyle Williams was an entrepreneur who didn’t want to work for anyone. There was a need in the market place and he was there at the right time in history. Beauty and creativity go hand in hand. I believe young dispora entrepreneurs have their own beauty secrets and don’t want to give them away. They don’t want to work or can’t get work, they are driven by their own need to produce something and be a success in their own right. Many dispora entrepreneurs have old fashioned beauty secrets handed down to them through the generations and are inspired to share them with other women. Like Maybelline… being concocted with ash and Vaseline a secret of the harem, according to a vintage movie magazine…it filled a need and it took off because women were ready for it.
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| Tom Lyle and Mabel's brother Noel J. Williams and his wife Frances 1916 |
How do you think the management of the cosmetics brand changes in periods of crisis such as the current recession?
When the economy is down, cosmetic sales are up. Women will give up a lot of luxuries, but they won’t give up their beauty products. With Maybelline, it’s even more pronounced, because of the price that most women can afford even though their money is limited.
I am looking at two periods in time such as the Great Depression and World War II. What are the marketing and branding strategies of your brand? Do you have an idea of what it was like during these two periods and what changed substantially?
During the Great Depression, Maybelline moved from being a product women ordered from the classified section of magazines and newspapers, to being a dime store product. Maybelline was the first to create carded merchandise in the 1930s. They also were the first to create swirling displays, we take for granted today. They went from black and white small ads in movie and fashion magazines to full page color ads. They were the first to come out with “Before and After” print ads. Thom Lyle was a visionary always ahead of the curve. He also targeted the youth market, who were going to the movie theatres to see Hollywood Stars, and wanted to look like them. He stalked the dime stores with new products that even teenage girls could afford. Maybelline went from a large 75 cent box mascara to a small 10 cent box. He sold in volume… that was his secret. He also had a quality product that would endure for over 100 years today.
During WW ll, Maybelline was shipped to All the Army and Navy Barrack stores, where they carried ciggerates, beer, candy, chewing gum etc. Enlisted women, and wives of the enlisted men, insisted on having their Maybelline. (The American Government almost stopped the production of mascara during the War, because petroleum was rationed. Whoever, Tom Lyle went to the Pentagon and said, “You stop us from producing Maybelline and the moral of our soldiers will go down. Maybelline kept its doors open.) One the War ended, Maybelline took off Globally, because though the Army Barracks stores closed, women all over Europe, who were also able to shop at the stores, demanded access to their Maybelline. It was during this time, Tom Lyle Williams, contracted the biggest Hollywood Stars to represent Maybelline in full color, glossy ads, on the back of movie magazines. Women in the States and Soldiers, overseas, pinned these pictures up in their bedrooms or in the lockers of the barracks’. They were signed by the Stars and looked like they were personally autographed to them. This was a huge advertising campaign helped sell War Bonds. Maybelline also produced a more glamorous line of products that young women enjoyed carrying in their purses while out dancing in clubs. It was all done to boost morale.
I believe Maybelline today wants to reach a larger market of women, women of color especially. They now have a much larger line of beauty products that cater every woman’s needs. Face makeup, nails, lipstick, powder you name it they do it. Maybelline is about to come out with Organic products. Yes they are going Green. They don’t do animal testing anymore and they are still the premier cosmetic brand in the world. Ever 1.5 second a Maybelline mascara is being sold in the world. To think it started 104 years ago, by my Great uncle, a 19 year old entrepreneur with a 500 dollar loan is really unbelievable. I believe the Brand today is still motivated by Tom Lyle Williams original concept of producing a quality product at a sensible price that all women can have access to and afford. And, to continue producing the most beautiful print ads and TV commercials in the Cosmetic field
Thursday, July 25, 2024
The Maybelline Story starts out with fire and ends with fire and the fierce love Evelyn had for the two brothers burned in her until her untimely death in 1978.
Beauty And The Dirt review.
This sounds more like a movie than a real life story, but I guess all the best stories are based on truth. I knew about Mabel and her coal dust and petroleum jelly mix that was the inspiration for mascara. That is where the name Maybelline came from but for all the family drama that ensued well that is now in a book that looks like a must read to me.
Book Synopsis:
One of the first Maybelline posters
In 1915 sister Mabel Williams burned her lashes and brows, Tom Lyle Williams watched in fascination as she performed what she called ‘a secret of the harem’—mixing petroleum jelly with coal dust and ash from a burnt cork and applying it to her lashes and brows.Mabel’s simple beauty trick ignited Tom Lyle’s imagination and he started what would become a billion-dollar business, one that remains a viable American icon after nearly a century. He named it Maybelline in her honor. Throughout the twentieth century, the Maybelline company inflated, collapsed, endured, and thrived in tandem with the nation’s upheavals—as did the family that nurtured it.
Tom Lyle Williams—to avoid unwanted scrutiny of his private life—cloistered himself behind the gates of his Rudolph Valentino Villa and ran his empire from the shadows. Now, after nearly a century of silence, this true story celebrates the life of an American entrepreneur, a man forced to remain behind a mask—using his sister-in-law Evelyn Boecher—to be his front.
