January 30, 2026 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in Victorian America, makeup was taboo. Respectable women didn’t enhance their eyes—unless they were silent film stars or prostitutes. That changed with one family experiment that quietly sparked a beauty revolution. At just 19, Thomas Lyle Williams created what would become Maybelline, inspired by his sister’s homemade eyelash treatments. Mixed in teapots and sold by mail, the product became so popular that the family once hauled orders from the post office by wheelbarrow.
Sharrie Williams, a member of the founding family and author of The Maybelline Story, tells the inside story of how a homemade beauty aid became a global brand—and how changing one small cultural rule helped change everything.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories. Today,
we're used to seeing public figures lend their names and
their faces to the products we buy. From magazine ads
to radio spots to television commercials. Celebrity endorsements have long
shaped American consumer culture. But there was a time not
all that long ago, when this kind of marketing didn't exist.
(00:33):
And yet one company figured out the power of celebrity
influence long before the rest of the world had a
name for it. And that company who was Maybelene. Joining
us with the story of Sharry Williams, the great niece
of Mabelene's founder, who just happened to be a man,
Tom Lyle Williams. Let's get into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
My great uncle was born in eighteen ninety six, and
about the time he was fifteen, he bought a bicycle
and he tore it down, he painted it, and he
put it in the classifieds of the police gazette, and
he got fifty offers to buy the bike for fifty dollars,
(01:24):
which seems insane. He sold the bike and he said,
that's what I want to do for the rest of
my life, is I want to make advertising my professions.
Well the whole town in Morganfield, Kentucky back at that time,
just thought he was a dreamer. The only thing really
open for him was to be a farmer or maybe
(01:44):
a minister. But he was coming up with these high
pollutant ideas that did not register at all. But he
still went forward. And the first thing that he decided
to sell was gag gifts. So he did pretty good
on that, you know, he made some money on that.
But then after a while, how many times can you
(02:07):
reorder a gag gift? So then he decided, okay, well
that didn't work too good, So I'm going to buy
vegetables and send them to the parts of the country
that don't get fresh vegetables. Well, he, you know, found
a farmer and did all that was doing very very well,
except for he didn't count the shipping, how much shipping
(02:28):
was going to add to it, and so that pretty
much ruined that idea. He moved to Chicago, where his
brother Noel was working in the railroad, and so Tom
Lyle asked if he could come and stay with him
and kind of figure out what to do. You know,
Chicago is a much bigger place than little Morganfield, Kentucky
(02:49):
with about maybe fifteen hundred people or so. Anyway, he
goes and he works at Sears and gets a job
in the advertising department, where he learns to write little
ads and put things in the catalog, and learned so
much from that that he said, if I could only
just think of something that people would reorder. And then
(03:14):
one night he comes home. His sister Mabel had come
up to Chicago to help, and he sees Mabel putting
something on her eyelashes and eyebrows because she had singed them.
She put some basoline over her little eyebrows and what
was the left of her eyelashes, and then she burnt
a cork and she kind of went over it a
(03:38):
little bit with her finger. And he walked in and
he said, oh my gosh, Mabel, you look like you
look like the stars in the movies, in the silent films.
And she says, oh, yes, well, you know, I got
this idea in a movie magazine. And he said, is
there anything like that out on the mark? She said,
(04:00):
I don't think so. They have rouge and powder, but
nothing for the eyes, because the eyes were the one
feature of the face that had been completely ignored because
it was considered vanity, you know, actresses, prostitutes, but not
wonderful little women. It was a Victorian era and a
(04:22):
good righteous religious ladies would never be caught with anything
on their face. So Tom Lyle says, I'm going to
go to my buddies who has a chemistry set, and
we're going to see if we could kind of like
you know, match up what you've done. And they did,
but it wasn't enough. They wound up having to go
to a real chemist and formulate the first product, which
(04:45):
they call lash brow Een, and it didn't have any
darkener in it yet he advertised it as making your
eyelashes healthy and grow and your eyebrows too. Well. Women
loved it and it gave a little bit of seen
so there was, you know, little a little bit of
the eyes were standing out. And the thing if it
(05:07):
was though, he got it in a lawsuit over the
name lash Browan because it had already been a company
out called lash Loore. So I don't know if he
had to pay money to him or watch, but he
took the name off the market and balks in and says,
you know, Mabel, I think I want to name the
company after you mabel Lean. Then he formulated his first
(05:32):
company called may Bell Laboratories when he was nineteen years old.
