Helen Gurley Brown, the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan magazine who helped usher in the 1960s sexual revolution, died on Monday at age 90.
She died at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center after a brief stay, according to a statement issued by Hearst Corp.
Gurley Brown was editor from 1965 to 1996 at Cosmopolitan, a magazine aimed at young single women, which under her hand became renowned for its provocatively posed models, frank articles and headlines extolling sex.
With Gurley Brown as editor, Cosmopolitan was “the sexiest woman’s magazines there was,” she said in a 2004 interview with Mediabistro.
Gurley Brown was at the forefront of changing sexual mores in the US and the modern women’s liberation movement when she wrote Sex and the Single Girl, published in 1962. The cheerful book about single life encouraged women to be independent and to have sex freely, whether or not they were married.
In the same Mediabistro interview, she said when she wrote Sex and the Single Girl that “nobody was talking about female sexuality.”
“You were just supposed to go through with it, rearrange the spice rack in your head and think about what you were going to do tomorrow while you’re having sex,” she said.
Hearst Corp chief executive Frank Bennack Jr wrote in a memo to staff: “Helen was one of the world’s most recognized magazine editors and book authors, and a true pioneer for women in journalism — and beyond.”
Privately held Hearst is the parent company of Cosmopolitan.
“We’re very sad to report that legendary Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown passed away. She revolutionized the mag & empowered women worldwide,” Cosmopolitan said on Twitter.
Gurley Brown still kept a pink corner office in the Hearst Tower in Manhattan, according to a recent article in the New York Times.
She was married to David Brown, producer of such Hollywood hits as The Sting, Cocoon and Driving Miss Daisy. He died in 2010.
Gurley Brown also wrote Sex and the Office, Having It All, and The Late Show: A Semiwild but Practical Survival Plan for Women over 50.
She told Vanity Fair in 2007 that she considered her greatest achievement to be “editing Cosmopolitan successfully so Hearst didn’t have to close it down in 1965, when it was losing tons of money.”
She was born in Arkansas in 1922. Her father died in an elevator accident when she was ten, and the family moved to Los Angeles. She worked in advertising before taking over as editor of Cosmopolitan in 1965.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia