Helen Gurley Brown, who taught “mouseburgers” how to become “Cosmo girls,” has died.
She was the original Carrie Bradshaw, a lady intent on telling the single gal how to get everything out of life–including lots of meaningful sex with desirable men.
(Well, people just didn’t talk about same-sex stuff back then.)
I interviewed Helen for Vanity Fair in the ’80s and she was delightful, smart, and charming.
What’s more, she said hello every time after that, and was always available for a laugh or some insight.
I also wrote for her magazine and used to love the setup:
You’d go into the Managing Editor’s office and come upon a mass of file cabinets you were asked to look through.
You’d pull out the file cabinet drawers, one at a time, and look through the hundreds of index cards, which had a multiplicity of story ideas typed on them.
Ideas about culture, entertainment, society, and mores.
You’d find one that appealed to you, and voila–that was your assignment.
It seemed like a bizarre system, but like the Cosmo girl herself, it was efficient and totally worked.
Bye, Helen.
You put on quite a Gurley show.