This is all happening, and he put his first little
product out there with darkener, and that was the first
mabel Leane product, which was a little red box. You
open it up, there's a little mirror, there's a little
picture of how to use the product. He need a
(05:55):
little brush that you you know, kind of like spit
on it a little bit and then made their eyelashes
and eyebrows a little darker. Well, that was it. Before
you know it, the whole family sold the farm, moved
up to Chicago, and they all worked together to get
this product out. They melted it in a little pot,
(06:16):
a teapot, and each of them poured it into the tins,
and pretty soon the post office was saying, we can't
handle this anymore. You know, this is causing a problem
with all of these letters coming in wanting to buy mabeling,
which was great and it was. They were coming in
with nichols and dimes pasted to it. And the family was,
(06:39):
you know, was bringing all this stuff in with a wheelbarrow,
picking up the products, bringing it back to the house,
opening it up, taking the Nichols and Dimes off that
had been stuck on with I'm not kidding you like gum,
And before you know it, the thing started just going
crazy and Tom Lyle left Chicago. He had met his
(07:00):
lifetime partner Imory Shaver, and they moved to the Hollywood
Hills and bought Rudolph Valentino's Villa and other companies like
Max Factor, who really was a makeup artist at the studios.
Had to show that he was a family man. They'd
(07:20):
always be pictures of him with his family, his kids.
Revstend was also advertising himself, Revlon with himself at the
Polo Fields, real macho guys. But Tom Loyle, he and
Emory live a cloistered life. While everybody was out advertising
their products with their names and pictures, he was concentrated
(07:43):
on contracting movie stars. The biggest movie stars in Hollywood
represented Maybe Lee, well everybody you know, promoting themselves. He
contacted the silent filness stole through the advertising agency at
MGM Studios and contracted these people privately. He never exploited himself.
(08:11):
It was always just the product. Just the name Mabelinge
was out there, but nobody knew who was behind it.
They thought it was just some corporation, some company, And
so he hired his first models, which was actually silent
film star Harold Lloyd's wife, Mildred Lloyd, and that was
(08:31):
his first beautiful model who endorsed Mabeling. It was the
first time that women were beginning to see how magnificence
the eyes were. Women had started to buy it more
out of the classified and Mabeling since the product to
them wrapped in brown paper so that nobody would know
(08:57):
that they were actually buying something that would be for
the eyes. Husbands threatened to divorce their wives if they
were I make up, so it had to come, you know,
in cognito. But more and more women were going to
the movies, and more and more the stars were having
the close up of their eyes. But the genius was
(09:19):
to have these stars endorsed it. I recommend Mabelene because
it gives my eyes the sparkle that attracts and Maybolene
by the time, I mean, but nineteen twenty nine was
you know, already a million dollar company and the depression hit.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
And we've been listening to Sharry Williams, the great niece
of Maybelene's founder tom Lyle Williams influencer marketing before anyone
ever thought of it. And when we come back more
of the story of Maybelene's.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Founder, tom Lyle Williams. Here on our American stories, and
we returned to our American stories and to Sherrie Williams,
(10:14):
the great niece of tom Lyle Williams, the founder of
the company Mabelene. Now we jump back to nineteen twenty
nine where our story continues.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
The depression hit and now businesses were going out. Tom
Lyle was actually buying up any other little mascara company
that might be taking root. He bought them all up,
so there was no competition in those days of Mabelene.
But the problem was when the banks closed, he lost
(10:52):
all of his money. So then he decided the best
thing to do now is take it out of the
classified and put it into the dime stores. Once it
went into the dime stores in the nineteen thirties, women
who were now going to talkies that's what they call
them in those days, and seeing really beautiful displays of costumes,
(11:18):
you know how it was in the nineteen thirties spectacular,
and women now could go right into the drug store
and buy their products, no more being scared that it's
going to come in the mail and someone might see it.
And by nineteen thirty seven, Mabelene was really I mean,
they were going to the moon. The products were just selling.
(11:47):
He came out with the most beautiful art deco ads
that were done like watercolor, and you can find those
two their magnificence. You could actually frame them if they
are so beautiful. The first one that came out was
a little one and a half inch ad in the
classifieds in the Police Gazette, and it had the original
(12:09):
Mabeline girl. She's not the vamp, she's the virginal one,
and she is just so wholesome looking. She hadn't bobbed
her hair yet, it was all up like a Gibson girl.
And she was the first one to introduce Mabeline to
the public. And so it came in real soft, like
(12:32):
that real gentle, you know. And then the vamp came out,
and then she was she had the short hair, you know.
