Maybe She Was Born With It?

Oct. 4, 2010 - PRLog -- (Los Angeles, CA) Oct.2, 2010 –  The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It, a compelling never-before-told story derived from 900 pages of family archives and secret diaries dating back to the 1920’s to present.  

This richly told saga begins in 1915 when a cooking fire singed his sister Mabel’s lashes and brow. Tom Lyle Williams watched in fascination as she mixed petroleum jelly with burnt cork and coal dust in what she called a “secret of the harem” then applied it to her lashes. Inspired by Mabel’s simple beauty trick, Williams created what would become an iconic billion-dollar business, naming it Maybelline in her honor.

Throughout the 20th century Maybelline inflated, collapsed and thrived in tandem with the nation’s upheavals. While glitz, glamour and scandal swirled from behind the gates of his Rudolf Valentino Villa, Williams launched the careers of Hollywood starlets including Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Jean Harlow, and Debbie Reynolds. Holding the sole advertising contract for the Miss America pageant and to Grace Kelly’s wedding, Maybelline became wildly successful, so much so, that the Feds investigated Maybelline as a monopoly.  

Tom Lyle revered women, none more than his brother’s wife, Evelyn who became his lifelong muse. Entranced by her “roaring charisma,” he called her the “real Miss Maybelline” and based his ads on her persona: beautiful, hardboiled and daring. At age 76, Evelyn got a facelift, breast implants and opened the Maybelline Dinner Theatre in Arkansas, with invited guests that included stars, dignitaries, and then Governor Bill Clinton. The next day Evelyn was dead, victim to an arson fire in her home; bizarrely, her 13 wigs lined up on the lawn nearby. To this day her death remains unsolved.

An epic and intimate tale, alive with the scandal, the hustle, the music and the dance of an American dynasty, this is sure to be the most talked about book of the fall. Says Neil Shulman, writer and associate producer of Doc Hollywood “A richly told story of a forty-year, white-hot love triangle that fans the flames if a major world-wide conglomerate. Enormously powerful!”


The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It
416 pgs • Photos • $18.95
ISBN: 978-0-9843081-1-8
Bettie Youngs Books
HYPERLINK "http://www.BettieYoungsBooks.com" www.BettieYoungsBooks.com