Mary Wells

Advertising Woman of the Year in 1971, Mary Georgene Berg Wells (born 1928) was an advertising executive who rose from a department store copy-writer to the chief executive officer of one of the largest advertising firms in the world.

Born Mary Georgene Berg on May 25, 1928, she was the only child of Waldemar, a furniture-maker, and Violet in Youngstown, Ohio. When Mary was five years old, her mother enrolled her in elocution classes to help the child overcome shyness. Subsequently, she took music, drama, and dance lessons and participated in amateur and semiprofessional theater productions. Upon finishing high school, Mary moved to New York City to enroll in the Neighborhood School of the Theater. After one year she left to pursue a career in merchandising at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where she met and married Burt Wells, an industrial design student. The couple moved back to Youngstown where she worked as an advertising writer for Mckelvey's department store bargain basement.

When she and her husband settled in New York City in 1952, Wells was promptly hired by Macy's as a copywriter. There she learned to write convincing copy that was well received by customers. At 23 years of age, she was promoted to the position of fashion advertising manager for Macy's. Then she was approached by several Madison Avenue advertising agencies that were impressed with her effective advertisements.

Her introduction to Madison Avenue, the heart of the advertising industry, came with a job offer from McCann-Erickson. There she learned to create ads using a variety of media, including television, radio, magazines, newspapers, and billboards, for many different businesses. But it was not until she accepted a job with Doyle, Dane, Bernbach that Wells was truly challenged. DDB was one of the most innovative agencies at that time; it took a low-key approach to advertising and had created humorous and successful campaigns for Avis Rent-A-Car and Volkswagen, among others. The climate at DDB was most stimulating, and she garnered respect as a creative, insightful writer, advancing her career by designing original campaigns. By 1963 Wells was vice-president and copy chief with an annual salary of $40, 000. Over the years her elocution lessons paid off, and she became a dynamic speaker and communicator. These skills were further honed and perfected during her employment with DDB.

Feeling the need for more independence, Wells elected to move to Jack Tinker and Partners. This agency encouraged employees to participate in a cooperative, freethinking, and loosely-organized setting. At a salary of $60, 000, Wells was given virtually free rein. For her first account, she was teamed up with Richard Rich and Stuart Greene to handle Alka-Seltzer. The campaign produced wryly humorous commercials that won several industry awards. She then landed the Braniff International Airline account. Harding Lawrence, the president of Braniff, wanted the agency to create a new image for the airline, one which would result in increased revenues. Wells, Rich, and Greene created an avant-garde campaign that was an overwhelming success. The slogan, "The End of the Plain Plane, " was substantiated by painting each of the planes one of several bright colors. In addition, Emilio Pucci was hired to design new uniforms for the flight attendants, and Alexander Girard was commissioned to restyle the airplane interiors. Despite being dubbed "the Easter-egg airline" by industry critics, sales increased 41 percent and profits rose 114 percent.

Wells' career also took off. By 1966 she was making almost $80, 000 a year, but when Jack Tinker and Partners requested that she sign a long-term contract she opted to leave the company. Rich and Greene resigned at the same time. Ultimately, the three colleagues decided to start their own agency. With an investment of $30, 000 each and a $100, 000 bank loan, they created Wells, Rich and Greene, Incorporated. They were immediately flooded with calls both from potential employees and from clients eager to sign a contract. Their first client was Braniff, a $6.5 million account. WRG proved their ability and gained momentum without ever soliciting business. Within six months they had billings of $30 million, landing such accounts as Benson and Hedges cigarettes and Personna razor blades.

After the first year they signed Hunt-Wesson Foods, General Mills, and American Motors and had reached annual billings of $70 million. Wells soon advanced up the corporate ladder, assuming the roles of chairman of the board, chief executive officer, chief administrator, and chief "presenter." In 1965 she divorced her first husband and married Harding Lawrence of Braniff in 1967. WRG resigned the Braniff account, whose parent company feared a conflict of interest. To replace it, WRG signed on the TWA account, which had an advertising budget of $22 million.