And she was the one that slowly introduced women to
how they can charm with their eyes. You can use
your eyes. You don't even need to talk, right, you
(12:55):
can just use your eyes to fascinate him. And that
is one of the things that he always did was
talk about how the eyes can fascinate, how the eyes
can charm, how the eyes can be mysterious. So he
was also planting those thoughts in women's minds. You know, Oh,
(13:15):
are you actually saying that I can flirt with my eyes?
Oh no, no, that could never be. And yet isn't
that what happened.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
In the quiet moments? There are no words. The important
things you say with your eyes. Make sure your eyes
are eloquent, beautiful, make sure with maybe Ly the eye
makeup that brings out hidden loveliness.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
We all learned to use our eyes to look up
and look down and looked at the side and you know,
very mysterious. You don't even need to talk, Just use
your eyes.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
What will your eyes say to him tonight? Will they
be silent or will they be beautifully eloquent with Maybely.
The finest ind I make in sensibly priced is always Maybely.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
On television, Tom Lyyle was the first cosmetic company to
have ads, Mabeline ads on TV. He invested every dime
that he made back into the company. And so here
we are in the fifties now just the mabeling. You
can't stop it. It's just on fire. Oh the guys make.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Dis are LOVELI Maybell use MAYBELLI use Maybellian man, you
have lovely eyes.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So that's what all his ads were. And then of
course the big endorsements came with the movie stars actually
signing the ad, and they were usually on the back
of a movie magazine and women would take them and
frame them because they were eight x tens, you know,
and they were beautiful of Joan Crawford or Betty Grable,
(14:52):
whatever big star was happening at the time. So now
people were putting them in the room or putting them
up on their wall. It was like they were doing
advertising for him. That's what made Mabelene great. It wasn't
so much the product, it was the advertising. He just said,
I don't want to be remembered as the man who
(15:13):
invented makeup. Makeup bit around since Cleopatra, but I want
to be remembered as the king of advertising. And that
is what the genius is behind Mabelene and it still is.
Look at it today. It's the ads. May tom Olile
(15:36):
was overkill, overkill on constant, constant, and hitting target markets
like in the thirties. He would say things like, it's
not your mother's makeup anymore. And in other words, it's
we're not flappers anymore. We have the Sheikh Bob, and
we have the we have the really cool fashion and
(15:59):
the Art Deco in the background and Valentino and you know,
so that's what he would do. He would really psychologically
put these things in the mind of the audience. And
that was his secret, was to put all the money
back into the ads and to pay the different stars.
And the reason Maybolene was so successful was he he
(16:21):
was old fashioned.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
He was born before the turn of the surgery. He
lived in a little one horse town. His family was
very humble. He didn't have a college education, and he
was able to live very meagerly. That company was like
a child to him. You know. You know how you
(16:44):
give your children everything, no matter what, they get spoiled.
So tom Yle believed that you didn't get in debt.
He didn't believe in living above your means. He wouldn't
buy a car unless he could pay cash for it.
And this is what he was really young. He wouldn't
buy the Mabeling building, you know, pay cash for it
(17:05):
so that it kept him fluent and solvent to keep
the company going. He says, you know, I only give
myself an income one hundred thousand a year. Everything else
goes back into the company. He's not out partying and
drinking because he wasn't out in the world anyway. So
he lived his life, you know, behind the gates. And
(17:26):
he did have parties and stuff, but he was practical,
That's all I can say. He didn't blow it all
on himself. If you aren't out shopping every minute and traveling,
then you're thinking of things to do that are creative,
you know what I mean. It's like you get a project.
(17:49):
You don't need money. So much is when you're writing,
and when you're drawing, and when you're dancing, and when
you're doing all these things.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
And you've been listening to Shari Williams, the great niece
of time Lyle Williams, the founder of the company of Mabelene,
and my goodness, when the great depression hits, Tom Lyle
does what businessmen should do.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
He brought up all the competition, but.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
He ran out of money, and that may have been
the best thing that ever happened to him, because he
took the product and brought it right into the dime stores,
and then well those beautiful ads, and then of course
the TV ads, then the endorsements, and always pouring every
dime of his money back in. But the core of
(18:31):
it was that he was getting people to think about,
particularly women, about their eyes, the fascinating charm, the mysteriousness,
and just listen to that, ed it's just brilliant.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It brings you in as.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
A woman, It even draws you when as a man
you begin to believe it.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
And the fact of the matter is it's also true.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
And the genius behind all of it, of course is
Tom Lyle Williams, and of course a man making this
giant lead and ultimately domination in a woman in a
woman's market. When we come back more of this remarkable story,
the story of Mabelene here on our American stories, and
(19:38):
we returned to our American stories and to Sherry Williams
sharing the story of her family and her great uncle,
Tom Lyle Williams, the founder of Mabelene. Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
My first years of my childhood of remembering him always
dressed to the teeth. By the way, here I am
this little kid, and there's all this laughter and music
all the time playing, and it was just so so
exciting all the time that I didn't know what was
going on, you know what I mean, I didn't know anything.
