- Collection:
- WSB-TV Newsfilm Collection
- Title:
- Series of WSB-TV newsfilm clips of reporter Gloria Lane interviewing Helen Gurley Brown about her new book and various topics, Atlanta, Georgia, 1964 December 16
- Creator:
- WSB-TV (Television station : Atlanta, Ga.)
- Contributor to Resource:
- Lane, Gloria (Journalist)
Brown, Helen Gurley - Date of Original:
- 1964-12-16
- Subject:
- Best sellers
Social history--United States
Social change--United States
Sex role--United States
Secretaries in popular culture--United States
Matriarchy--United States
Cosmetics--United States
Women--United States--Social conditions - People:
- Brown, David, 1916-2010
Harlow, Jean, 1911-1937
Monroe, Marilyn, 1926-1962
Mansfield, Jayne, 1933-1967
Lane, Gloria (Journalist) - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798
- Medium:
- moving images
news
unedited footage - Type:
- Moving Image
- Format:
- video/mp4
- Description:
- In this series of WSB-TV newsfilm clips from December 16, 1964, reporter Gloria Lane interviews Helen Gurley Brown about her new book Sex and the Office and various topics while she is in Atlanta for various events associated with the publication of her book. The clips begin with Brown answering a question asked off screen. The entire interview is transcribed in full below.
Helen Gurley Brown: "Well a great deal has been written. A new Harlow biography I think explains that the things that have been written about Marilyn Monroe suggests that these were just pretty, soft, lovely, young girls, and all of a sudden, you know, they're catapulted into such fame and every man everywhere in the world wants to go to bed with them and even the taxi drivers, you know, offer them money, for example, and pretty soon you know this gets to a girl. So it's two things: it's being a sex symbol when you're actually just a nice, ordinary girl on the inside, not a raging nymphomaniac, and secondly it's because you become so famous and so rich and powerful before you're even 25 years old sometimes. And that's pretty hard for a woman to take."
The clip cuts away then comes back to a close-up of Brown being asked by Gloria Lane, who is off-camera: "What about a matriarchal society? Some people seem to think the United States is leaning that way. What is your opinion on this? Do the women rule?"
HGB: "I just think that's the biggest bunch of nonsense I've heard. It's true that women are doing a lot of things that they weren't allowed to do before. You know, we're becoming doctors and lawyers and physicists and scientists and airline pilots and everything, but that doesn't mean we're a matriarchy. I think a lot of women are aggressive and hostile toward men, but that's because they're disturbed women and, you know, they ought to do something about that, but for the most part, the world is still run by the capable people, be they men or women."
Here the clip cuts away and then reappears on a shot of Gloria Lane speaking to the camera.
GL: "There are two reference books that are musts for every secretary nowadays. In addition to the usual secretarial handbook, we now have Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl. Ms. Brown has now written a new one, Sex and the Office. Ms. Brown, what inspired you to write these books?"
HGB: "My husband thought of the idea for both of them. He thought I was kind of an exemplary single woman because I was 37, but I was no loser; I had a good job, and I had lots of men in my life. And he said, 'Why don't you write about what it was like for you?' And he said the same thing about Sex and the Office. He said, 'You had a good working life. You still have it, and why don't you encourage girls who work for a living and tell them not to be so sorry for themselves. They can find men at the office and they can have a great time.'"
GL: "What about the usual sex symbol, Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe and that type of girl? So often they seem to lead an unhappy life. Why do you think this is true?"
Here the clip cuts to Gloria Lane who says, "Some candid comments from controversial writer Helen Gurley Brown."
The next clip cuts to Gloria Lane and Helen Gurley Brown sitting across from each other.
GL: Ms. Brown, you have two books out now for the secretary, Sex and the Single Girl and Sex and the Office. Both books are quite controversial. Could you tell us about some experiences you've run into since then?"
