Helen Gurley Brown, 1964, shortly before the Cosmo girl was created
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Helen Gurley Brown, writer and symbol for millions of women that a girl could, in her words, ” have it all”, has died, age 90, in New York, Monday 13 August, after proving her point.
Brown, who grew up poor in the Ozarks, shot to fame in 1962 with her incendiary book, “Sex and the Single Girl”, written shortly after the award-winning copywriter married film director David Brown of “Jaws” fame, when she was 43.
She went on to create the Cosmopolitan brand for Hearst, turning the magazine from one more guide for frumpy housewives in the US into a hugely successful international magazine for “fun, fearless, females”. She was the editor-in-chief from 1965 to 1997.
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