Enter Helen (41 page)

  
86
  
“Boys Will Be Girls . . . and Vice Versa”: Helen Gurley Brown, outline for a draft of
Sex and the Office
, undated, HGB Papers, SSC.

  
86
  
“I thought it was going to be about how to handle temperamental homosexuals”: Bernard Geis to Helen Gurley Brown, February 19, 1964, HGB Papers, SSC. Reproduced with the permission of Bernard Geis Associates.

  
86
  
It was the idea of a matinee that was truly “icky”: Helen Gurley Brown to Bernard Geis, February 8, 1964.

  
86
  
“No objection was made by me”: Bernard Geis to Helen Gurley Brown, February 19, 1964, HGB Papers, SSC. Reproduced with the permission of Bernard Geis Associates.

  
87
  
On an average day, 2,700 people entered the Playboy Club: Background information on the Playboy Club from Thomas Buckley, “Playboy Club Busiest in City Despite Its Failure to Win Cabaret License,”
New York Times
, April 5, 1963.

  
87
  
“I get a lot of mail about how to keep from having a baby”: “
Playboy
Interview: Helen Gurley Brown,”
Playboy
, April 1963.

  
87
  
“There is some chance of becoming barren”: Ibid.

  
88
  
“It's outrageous that girls can't be aborted here”: Ibid. 88 “I just hit the roof”: Ibid.

  
88
  
“
Au contraire
. She's asking for it”: Ibid.

  
88
  
“I don't know of anything more ruthless”: Ibid.

12: A
S
TRANGE
S
TIRRING

  
89
  
“The truth is that I've always been a bad-tempered bitch”: Betty Friedan,
Life So Far
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), p. 379.

  
89
  
“top money”: From the
Playboy
ad that ran in Gloria Steinem's article, “A Bunny's Tale,”
Show
, May 1963.

  
89
  
Pretending to be a former waitress: Ibid.

  
90
  
“all women are Bunnies”: Steinem detailed the aftermath of her
Show
exposé in her book
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions
, 2nd ed. (New York: Holt, 1995), p. 75.

  
91
  
“It was a strange stirring”: Betty Friedan,
The Feminine Mystique
, 50th anniversary edition (New York: Norton, 2013), p. 1.

  
91
  
Originally from Peoria, Illinois: Background on Betty Friedan's upbringing, career, and family life from Friedan,
Life So Far
, passim.

  
91
  
“I later learned he was having an affair”: Ibid., p. 78.

  
92
  
“one night, he hit me”: Ibid., p. 87.

  
92
  
Betty was asked to conduct a survey of her Smith classmates: Background on the survey that led to
The Feminine Mystique
is taken from Betty Friedan's account in
Life So Far
, pp. 97–105.

  
92
  
The final survey asked about: Ibid.

  
93
  
After that meeting, Betty got a $3,000 book advance: Ibid., p. 109.

  
93
  
“Sometimes a woman would tell me”: Betty Friedan,
The Feminine Mystique
, p. 8.

  
94
  
“The only way for a woman . . . to know herself as a person”: Ibid., p. 416.

  
94
  
“I'll tell you
this
”: Helen Gurley Brown, original first chapter for
Sex and the Office
, “Come with Me to the Office,” which was later cut. HGB Papers, SSC.

  
94
  
“They call her brilliant, this highly paid Circe”: Philip Wylie, “The Career Woman,”
Playboy,
January 1963.

  
95
  
“We haven't been introduced”: Helen Gurley Brown's original first chapter for
Sex and the Office
, “Come with Me to the Office.”

  
96
  
“Most girls—probably 90 per cent”: Bernard Geis to Helen Gurley Brown, February 4, 1964, HGB Papers, SSC. Reproduced with the permission of Bernard Geis Associates.

  
96
  
She was willing to tone down that chapter, not to lose it entirely: Background is from Helen Gurley Brown's letter to Bernard Geis, February 8, 1964, HGB Papers, SSC.

  
96
  
“Tell her she not only
isn't
unfortunate”: Ibid.

  
97
  
“Explain to your husband”: Helen Gurley Brown,
Sex and the Office
(Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2004), p. 276.

  
97
  
“The Inquiring Camera Girl”: Background from “The Inquiring Camera Girl camera,” www.jfklibrary.org, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Columbia Point, Boston, MA; and Dorothy McCardle, “Jackie Kennedy—Ex-Girl Reporter, Part 3: She Found Out What It Takes to Be Nation's No. 1 Hostess,”
St. Petersburg Times
, September 30, 1960.

13: W
OMEN
A
LONE

  
98
  
“No matter how accustomed to your own community”: Max Wylie,
Career Girl, Watch Your Step!
(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1964), p. 92.

  
98
  
a massive crowd of 250,000 people: Accounts of the march and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech from James Reston, “‘I Have a Dream . . .' Peroration by Dr. King Sums Up a Day the Capital Will Remember,”
New York Times
, August 29, 1963; and “The March on Washington; March Returns to Site of Dr. King's Great Dream,”
New York Times
, October 16, 1995.

  
98
  
“I have a dream”: Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington, 1963, www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf.

  
99
  
That same day, two young women were brutally stabbed: Selwyn Raab, “30-Year-Echoes from Slaying of 2,”
New York Times
, August 29, 1993.

  
99
  
On the floor, the bodies of the two roommates: Background on the murders largely taken from T. J. English,
The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge
(New York: HarperCollins, 2011), passim.

  
99
  
“The Career Girls Murders lit up the city like a hit Broadway show”: Ibid, p. 25.

100
  
tabloids found new ways to package the stories: Ibid.

100
  
“girls were asking superintendents about double locks”: Gay Talese, “Air of Fear Grips Sedate East Side,”
New York Times
, August 31, 1963.