All I know that our family was a lot different,
(20:19):
a lot noisier than everybody else. Big cars would drive
up in our little house. I mean, it wasn't that
big a house in Culver City right after the war,
and he here this big packard would pull up, and
then some other car, a Cadillac behind Nana's big Cadillac,
and all of it. We've kind of stood out. But
(20:41):
I didn't know why in those early days. And then
Nana started brainwashing me. All you could say if anyone
comes to the door is I don't know. Repeat it,
I don't know. If anybody comes and ask you any
questions about anything, your family or me or anything, I
don't know. We grew up with this kind of fear
(21:02):
of letting anyone know what was going on with all
of this excitement, and you know, little middle class neighborhood.
And I remember it was about nineteen fifty two and
I think Eisenhower was running for president, and we had
a TV. You know, those little TVs like they had
(21:23):
little teensy little screens were ridiculous. But all of a sudden,
a Mabeling ad would come on.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Your eyes can be made more beautiful in seconds. Just
see how quickly and easily you can use Maybelene to
form lovely expressive rounds.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
And we would be in there and then somebody would scream,
Mabeling's on right now. I mean, if we'd all run
in there, and I'm still a little kid, I don't
know what it.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Is, but they're making this great big deal over this,
these Mabeling ads, and unc is Ale was there, and
you know, it's just like a lot of parties and
celebration and so something was unusual, but I didn't know
what it was.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Just try it, you love it.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Nana when I was like six seven years old, was
teaching me how to pin curl or my hair and
put my little eyebrows on and then the little eyelashes.
And I remember wearing the mascara to the sixth grade
and everyone in the school was going, does she had
me scar?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
You know?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
And it was a parochial school, Lutheran school, and the
teacher was a pastor and he made me go in
and wash it off, and so I knew something weird
is happening around here. But it wasn't till the sixth grade.
I had to do a speech and I didn't know
what to do it on. And my grandmother said, well,
why don't you tell the Mabelene story. What is that?
What's the Mabelene story? And so she tells me, like
(22:48):
I told you the burning of the cork and Annie
mabel and putting it on. I did it, and I
won the speech contest, and all of a sudden, you know,
I'm beginning to see that Mabelne puts you on the map.
And then I was at the store with my little
girlfriend and her mother and they had the Mabeling twirling
which Mabeling was the first to come out with that
(23:10):
we take for granted now, the racks that twirl like
you know that have Christmas cards and Birthday cards on them.
They had all the Mabeling products at the market, and
I said, my uncle, my uncle invented this. And she
runs over and she tells her mother, and her mother
(23:31):
comes over. She goes, oh, no, honey, you mean your
uncle works for the company. And I said, no, he
invented it. And then I went home and I told
my mom and dad, you know, didn't Uncle invent you know.
I began to like put the pieces together. Then my
grandmother started telling me the story. She felt safe enough
(23:51):
at fifteen. Never stopped those stories, never stopped unbelievable stories.
And then everyone began to kind of know that I
was sort of the Mabeling girl. And then then I
started not liking it too much because people had a
they kind of figured who I was before they met me.
(24:13):
If they heard that I had anything to do with Mabeling,
they would think, oh, she's going to be a snob,
Oh she's going to be this and that, you know.
So I really started getting worried that people would already
kind of have an opinion of me before they met me.