Stories of the-great-man-and-how-he-did-it serve as a traditional mainstay of biographies, but with the strong women’s book-buying market, a resurgence of interest in memoirs that focus on relationships more than a single man and his accomplishments are more likely to be discussed in women’s book groups. The Maybelline Story combines the best of both approaches: a man whose vision rocketed him to success along with the woman held in his orbit.
Evelyn, her son Bill, Sharrie and Tom Lyle)
In the way that Rhett Butler ignored the criticism of his peers to carve his own destiny, Tom Lyle Williams shares similar grit and daring. But Rhett without Scarlet wouldn’t be much of a story. Evelyn Williams provides the energy of an antagonist. Like Scarlet, we sometimes hate her and want to shake her, but sometimes, we must admit that we hold a grudging respect; we get a kick out of her and even occasionally, love her for her guts and tenacity, and certainly because she carved out a life for herself and insisted on having a voice, even if she was a fly in the ointment for others.
The Maybelline story provides other kinds of classic literary satisfaction. We are especially fascinated to slip vicariously into the lives of the rich and privileged yet cheer for the underdog who overcomes obstacles to astound doubters with his success. We are enthralled with the historical sweep of events whose repercussions live on to the present, all elements of The Maybelline Story—which reads like a juicy novel, but is in fact a family memoir, distilled from nine hundred pages of family accounts from the 1920’s to present.
An engrossing and captivating saga that spans four generations and reveals the humanity, the glamour, and the seedy underside of a family intoxicated by the quest for power, wealth, and physical perfection. It is a fascinating and inspiring tale of ambition, luck, greed, secrecy—and surprisingly, above all, love and forgiveness, a tale both epic and intimate, alive with the clash, the hustle, the music, and dance of American enterprise.
Monday, July 1, 2024
Sharrie Williams is an award-winning Celebrity Columnist, Commentator and author of The Maybelline Story.
She is none other than Tom Lyle Williams’ great niece, the founder of Maybelline, which is now one of the most popular makeup brands worldwide. Tom Lyle revolutionized the world of beauty with his innovation of the Maybelline Cake Mascara and changed an entire industry. In The Maybelline Story she describes Tom Lyle Williams’ humble beginnings when he started out with his first creations for a darker, fuller eyelash look, inspired by his sister Mabel. In her honor, he named the company Maybelline which became a huge success over the years thanks to his keen business acumen and his imaginative mind for beauty products.
Sharrie Williams has been very committed to spreading her great uncle’s legacy and reviving the history of the Maybelline empire by engaging in public speaking.
Nevertheless, at some point, all went wrong. Her grandmother squandered all her money and was murdered. This incident was followed by a painful divorce and several hard years of struggling with personal troubles and recovering from addiction. She almost lost everything - but not her strength.
Saturday, May 4, 2024
The Coroner’s Report: Miss Maybelline, the Pied Piper, and a Clown Named Hobby-Episode 2
The Coroner’s Report Episode 2 on Youtube
Join former coroner and state crime lab director Steve Nawojczyk and Tracey Carrington as they revisits the 1978 fire that took the life of Maybelline heiress, Evelyn Williams. Was the fire a horrible accident or was it murder? Maybe, it was something in between. Episode 2 begins in the mid 70s following Evelyn’s divorce from Hobby Derrick. Evelyn moves her wigmaker, Danny King, to Hot Springs, Arkansas to help her run the roller rink, but Danny has other plans involving a dinner theater and country music sensation Conway Twitty. Follow Evelyn through all the twists and turns of this crazy story leading up to the death of the Maybelline Queen.
Podcast available on all streaming services. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and all social media platforms.
#maybelline #coronersreport #hotsprings #hotSpringsArkansas #Arkansas #hotspringsnationalpark #lgbtqcommunity #Arkansastruecime #truecrimepodcast #arkansaspodcast #northlittlerock #northlittlerockarkansas #lasvegaslocals #LasVegasCrime #newportbeach
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
The Coroner’s Report: Miss Maybelline, the Pied Piper, and a Clown Named Hobby-Episode 1
The Coroner’s Report: Miss Maybelline, the Pied Piper, and a Clown Named Hobby-Episode 1
Join former coroner Steve Nawojczyk as he revisits the 1978 fire that took the life of Maybelline heiress, Evelyn Williams. Was the fire a horrible accident or was it murder? Maybe, it was something in between. What was her connection to Arkansas? Episode 1 recounts the twists and turns of all the parties through their relationships, fate that brought them all together in Newport Beach, California in 1974, and a plot to take her fortune from her.
Like us on all social media and find us on the web at http://coronersreport.net
#maybelline #coronersreport #hotsprings #hotSpringsArkansas #Arkansas #hotspringsnationalpark #lgbtqcommunity #Arkansastruecime #truecrimepodcast #arkansaspodcast #northlittlerock #northlittlerockarkansas #lasvegaslocals #LasVegasCrime #newportbeach
The Coroner’s Report Episode 1 YouTube
Sunday, March 24, 2024
Who Killed Maybelline Heiress
Click on link: Who Killed Miss Maybelline?
