In 1915, when a kitchen stove fire singed his sister Mabel's lashes
and brows, Tom Lyle Williams watched in fascination as she performed
what she called 'a secret of the harem'—mixing petroleum jelly with coal
dust and ash from a burnt cork and applying it to her lashes and brows.
Mabel's simple beauty trick ignited Tom Lyle's imagination and he
started what would become a billion-dollar business, one that remains a
viable American icon after nearly a century. He named it Maybelline in
her honor. Throughout the twentieth century, the Maybelline company
inflated, collapsed, endured, and thrived in tandem with the nation's
upheavals—as did the family that nurtured it. Tom Lyle Williams—to avoid
unwanted scrutiny of his private life—cloistered himself behind the
gates of his Rudolph Valentino Villa and ran his empire from the
shadows. Now, after nearly a century of silence, this true story
celebrates the life of an American entrepreneur, a man forced to remain
behind a mask—using his sister-in-law Evelyn Boecher—to be his front.
Stories of the-great-man-and-how-he-did-it
serve as a traditional mainstay of biographies, but with the strong
women's book-buying market, a resurgence of interest in memoirs that
focus on relationships more than a single man and his accomplishments
are more likely to be discussed in women's book groups. The Maybelline Story combines the best of both approaches: a man whose vision rocketed him to success along with the woman held in his orbit.
In
the way that Rhett Butler ignored the criticism of his peers to carve
his own destiny, Tom Lyle Williams shares similar grit and daring. But
Rhett without Scarlet wouldn't be much of a story. Evelyn Williams
provides the energy of an antagonist. Like Scarlet, we sometimes hate
her and want to shake her, but sometimes, we must admit that we hold a
grudging respect; we get a kick out of her and even occasionally, love
her for her guts and tenacity, and certainly because she carved out a
life for herself and insisted on having a voice, even if she was a fly
in the ointment for others.
The Maybelline story provides other
kinds of classic literary satisfaction. We are especially fascinated to
slip vicariously into the lives of the rich and privileged yet cheer
for the underdog who overcomes obstacles to astound doubters with his
success. We are enthralled with the historical sweep of events whose
repercussions live on to the present, all elements of The Maybelline Story—which reads
like a juicy novel, but is in fact a family memoir, distilled from nine
hundred pages of family accounts from the 1920's to present.
An
engrossing and captivating saga that spans four generations and reveals
the humanity, the glamor, and the seedy underside of a family
intoxicated by the quest for power, wealth, and physical perfection. It
is a fascinating and inspiring tale of ambition, luck, greed,
secrecy—and surprisingly, above all, love and forgiveness, a tale both
epic and intimate, alive with the clash, the hustle, the music, and
dance of American enterprise.
(Sharrie Williams The Maybelline Story )
Purchase an autographed copy signed by the author Sharrie
Williams