HGB: "Well yes, Gloria. When I'm on a television show, quite often women call up the station--it's always women, you know, men don't complain--but women call up the station after I've left and said, 'How can you have that women on your show?' And literally I don't think they've read anything that I've written. They just know that I'm supposed to represent an immoral point of view. And actually I've just told single girls it's okay to be single, and you're going to have a good life, and the secretary or office girl, I'd say the same thing to. You can have lots of fun at work if you really try. So I don't consider those things immoral, but some of the public does and gets very exorcised about me."
GL: "How did you come to write these books? What does your husband think about the books?"
HGB: "And about all this stuff that's been happening to me? He's thrilled to death, Gloria! He believes in what I'm doing. He knows that if a man helps a woman develop everything she's able to develop--her brain, her business ability, everything--that she'll love that man, and I really do adore my husband for bringing out this new facet in my 40th year--this writing thing. So he's proud of me and he masterminds everything I do. He's still a movie executive. He hasn't retired (laughs) to live on my earnings or anything. He has his work and I have my work, and he's proud."
GL: "I understand you're traveling with a Saturday Evening Post photographer. How does your husband feel about this, and how does his wife feel about this?"
HGB: "I don't know how Mr. Pelham's wife feels (laughs) because I haven't met her yet. I'll just have to let him work that out. My husband thinks it's great if the Saturday Evening Post is going to do a story about me, he thinks that's just wonderful, and he trusts me. He feels that if you can't trust your wife away from home, you can't trust her under your nose. So if you have a good relationship, your wife can travel with a magazine photographer, or reporter, or whoever, and she knows what she's doing."
Here the clip cuts away and returns to Helen Gurley Brown mid-answer.
HGB: "...men. I think it's just that we're into a lot more fields than we used to be so it seems as though we have more influence, but I don't think we're emasculating men. As long as women have the babies, and men are needed to get the babies here, men and women are always going to get together, so I don't think you have to worry about the human race."
GL: "What about the usual sex symbol, Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe? So often they seem to lead unhappy lives. Why do you think this is true?"
HGB: "Jayne Mansfield is doing pretty well, though. She has lovely children; I saw them on a tv show the other day. And she seems to be reasonably happily married to this new husband. She's a good businesswoman and I think maybe ol' Jayne is going to hold up better than the others did because she's a very sound girl, basically."
GL: "Any advice to women on makeup?"
HGB: "Yes, I think they should wear lots of it. Not in a china doll kind of way, you know, so that it shows, but you blend it in and smooth it out and use a lipstick brush. Wear all the makeup that can possibly do you any good. Don't get away with just a dab of this and a smudge of that. It's your ally--use it!"
Here the clip zooms out to show Helen Gurley Brown and Gloria Lane sitting together. Lane looks to the camera for further instructions. The last clips show Gloria Lane practicing her introduction of Helen Gurley Brown.
Reporter: Lane, Gloria (Journalist)
Title supplied by cataloger.
Supporting information was taken from the following source: Dellinger, Ione. "Controversial Author Helen Brown Is in Town, Declares the Single Girl Never Had It So Good." The Atlanta Constitution, 16 Dec 1964: 25. Web. 18 June 2020. - Local Identifier:
- Clip number: wsbn47574
- External Identifiers:
- Metadata URL:
- https://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/news/id:wsbn47574
- Digital Object URL:
- https://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/news/id:wsbn47574
- IIIF manifest:
- https://dlg.usg.edu/record/ugabma_wsbn_wsbn47574/presentation/manifest.json
- Language:
- eng
- Bibliographic Citation (Cite As):
- Cite as: wsbn47574, Series of WSB-TV newsfilm clips of reporter Gloria Lane interviewing Helen Gurley Brown about her new book and various topics, Atlanta, Georgia, 1964 December 16, WSB-TV newsfilm collection, reel 1232, 26:36/33:56, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, The University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia
- Extent:
- 1 clip (about 7 mins., 20 secs.): black-and-white, sound ; 16 mm.
- Original Collection:
- Original found in the WSB-TV newsfilm collection.
- Holding Institution:
- Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection
- Rights:
-