WRG's dynamic growth can be directly credited to Wells. She was considered the best conceptualizer in the advertising industry, and in 1971 she was honored as Advertising Woman of the Year by the American Advertising Federation. She was also awarded the Clio Award for TV spots with recurring taglines, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing" and "Try it - you'll like it." The philosophy of WRG was "to create tasteful, respectful, attention-getting advertising capable of increasing sales and market share promptly." By staying with this credo, WRG grew to be one of the top advertising agencies in the United States.

Wells' skills as a creator and planner of advertising were matched by her executive abilities. She was a hard-driving, ambitious, and particularly demanding boss. Wells' astute financial sense benefited both the company and Wells personally. The company's billing increased from $36.7 million in 1967 to $767 million in 1988. During that same time, Wells' salary increased to over $300, 000, and she was one of the best-paid women executives in the world. In 1968 WRG went public, at which time Wells took out $1, 208, 000 in cash and retained shares valued at more than $4 million. When she returned the company to private ownership in 1974, through a bonds-for-stock exchange, she again profited handsomely.

Wells' impact on the advertising industry was enormous. Her awards included Marketing Stateswoman of the Year, the Clio Award, and Advertising Woman of the Year. She was inducted into the Copywriter's Hall Fame as its youngest member in 1969. In the 1980s Wells continued to hold the position of WRG chief executive officer, although she was less involved in the day-to-day operations of the company. In 1990 she announced her retirement as president of WRG at the age of 62. The advertising giant she created reported annual billings of $850, 348, 000 with a staff of more than 300 employees in 1995.

Further Reading

The most comprehensive account of Mary Wells' career appears in Possible Dream by Marthe Gross (1970). A shorter account appears in Enterprising Women (1976) by Caroline Bird. There is also a full biography in Ingham, editor, Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders (1978). She is also included in standard reference works such as Biography Almanac, 3rd edition, Who's Who in Business and Finance (1974), and Who's Who in the East (1974). There are a number of good magazine articles on Mary Wells and her agency. Among the best are: Journal of Marketing (January 1972), Vogue (February 1978), Fortune (August 1966), and Newsweek (October 3, 1966). Later information on Mary Wells and her agency appears in Advertising Age (August 1, 1988) and Business Week (October 3, 1988). Stewart Fox, The Mirror Makers (1985), provides information on Wells and other advertising industry figures. After retirement in 1990 Wells was reported to not accept interviews.

singer

Personal Information

Born on May 13, 1943, in Detroit, Michigan; died on July 26, 1992; married Herman Griffin, early 1960s (later divorced); married Cecil Womack, 1966 (later divorced); children: Stacy, Cecil Jr., Harry, and Sugar.

Career

Singer. Signed to Motown label, 1960; debut single release, "Bye Bye Baby," 1960; recorded and released signature single "My Guy," 1964; signed to 20th Century label, 1964, precipitating court battle with Motown; signed to Atco label, 1966; recorded for Jubilee and Epic labels, 1970s and 1980s; appeared on Motown 25th anniversary television special, 1983; toured with Motown revues, 1980s.

Life's Work

The first star to bring consistent sales and recognition to Detroit's Motown label in the 1960s, Mary Wells was also the first of many Motown stars to break away from that label acrimoniously. Her signature hit, "My Guy," is known to virtually all Americans who came of age in the 1960s, and she notched a string of other hits in collaboration with Motown's prolific songwriter and producer, William "Smokey" Robinson. Yet her career floundered until her tragic death in 1992.

Mary Esther Wells was born in Detroit on May 13, 1943. When she was three years old, she contracted spinal meningitis and had to remain in bed for two years. Wells also suffered from tuberculosis as a young woman. Her family was poor, and at the age of 12 she began to help her mother with housecleaning work. "Daywork they called it," Wells was quoted as saying in Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music. "And it was damn cold on hallway linoleum. Misery is Detroit linoleum in January--with a half-froze bucket of Spic-and-Span."

Nevertheless, Wells found time to perform solos with the choir at Detroit's Northwestern High School, from which she graduated when she was 17. Shaken by the illnesses she had survived, she thought about trying to become a scientist. But the new Motown Records studio was not far from where she lived, and music seized her imagination. "I could sing, and all the entertainers looked so glamorous and wonderful, so I started writing songs," she was quoted as saying in People. When she was 16, she met an assistant to Motown owner Berry Gordy Jr., and wangled an appointment to pitch one of her songs to Gordy in person.

