beauty delux

Goodbye Cosmo Girl

I remember Helen Gurley Brown, as the talk show guest with the amusing quip and the lightly sardonic remark that would make veterans like Dick Cavett and  Merv Griffin blush.   The former editor in chief of Cosmopolitan and author of the bestseller “Sex and the Single Girl,” died this morning at the McKeen Pavilion at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia. She was 90 years old. 
Helen Gurley Brown was as pivotal to the woman liberation movement as Gloria Steinem.  In a sense she was the Spin Doctor of the movement…   an icon.  Cosmo was the first female publication to put women sexually on equal footing with men. It was the instrument of the sexual revolution in a sense.

Her formula for honest and straightforward advice about relationships, career and beauty revolutionized the magazine industry,” said Frank A. Bennack, Jr., chief executive officer of Hearst Corp. “She lived every day of her life to the fullest and will always be remembered as the quintessential ‘Cosmo girl.’ She will be greatly missed.”
Gurley Brown made news earlier this year when she gave $30 million to Columbia and Stanford Universities. “Helen Gurley Brown was a treasured friend of Columbia Journalism School. Her late husband Film producer David was an alumnus and a longtime, loyal member of the school’s Board of Visitors. The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation is the final achievement of her remarkable life. We are grieving, but we console ourselves with the knowledge that Helen’s legacy will live on forever here, through the Institute,” said dean Nicholas Lemann.

Goodbye Cosmo girl.