And I'm pretty nice person telling you the truth all
those years of parochial school. So no wonder the family
did not want me to tell the story. My dad said,
(24:34):
I don't want anyone to know who I am. He goes,
I live a quiet life. I can walk around anywhere
I want. If they knew who I was, I'd have
to have bodyguards. Tom Lyle lost his lifetime partner Emory
in nineteen sixty four at a heart attack and he
(24:57):
just couldn't go on. He was like, get seventies now, oh,
and he was looking for a buyer. He was looking
for someone to take over. So in nineteen sixty seven,
the year in December of sixty seven, maybe Lene sold
to a pharmaceutical company called Plow Incorporated. He opened his
(25:18):
stock or started the stock in nineteen fifty four in Delaware,
brought us all up to his house in bel Air,
told us what he had done and handed out all
the stocks just to the family and certain people who
had worked with the companies since the beginning. It was
never out there on the exchange or anything where people
(25:39):
could buy it. So when the company sold, the family
were the stockholders and became overnight millionaires. The family would
stick together, okay, they would just go over to each
other's houses and bring food. They would play cards. That
was their big thing, was playing cards. And they just
got each other through whatever it was. They just got
(26:02):
each other through. They had incredible sense of humor, which
Nana always said is the magic of getting through hard times.
As you just laugh about it, you know, it's just
really happening, you know, and you're just making a joke
out of it, and you just keep going, and you
just keep getting through another day and lo and behold.
You know, Mabelene sold made everybody overnight millionaires. But you know,
(26:24):
the public never knew what was going on. Mabelene was
the stage that the family played out on. The backdrop
was beautiful, untouched, perfect mabeling, but all of the ups
and downs of a fairly normal American family, I mean
not one hundred percent, but you know that was going
(26:45):
on at the same time. I mean, it is a circus,
but none of the public ever knew anything more than
Joan Crawford's big smile at the sale of that company.
My generation, we were the kids, so it was really
fun being the kids. Our parents were the ones that
(27:06):
inherited all the money, so we got to now live
in their big time world, you know. I mean as
soon as they got their money, all of that generation
of cousins, they were out buying cars and boats and
big mansions. I mean, it was just crazy, and we
were the ones that got to benefit, you know, because
we got to live in that world forever and ever
(27:27):
and ever till they died and we had to face
reality then and try to form worlds of our own.
This is really true what happened. And I went back
to school and got my degree in psychology and therapists,
got into twelve step programs, everything to try to find
who I was outside of the perfection of how we
had to be in public. And now I'm just such
a different person, very spiritual, and I can't even handle
(27:51):
being around any of the phoniness of the world anymore.
I've turned into Tom Lyle. It wasn't just a corporation.
It was a family behind the product. The family worked
for the company in the beginning, all of them, all
of them with the wheelbarrows, all of them. When it
(28:13):
became time for executive positions, they were the ones. His
brother Noel, who gave him five hundred dollars to start
the company, became the vice president of the company and
ran the company in Chicago while Tom Lyle was busy
at the Belle of Valentino having tea with one big
star after another. He was like the ultimate entrepreneur. When
(28:34):
he was like nineteen, he had a full company, never
stopping no matter what, no matter if it was the
depression or the war or more wars or whatever it was.
It came hitting and hitting and hitting him. He'd never stopped,
you know, pull up your boots by the bootstraps and
make it happen. Stay fierce and make it happen. And
(28:55):
that is what I learned growing up in this family.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Had a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Madison Dericot. And a special thanks to
Sharry Williams for sharing the story of her family and
her great uncle, Tom Lyle Williams, the founder of Mabeleine.
And what a story we just heard. Starting from nothing
in Morganfield, Kentucky, a town of fifteen hundred, moving to Chicago,
(29:23):
working for sears, and ultimately coming up with this brand
really by himself and the help of his sister Mabel.
And this was a family business, as you just heard.
When Sharry's uncle sold the company, the family with the owners.
This was not a publicly traded company. He owned the
shares and again he shared them with a family. This
(29:45):
happens throughout this great country family starting from nothing, building
up businesses, bootstrapping and my goodness, how she described her
uncle as an entrepreneur. No matter what, he never stopped,
He just stayed fierce. He just made it happen. Through
depressions and wars and changing markets. Stay fierce, make it happen.
(30:10):
A model for America and Americans. The story of Mayblene
here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories. Today,
we're used to seeing public figures lend their names and
their faces to the products we buy. From magazine ads
to radio spots to television commercials. Celebrity endorsements have long
shaped American consumer culture. But there was a time not
all that long ago, when this kind of marketing didn't exist.
(00:33):
And yet one company figured out the power of celebrity
influence long before the rest of the world had a
name for it. And that company who was Maybelene. Joining
us with the story of Sharry Williams, the great niece
of Mabelene's founder, who just happened to be a man,
Tom Lyle Williams. Let's get into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
My great uncle was born in eighteen ninety six, and
about the time he was fifteen, he bought a bicycle
and he tore it down, he painted it, and he
put it in the classifieds of the police gazette, and
he got fifty offers to buy the bike for fifty dollars,
(01:24):
which seems insane. He sold the bike and he said,
that's what I want to do for the rest of
my life, is I want to make advertising my professions.