Signed to Motown Label

Wells had composed the song, "Bye Bye Baby," with R&B vocalist Jackie Wilson in mind, but Gordy quickly brought Wells herself into the studio to record it. It required 22 takes to coax a usable rendition from the nervous young vocalist, but Gordy's judgment was vindicated when "Bye Bye Baby" rose to the R&B Top Ten and even cracked the pop Top 50 in 1960. Wells signed a contract with Motown, and as she gained experience, the label began to put its top creative people behind her career. The most important of these was Smokey Robinson, who wrote many of her songs and produced her recordings between 1962 and 1964.

Her voice, gentle and coy and subtly playful at unexpected moments, was the perfect foil for Robinson's songwriting, and the combination yielded for Wells and for Motown a consistent string of hits. In 1962, "You Beat Me to the Punch" and "Two Lovers" both topped R&B charts, with both of those songs and "The One Who Really Loves You" making it into the pop Top Ten. "Laughing Boy," "Your Old Stand By," and "What's Easy for Two Is So Hard for One" all reached upper chart levels the following year, and by 1964, "Mary Wells was our first big, big star," former Motown sales executive Lucy Gordy Wakefield told the New York Times. Her personal appearances with the touring Motown Revue confirmed her popularity.

Opened for Beatles on Tour

Wells's high-water mark as a chart-topper came in 1964 with "My Guy," which topped the pop charts for two weeks in May at the height of the "British invasion." The song even did well in Britain, and Wells became the first Motown artist to appear across the Atlantic when she opened for the Beatles on a 1964 British tour. Despite the chart competition between them, Wells got along well with the mop-topped British sensations and always maintained a friendly relationship with them.

When she turned 21 in 1964, however, Wells left Motown, spurred on by promises of greater riches to come by her husband, backup vocalist Herman Griffin. Already having undergone two abortions at Griffin's behest, she signed a $500,000 deal with the Twentieth-Century Fox label in Hollywood that included promises of starring film roles. Motown took her to court, but Wells and her lawyers maintained that she had been deceived by the contract she had signed when she was just 17. Gordy angled to prevent other labels from signing Wells, but she eventually prevailed.

Wells would be succeeded by a long line of other Motown vocalists, predominantly female, who would tangle with the label in court. Some would move on to stardom with other labels, but Wells proved to be dependent upon the synergy between her own talents and those of Robinson and the rest of the Motown assembly line. Except for the forgettable Catalina Caper (1967), Wells's film career came to nought, and her recordings for Fox fared little better. Moving to the Atco label in 1965 she notched a few Top Ten R&B hits, but her days at the top of the charts were essentially over. She later recorded for Epic, Reprise, Warner Brothers, and a host of smaller labels, all without notable success. Her marriage to Griffin ended in divorce.

Appeared on Motown Television Special

Wells married R&B vocalist Cecil Womack; she had three children with him and one, after the couple's 1977 divorce, with his brother Curtis. For a time in the 1970s, she dropped out of the music business altogether to concentrate on raising her children, but as nostalgia for the golden age of Motown grew among baby-boom music lovers, Wells returned to the road. She became a fixture of Motown retrospectives, such as the 1983 television special mounted on the occasion of the company's 25th anniversary. Around that time, possibilities surfaced that she might return to the label, but a deal was never struck.

The last chapters of Wells's life were tragic ones. A heavy smoker who also battled heroin addiction for a time, Wells was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1990. Like many other musicians, she had no health insurance, and the illness wiped her out financially. Through the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, established partly to assist musicians who encountered financial problems in later life, various entertainment figures, including Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, and fellow Motown star Diana Ross, donated money for Wells's medical treatment. Her life might have been saved by removal of her larynx, but that would have meant that she would never sing or talk again. Instead Wells chose dangerous and painful option of radiation therapy, but it did not save her life. She died in Los Angeles on July 26, 1992, at age 49.

Works

Selected discography

• Bye Bye Baby, I Don't Want to Take a Chance, Motown, 1961.
• The One Who Really Loves You, Motown, 1962.
• Two Lovers and Other Great Hits, Motown, 1963.
• Recorded Live on Stage, Motown, 1963.
• Second Time Around, Motown, 1963.
• Together (with Marvin Gaye), Motown, 1964.
• Mary Wells Sings My Guy, Motown, 1964.
• Greatest Hits, Motown, 1964.
• Mary Wells, 20th Century, 1965.
• Mary Wells Sings Love Songs to the Beatles, 20th Century, 1965.
• The Two Sides of Mary Wells, Atco, 1966.
• Servin' Up Some Soul, Jubilee, 1968.
• In and Out of Love, Epic, 1981.

