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Fleur Cowles

 
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Fleur Fenton Cowles (January 20, 1908 – June 5, 2009[1]) was an American writer, editor and artist[2] best known as the creative force behind the short-lived Flair magazine.

Contents

Personal

Fleur Fenton was born Florence Freidman in Montclair, New Jersey.[3] Her parents were Morris Freidman, a novelty salesman, and his wife, Lena.[1] She had siblings who used the surname Freeman in adulthood: Dr. Paul William Freeman, a dentist (1906—1966), and Mildred Freeman Goertz.[4][5]

Her first husband was Bertram Klapper, a manufacturer of wood shoe heels. They later divorced.[1]

Her second husband was Atherton "Pett" Pettingell Jr. (1901—1971), an advertising executive who was a grandnephew of Samuel M. Pettingell, who founded one of the first advertising agencies in America in 1850.[6] They married prior to 1937 and divorced in 1946.[7]

Her third husband was Gardner Cowles Jr. (1903—1982), an heir to the Cowles Media Company, which at one time owned the Des Moines Register and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Known as Mike, Cowles was the publisher of his family's Look magazine. They married in 1946 and divorced in 1955.[8][9]

In November 1955, she married her fourth husband, Tom Montague Meyer, CBE, a timber executive.[10] The Meyers lived for a number of years in the The Albany in London, England, as well as in Spain and the Sussex countryside.

Career

In the early and mid 1930s, Fenton wrote a weekly column for The New York World-Telegram.[3][11]

In 1937, Fenton became co-founder and executive vice president of the advertising agency Pettingell & Fenton Inc, which later became known as Hartman & Pettingell Inc, then again as Pettingell & Fenton, and later still as Dorland International-Pettingell Fenton Inc.[12] She founded it with her first husband, Atherton Pettingell, a former executive vice president of Blacker Advertising.[12] Among its clients were A. S. Beck, the shoe concern, Helena Rubenstein, the cosmetics company, and Cohama Fabrics.[13] She resigned from the firm in 1946.[14]

Describing herself as "rough, uncut, [and] vigorous" as her trademark Russian emerald ring, she told Time, "I've worked hard, and I've made a fortune, and I did it in a man's world, but always, ruthlessly, and with a kind of cruel insistence, I have tried to keep feminine".[15] In 1950 she was lampooned by the writer S. J. Perelman in The New Yorker as glamorous editor Hyacinth Beddoes Laffoon.[16]

In 1947, she became an associate editor at Look magazine, and a year later, an associate editor at Quick magazine. She resigned her position at Look in November 1955 upon her separation from Gardner Cowles and moved to Europe, where she served as the magazine's foreign editorial consultant.[17]

Before founding Flair, Cowles was a special consultant to the Famine Emergency Committee in Washington, D.C.

Cowles founded Flair magazine in 1950, and it folded a year later. The magazine, which Time described at its launch as "a fancy bouillabaisse of Vogue, Town & Country, Holiday, etc.,"[15] was celebrated not only because of its design and editorial production, but also because of its lavish production. It was the resulting cost of production that killed the magazine, since the expensive special costs (for cover cut-outs for some issues, for example) could not be supported in the long run. This magazine is now sought after by collectors and sells for significant amounts on Ebay. Contributors included Saul Steinberg, Salvador Dalí (The Gypsy Angels Of Spain) and many writers and artists who subsequently became well known. The first issue issue featured Auden, Cocteau, Lucian Freud, Tennessee Williams, Angus Wilson, and many others as contributors.

In later decades, Cowles served on various government committees and represented Dwight D. Eisenhower at the coronation of Elizabeth II.

In 1996 the book The Best of Flair collected much of the material from the magazine she founded.

Her paintings from the books Tiger Flower and Lion and Blue are to be made into three-dimensional computer-animated films.[citation needed]

Artwork

As Fleur Fenton Pettingell[18] and Fleur Cowles Meyer, she worked as a painter and illustrator.

She also designed tapestries, accessories, and china for Denby Ltd.[19]

Death

Fleur Fenton Cowles died on June 5, 2009 at a nursing home in Sussex, England, aged 101.[1]

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ a b c d http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/business/media/08cowles.html Enid Nemy, "Fleur Cowles, 101, Is Dead; Friend of the Elite and the Editor of a Magazine for Them"
  2. ^ Penelope Green, "Mirror, Mirror: Making Life a Bed of Roses", The New York Times, 10 October 1999
  3. ^ a b http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/141281/Fleur-Fenton-Cowles
  4. ^ Paid obituaries—Dr. Paul W. Freeman, The New York Times, 4 October 1966
  5. ^ '"Dr. Paul W. Freeman", The New York Times, 3 October 1966
  6. ^ "News of the Advertising and Marketing Fields", The New York Times, 16 March 1952
  7. ^ "Mrs Fleur Cowles Remarried in West", The New York Times, 23 November 1955
  8. ^ "Mrs Fleur Cowles Remarried in West", The New York Times, 23 November 1955
  9. ^ "Gardner Cowles Jr. Is Dead at 82; Helped Build Publishing Empire", The New York Times, 9 July 1985
  10. ^ "Mrs Fleur Cowles Remarried in West", The New York Times, 23 November 1955
  11. ^ Fleur Fenton, "New Trend in Furniture Explained", The New York World-Telegram, 4 December 1933
  12. ^ a b "Advertising News and Notes", The New York Times, 7 January 1937
  13. ^ "Advertising News and Notes", The New York Times, 30 November 1938
  14. ^ "Advertising News and Notes", The New York Times, 6 September 1946
  15. ^ a b [1]"Fleur's Flair", Time, 12 September 1949
  16. ^ S. J. Perelman, "The Hand That Cradles the Rock", The New Yorker, 1 July 1950
  17. ^ "Fleur Cowles to Quit", The New York Times, 19 October 1955
  18. ^ "Gleams on the Horizon", The New York Times, 27 August 1939
  19. ^ Enid Nemy, "Fleur Cowles Today", The New York Times, 27 April 1976
  20. ^ U.S. Library of Congress

External links


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