Calling All Girls: If the names “Enid Haupt” and “Colleen Corby” ring a familiar bell, this post should be on your “must read” list.
When I was a pre-teen growing up on Chicago’s North Shore, I was rabidly interested in many things of vital importance.
They were:
1. Clothes
2. Boys
3. Will boys like my clothes?
4. Hairstyles
5. Skin care
6. Lip gloss
7. Capezios
(True, I was also crazy about books, movies, dogs, horses, television, my friends and the Everly Brothers. But the above list really took up 99% of my waking thoughts.)
And it was Seventeen magazine that understood this perfectly.
I eagerly devoured every issue. And that’s how I came to be acquainted with its brilliant editor and guiding light- Enid Haupt.
Daughter of The Daily Racing Form tycoon Moses Annenberg and sister of future media mogul Walter, Enid was handed the reins to Seventeen in 1953. She capably ran the show there until 1970.
(Seventeen had debuted in September of 1944 as the very first American magazine established just for the teen age market.)
In 1965 Seventeen cost $.60 and a girl could really get her money’s worth- thanks to the genius of Enid Haupt.
Although she had been born in Chicago in 1906 with a silver spoon in her mouth, Mrs. Haupt totally got me- and the rest of my Babyboomer girlfriends. Her monthly “Letter From the Editor” personally advised me on teen fashion, beauty and social life.
And it also included sound advice on how to be a better student and a better citizen.
But most important of all, Seventeen was the Bible of that magic teenage word…
Popularity.
There’s a word I haven’t used in a very long time. But when I was a teen, being “popular” was the Holy Grail.
And in my quest for this elusive popularity, I pored over Seventeen from cover to cover. And what covers they had.
Enter Colleen Corby.
For those of you, Dear Readers, who were not teen age girls in the sixties, let me now introduce to you to the fabulous Colleen.
She was THE superstar cover girl of the era. She was sweet-looking, big-eyed, and best of all for me, brunette.
She first appeared on Seventeen’s cover in 1963 when she was sixteen. Just two years older than me, btw. No wonder I adored her.
And I was not alone in my adoration. In 1965 she was on the cover five times. (She was also on covers of Co-Ed and Ingenue and the Spiegel Catalog.)
Take a look for yourself.
What can I say? This darling girl and these fabulous fashions still make me swoon- and it’s been fifty years.
Back then, Colleen and Seventeen represented everything that I wanted to be. Pretty in a wholesome way- and happy.
She always looked like she never worried about anything. Her life- unlike mine- didn’t seem fraught with problematic mothers, hormone-enthralled boyfriends, onerous junior themes, nettlesome curfews, exasperating allowance and wardrobe shortages or Geometry.
Colleen smiled and looked perfect. And it was her very perfection that comforted and encouraged me.
Ah, those were the days. I sure could use a magazine these days to cheer me up, encourage me and give me good advice on skin care.
(Somehow, AARP’s Magazine doesn’t do the trick.)
Take a look at this. I bet it will bring back memories of a simpler time.
Now where did I put that issue of Teen?
I can’t wait to see who Fabian is dating.
I too picked up stuff in high school. Have a listen/look to this, this, and this.
Very nice tie-in, Professor. You really classed up my post. (Although this is the kind of stuff that gave me the bends in high school.) I give you an A in math. But what, no thoughts on Capezios?
I was a Mad magazine guy!
What you worry? I loved it too, actually. I think I got it at Stineways.
Tom Koch, co-inventor of 43-man squamish, passed away last month. Click here for his New York Times obituary, published a week ago (they were tactful enough to not run it on April Fools’ Day). Present blog company excluded, you will be hard pressed to read anything funnier this week.
I loved Seventeen and Mad. And many others in between. On your list, somehow I think your first two were actually in reverse order. Mine were.
Okay, it’s a tie. And it still is! Thanks, ML.
So glad I was born a boy. (It’s a compliment……I don’t know how you women do it.).
Oh, and so happy I was raised on the South Side!!
Next……..?
I’m glad you’re a boy, too, Bernie. So is Camp Ojibwa.
The girls weren’t the only ones trying to figure out how to be “cool.” I think the difference between the boys and the girls back then is that the girls had all those teen magazines and the boys got most of their ideas from TV (MAD magazine excepted).
I remember when I was in junior high that if you didn’t have the Beatles hairstyle, you weren’t cool. That, of course translated into not getting the cool girls. Most teenage guys’ lists went something like this: Girls, sports, girls, music, girls, cars, oh and did I mention girls?
Everything revolved around being cool around girls. Did we have the right hairstyle, jeans, sneakers, cologne https://youtu.be/IKAGx05TG_w
I’m not sure that things are any different today. Here is a recently popular song by Echosmith https://youtu.be/CibjkFL2yfc
Very, very nice linkage here, Steve. The Hai Karate commercial is priceless. (although my boyfriends were more into Aramis and English Leather.) Catchy song, too. I think teens will be perennially searching for “popularity” no matter what gender or generation. Thanks, Steve. You’re a cool kid to me, that’s fer sure.