Further Reading

Books

• Bianco, David, Heat Wave: The Motown Fact Book, Pierian Press, 1988.
• Hitchcock, H. Wiley and Stanley Sadie, eds., The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, Macmillan, 1986.
• Larkin, Colin, ed., The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Muze UK, 1998.
• Romanowski, Patricia and Holly George-Warren, eds., The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Fireside, 1995.
• Stambler, Irwin, The Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock & Soul, St. Martin's, 1989.

Periodicals

• Billboard, August 8, 1992, p. 10.
• Entertainment Weekly, August 7, 1992, p. 62.
• New York Times, July 27, 1992.
• People, August 10, 1992, p. 96.

— James M. Manheim

See Mary Wells Lyrics

• Born: May 13, 1943, Detroit, MI
• Died: July 26, 1992, Los Angeles, CA
• Active: '60s, '70s, '80s
• Genres: Rhythm & Blues
• Instrument: Vocals
• Representative Albums: "The Ultimate Collection," "Greatest Hits," "Two Lovers/My Guy"
• Representative Songs: "My Guy," "Two Lovers," "You Beat Me to the Punch"

Biography

Time and legions of other soul superstars have obscured the fact that for a brief moment, Mary Wells was Motown's biggest star. She came to the attention of Berry Gordy as a 17-year-old, hawking a song she'd written for Jackie Wilson; that song, "Bye Bye Baby," became her first Motown hit in 1961. The full-throated approach of that single was quickly toned down in favor of a pop-soul sound. Few other soul singers managed to be as shy and sexy at the same time as Wells (Barbara Lewis is the only other that springs to mind), and the soft-voiced singer found a perfect match with the emerging Motown production team, especially Smokey Robinson. Robinson wrote and produced her biggest Motown hits; "Two Lovers," "You Beat Me to the Punch," and "The One Who Really Loves You" all made the Top Ten in the early '60s, and "My Guy" hit the number one spot in mid-1964, at the very height of Beatlemania.

Mary turned 21 years old as "My Guy" was rising to the top of the charts, and left Motown almost immediately afterward for a reported advance of several hundred thousand dollars from 20th Century Fox. The circumstances remain cloudy years later, but Wells and her husband-manager felt Motown wasn't coming through with enough money for their new superstar; she was also lured by the prospect of movie roles through 20th Century Fox (which never materialized). It's been rumored that Wells was being groomed for the sort of plans that were subsequently lavished upon Diana Ross; more nefariously, it's also been rumored that Motown quietly discouraged radio stations from playing Wells' subsequent releases. What is certain is that Wells never remotely approached the success of her Motown years, entering the pop Top 40 only once (although she had some R&B hits). Motown, for their part, took care throughout the rest of the '60s not to lose their big stars to larger labels.

Wells' departure from Motown was so dramatic and unsuccessful that it has tended to overshadow the quality of her later work, which has almost always been dismissed as trivial by critics. True, it didn't match the quality of her Motown recordings -- Smokey Robinson could not be replaced. But her '60s singles for 20th Century Fox (whom she ended up leaving after only a year), Atco, and Jubilee were solid pop-soul on which her vocal talents remained undiminished. She wrote and produced a lot of her late-'60s and early-'70s sessions with her second husband, guitarist Cecil Womack (brother of Bobby), and these found her exploring a somewhat earthier groove than her more widely known pop efforts. She had trouble landing recording deals in the '70s and '80s, and succumbed to throat cancer in 1992. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

Definitive Collection Buy this CD	Dance with Me Buy this CD	Looking Back 1961-1964 Buy this CD	20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Mary Wells Buy this CD	Two Lovers/My Guy Buy this CD
My Guy Buy this CD	Motown Legends: My Guy Buy this CD	My Guy: The Best of Mary Wells [Aim] Buy this CD	Best of Mary Wells [Direct Source] Buy this CD	Dear Lover Buy this CD

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