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| Merle Oberon Known for her sultry good looks Merle Oberon played Cathy Linton in Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier in 1939. The 1940’s proved to be a very busy decade where she appeared in no less than 15 movies. |
Tom Lyle contracted major motion picture stars to appear in Maybelline’s advertisements. War-movies showcased them as the ideal Amercan image and young girls around the world purchased Maybelline at their local dime stores.
Rita Hayworth
Merle Oberon, Betty Grable, Joan Crawford and Hedy Lamarr (click to see) were some of the GI’s favorite pin-up girls. They were top box office queens during the war years and their image represented money in the bank for Maybelline.
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| Betty Grable |
Tom Lyle contracted Betty Grable for her sex appeal, moxy and girl next door image.She appealed to young wannabees who saved their grocery money to buy hope in a little red box. Maybelline turned simple shop girl’s into sex symbols – inspiring soldier boys to get back home. In fact a G.I.’s morale was often dependent on pictures of their girls with“Those Maybelline Eyes.”
Tom Lyle spent more on his beautiful movie stars as cover-girls than any other cosmetic company in history and it paid off in the 1940’s beyond his wildest dreams.
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| Joan Crawford |
Joan Crawford became the official face of Maybelline in 1945 after she won an Oscar for “Mildred Pierce.” Be sure to watch HBO’s new version of “Mildred Pierce” with Kate Winslet airing Sunday March 27th. This mini-series depicts the era, clothes and background painted in The Maybelline Story. I’m sure if you watch the series and read the book at the same time you’ll see The Maybelline Story come alive.
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| Hedy Lamarr |
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress. Though known primarily for her extraordinary beauty and her celebrity in a film career as a major contract star of MGM‘s “Golden Age. She had a seductive look in her eye that appealed to Tom Lyle, because she targeted a certain audience of women who sought her sex appeal.
Dorothy Lamour starred in the “Road to…” movie series with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in the 1940s and 1950s. The movies were enormously popular during the 1940s, and they regularly placed among the top moneymaking films each year
The Unique Beauty of Gene Tierney – Excerpted from Michael Atkinson’s essay, Dec 1994 Movieline magazine. “Among faces, Gene Tierney’s is a tournament rose, an Opaline study in serene, sexualized perfection, a mad musky Egyptian daydream of cat thoughts.”
Nothing has changed in 100 years
Girls still want to stand out
and the Spirited family Dynasty Behind It.