The Coroner's Report podcast coming soon
https://www.facebook.com/share/4zszq9HoSqCi6k4U/?mibextid=qi2Omg
https://youtu.be/ZowP3n36d5g?si=l7jt5DvCNY08t04lhttps://youtu.be/ZowP3n36d5g?si=l7jt5DvCNY08t04l
Newest media YouTube promotion
https://youtu.be/p36h4HEFOjM?si=7kHUEwP_O8RFqrWo
Monday, March 4, 2024
Maybellines "It Girl" Clara Bow unleashes the excitement of the Roaring 20's.
Between 1922 and 1929, Clara Bow's vitality and sexiness defined the liberated woman of the 1920s. Clara Bow (1906-1965) became one of Hollywood's brightest lights during this time. Click highlighted words to see and read more about Clara Bow.
'The "It" Girl'. "It" symbolized the tremendous progress women were making in society.
No three sisters were more influenced by the "It Factor" then my grandmother Evelyn and her sisters Verona and Bunny.
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| Bunny in black silk |
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| Bunny with rolled up stockings. |
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Tribute to Clara Bow: The Pointer Sisters sing I Get So Excited http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rKPshnd_J8
Read more about the It Girl Clara Bow and the Boecher sisters in The Maybelline Story.
Check out this post I did on Clara Bow.
Friday, February 16, 2024
How did Evelyn Williams play into the Maybelline Story
"It all began with the "eyes." In the book, The Maybelline Story, by Sharrie Williams, she tells the fascinating account of the early beginnings of her family in rural Kentucky, from 1911, to their glory days in Hollywood with Joan Crawford appearing in Maybelline print ads in the late 1940's, to the 1970's as fortune affected the family.
By 1953, the cosmetics company was known throughout the world for their print ads of gorgeous flirty models catching everyone's attention with their Maybelline mascara eyes. Williams' great uncle is Tom Lyle Williams, a marketing genius who built a billion dollar cosmetics empire over many years from just $500. he borrowed from his older brother, Noel.
The Beginning of Maybelline Mascara
He left the family farm in Morganfield, Kentucky, when he was still just a teenager, to join his brother, Noel, 23, who was working as a bookkeeper for Illinois Central Railroad in Chicago. The year was 1912. Chicago's population was 1.7 million. The brothers lived in Noel's boarding house near a slum of overcrowded tenement buildings.
It was in this environment that the brothers, driven by Tom Lyle's passionate courage, began a mail-order business. Tom Lyle sacrificed. He invested every penny he could scrape together. By 1914, at the age of 18, he was making serious money with his novelty-catalog business. In 1915, he had asked his sister, Mabel, to join them. He put her to work counting orders. The business was making $36,500. a year, which is the equivalent of over a half a million dollars today.
Mabel's Accident Births a Maybelline Mascara Fortune
Mabel mixed ash from cork she burned, with coal dust, and blended this mixture by using petroleum jelly. She dabbed this goo onto her eyebrows and the tips of her eyelashes. The transformation was amazing. Mabel's eyes were stunning. Then, an idea struck Tom Lyle like a bolt of lightening. Of course, it wasn't the clothes or smiles that made Hollywood goddesses glamorous. It was their "eyes." Mascara was born. The name Maybelline came from Mabel and the Vaseline mixture.
Miss Maybelline and Mascara's Destiny
"She fell in love with both brothers on the same day," says Sharrie Williams, of her grandmother, Evelyn Boucher. Evelyn was one of three daughters of John Boucher, a wealthy plumber, who spoiled his girls rotten. Always dressed in fine clothes, refined by music lessons, Evelyn, Bunny and Verona defined elegance. It was Evelyn, however, who became Tom Lyle's muse, and helped catapult Maybelline into the mascara cosmetics market. Sharrie relates in her book, The Maybelline Story: "Destiny arrived right on time, in the form of Evelyn Boucher."
Miss Maybelline Stops Traffic
"Nana had very good insight, " says Sharrie. "She was an observer, a people-watcher. She loved to go to public places. She'd watch what women were wearing, what they talked about, laughed about. She would take it all in, then she would be able to condense this information and tell Tom Lyle. They would have dinner together and she would let him know - this is what women are looking for. This is what they want."
One day, Tom Lyle asked Evelyn to pick up some flyers from the printers, that he was going to mail to dime stores around the country. This was the time when Al Capone and other gangsters practically owned Chicago. Drive-by shootings and loud-mouthed gangsters were part of the city's fabric. Clutching an arm-load of flyers, Evelyn was almost to the Maybelline building when a car backfired. Everybody ducked, thinking it was gunshot. Evelyn jumped and threw her arms into the air, releasing the flyers, which were picked up by the wind.
An astute newspaper reporter snapped her photo. The next day, the newspaper printed Evelyn's photo with this title: "Miss Maybelline Stops Traffic." Orders for Maybelline mascara came pouring in. As Sharrie recalls, in her book, The Maybelline Story: "My uncle said to Nana: ' Evelyn, with that one photo you've accomplished more for marketing Maybelline than any flyer ever could."
Copyright Anne Mount. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.
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