Helen Gurley Brown

Birth Name: Helen Marie Gurley

Date of Birth: February 18, 1922

Place of Birth: Green Forest, Arkansas, U.S.

Date of Death: August 13, 2012

Place of Death: New York City, New York, U.S.

Ethnicity: English, German, Scottish, some Dutch, distant French

Helen Gurley Brown was an American author, publisher, and businessperson. She was the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine 1965-1996. She was loved/hated by feminists then and since.

Helen was the daughter of Cleo Fred (Sisco) and Ira Marvin Gurley. Her father was Commissioner of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. She was married to film and theatre producer David Brown, until his death.

Helen believed a woman could have “love, sex, and money.” She was also the one (not Meatloaf, originally) who said “Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.” Betty Friedan called her editorship “quite obscene and quite horrible.” She published readers’ confessions about sex.

Her specialty was the real politik of young American women, trying to balance tradition and ambition in a world of double standards ans glass ceilings. While still trying to have some fun.

Helen figures as a fictionalized version of herself in the 1964 comedy Sex and the Single Girl, played by Natalie Wood and opposite Tony Curtis, based on her 1962 book of the same name. The book was a guide for young women on such varied topics as sex, romance, career advancement, and makeup and wardrobe improvement.

Helen’s paternal grandfather was named John Henry Gurley.

Helen’s paternal grandmother was Cedella Melvin Lipps (the daughter of James Harrison Lipps and Elizabeth Ann Collon). James was the son of James M. Lipps and Frances “Frankie” Norris.

Helen’s maternal grandfather was Alfred Burr Sisco (the son of Granville Finley Sisco and Mary Mack Wilson). Granville was the son of Thomas Fancher Sisco and Nancy Caroline Miller.

Helen’s maternal grandmother was named Jennie Denton Seitz.

Source: Genealogy of Helen Gurley Brown – http://www.geni.com