100
  
“a wave of fear ran through single women in New York”: Jane Maas, interview with the author, February 2015.

101
  
“The police [are] under intense pressure”: Homer Bigart, “Killing of 2 Girls Yields No Clue,”
New York Times
, September 27, 1963.

101
  
The headline was . . . not subtle: Helen Gurley Brown, “Woman Alone,” Los Angeles Times Syndicate. “HOW DO YOU KEEP FROM GETTING MURDERED?” was reprinted in
Helen Gurley Brown's Outrageous Opinions
(New York: Bernard Geis Associates in Cooperation with Avon Books, 1966), pp. 280–82.

101
  
“Scream,” he advised: Ibid.

102
  
“Is there so much more crime”: Ibid.

102
  
“Well, maybe girls alone should stay away”; “it will have nothing to do with where she lives”: Ibid.

102
  
“the fringe element”
and following
: Max Wylie,
Career Girl, Watch Your Step!
p. 68.

102
  
“Don't think of yourself as being safe”: Ibid., p. 58.

103
  
“You're Helen Gurley Brown”: Barbara Seaman told the story of the meeting between Helen and Jacqueline Susann in
Lovely Me
(New York: William Morrow, 1987), p. 282.

103
  
“truck driver in drag”: Referenced by Abby Hirsch, “Novels and Stories, Kitsch and Quality,”
New York Times
, July 11, 1976.

104
  
“I loved the way she looked”: Helen Gurley Brown quoted in Barbara Seaman's biography of Susann,
Lovely Me
, p. 283.

104
  
He had taken her here shortly after they married: Helen Gurley Brown, unpublished autobiography, 1962-63, HGB Papers, SSC.

104
  
New York intimidated her: Helen mused about her gradual New Yorkification in
I'm Wild Again: Snippets from My Life and a Few Brazen Thoughts
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), pp. 37–42.

104
  
Some nights in her apartment, she wondered: Ibid., p. 41. Helen wrote about imagining the goings-on in the apartments and lives around her, a theme she sometimes explored in her notes.

104
  
More than a few of her neighbors were famous: Details about Helena Rubinstein's apartment taken from Thomas W. Ennis, “Helena Rubinstein's Apartment Is for Rent at $50,000 a Year,”
New York Times
, February 6, 1966.

105
  
New York wasn't interested in little girls: Helen Gurley Brown, early notes about New York, HGB Papers, SSC.

105
  
“Jacqueline Kennedy orders mostly from sketches”: John Fairchild, front-page editorial,
Women's Wear Daily
, July 13, 1960.

106
  
“Why the fuck does this have to happen to me?”: Barbara Seaman,
Lovely Me
, p. 284.

106
  
“As we have seen through our tears”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Woman Alone,” Los Angeles Times Syndicate, “Envy Not, Columnist Advises,” reprinted in
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
, December 9, 1963.

14: P
EACE
T
HROUGH
U
NDERSTANDING

107
  
“It was the perfect time to think silver”: Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett,
POPism: The Warhol Sixties
(Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990), p. 64.

107
  
the NYPD finally arrested a suspect: Background on George Whitmore Jr. and Richard Robles from T. J. English,
The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge
(New York: HarperCollins, 2011); and Paul Vitello, “George Whitmore Jr., Who Falsely Confessed to 3 Murders in 1964, Dies at 68,”
New York Times
, October 15, 2012.

108
  
Gernreich's topless bathing suit: Bernadine Morris, “Topless Suits Go on Sale This Week,”
New York Times
, June 16, 1964.

108
  
the nation's first topless bar: David Allyn,
Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution—An Unfettered History
(New York: Routledge, 2011), p. 25.

109
  
As a girl, she had been to the World's Fair in Chicago, twice: Helen Gurley Brown, unpublished autobiography 1962–63, HGB Papers, SSC.

109
  
The tension between them had been building up: Helen talked about Cleo's visit to New York City during the World's Fair in Helen Gurley Brown and Lyn Tornabene, audio recording no. 2552b, “Emotions,” tape 8 (side B), HGB Papers, SSC.

109
  
“Don't pay any attention to her”: Helen recalled this story in the “Emotions” tape with Tornabene and in a later
Cosmopolitan
article idea memo, “NOTES ON GIRLS WHO GET HIT OR VICE VERSA,” alternately titled, “FAMILY FISTICUFFS,”
Cosmopolitan
article ideas, 1970s–1980s, HGB Papers, SSC. Dialogue is from the
Cosmopolitan
memo.

109
  
She hit Cleo right there in the taxi: Ibid.

110
  
“Practically everybody in the world is coming to the fair!”: “Stock Footage—TO THE FAIR! 1964 World's Fair in New York City,” YouTube.

110
  
For a ticket price of two dollars, fairgoers could visit pavilions: Background on the World's Fair from Liz Robbins, “Around the Unisphere at the World's Fair, Lives Changed,”
New York Times
, April 18, 2014; “Look Closer: 1964 New York World's Fair,” waltdisney.org, June 16, 2012; Annie Colbert, “Travel Back 50 Years to 1964 New York World's Fair,” mashable.com, April 23, 2014; Alan Taylor, “1964: The New York World's Fair,”
Atlantic
, June 2, 2014.

111
  
In states throughout the South, blacks tested their new rights: Peter Millones, “Negroes in South Test Rights Act: Resistance Light,”
New York Times
, July 4, 1964.

111
  
what should have been a simple haircut: Ibid; and “Utilize Places Opened by Law,”
CORE-lator
(newsletter published bimonthly by the Congress of Racial Equality), no. 107, July–August 1964.

111
  
Frequently, the testing met strong, sometimes violent resistance: Peter Millones, “Negroes in South Test Rights Act: Resistance Light.”