Well the whole town in Morganfield, Kentucky back at that time,
just thought he was a dreamer. The only thing really
open for him was to be a farmer or maybe
(01:44):
a minister. But he was coming up with these high
pollutant ideas that did not register at all. But he
still went forward. And the first thing that he decided
to sell was gag gifts. So he did pretty good
on that, you know, he made some money on that.
But then after a while, how many times can you
(02:07):
reorder a gag gift? So then he decided, okay, well
that didn't work too good, So I'm going to buy
vegetables and send them to the parts of the country
that don't get fresh vegetables. Well, he, you know, found
a farmer and did all that was doing very very well,
except for he didn't count the shipping, how much shipping
(02:28):
was going to add to it, and so that pretty
much ruined that idea. He moved to Chicago, where his
brother Noel was working in the railroad, and so Tom
Lyle asked if he could come and stay with him
and kind of figure out what to do. You know,
Chicago is a much bigger place than little Morganfield, Kentucky
(02:49):
with about maybe fifteen hundred people or so. Anyway, he
goes and he works at Sears and gets a job
in the advertising department, where he learns to write little
ads and put things in the catalog, and learned so
much from that that he said, if I could only
just think of something that people would reorder. And then
(03:14):
one night he comes home. His sister Mabel had come
up to Chicago to help, and he sees Mabel putting
something on her eyelashes and eyebrows because she had singed them.
She put some basoline over her little eyebrows and what
was the left of her eyelashes, and then she burnt
a cork and she kind of went over it a
(03:38):
little bit with her finger. And he walked in and
he said, oh my gosh, Mabel, you look like you
look like the stars in the movies, in the silent films.
And she says, oh, yes, well, you know, I got
this idea in a movie magazine. And he said, is
there anything like that out on the mark? She said,
(04:00):
I don't think so. They have rouge and powder, but
nothing for the eyes, because the eyes were the one
feature of the face that had been completely ignored because
it was considered vanity, you know, actresses, prostitutes, but not
wonderful little women. It was a Victorian era and a
(04:22):
good righteous religious ladies would never be caught with anything
on their face. So Tom Lyle says, I'm going to
go to my buddies who has a chemistry set, and
we're going to see if we could kind of like
you know, match up what you've done. And they did,
but it wasn't enough. They wound up having to go
to a real chemist and formulate the first product, which
(04:45):
they call lash brow Een, and it didn't have any
darkener in it yet he advertised it as making your
eyelashes healthy and grow and your eyebrows too. Well. Women
loved it and it gave a little bit of seen
so there was, you know, little a little bit of
the eyes were standing out. And the thing if it
(05:07):
was though, he got it in a lawsuit over the
name lash Browan because it had already been a company
out called lash Loore. So I don't know if he
had to pay money to him or watch, but he
took the name off the market and balks in and says,
you know, Mabel, I think I want to name the
company after you mabel Lean. Then he formulated his first
(05:32):
company called may Bell Laboratories when he was nineteen years old.
This is all happening, and he put his first little
product out there with darkener, and that was the first
mabel Leane product, which was a little red box. You
open it up, there's a little mirror, there's a little
picture of how to use the product. He need a
(05:55):
little brush that you you know, kind of like spit
on it a little bit and then made their eyelashes
and eyebrows a little darker. Well, that was it. Before
you know it, the whole family sold the farm, moved
up to Chicago, and they all worked together to get
this product out. They melted it in a little pot,
(06:16):
a teapot, and each of them poured it into the tins,
and pretty soon the post office was saying, we can't
handle this anymore. You know, this is causing a problem
with all of these letters coming in wanting to buy mabeling,
which was great and it was. They were coming in
with nichols and dimes pasted to it. And the family was,
(06:39):
you know, was bringing all this stuff in with a wheelbarrow,
picking up the products, bringing it back to the house,
opening it up, taking the Nichols and Dimes off that
had been stuck on with I'm not kidding you like gum,
And before you know it, the thing started just going
crazy and Tom Lyle left Chicago. He had met his
(07:00):
lifetime partner Imory Shaver, and they moved to the Hollywood
Hills and bought Rudolph Valentino's Villa and other companies like
Max Factor, who really was a makeup artist at the studios.
Had to show that he was a family man. They'd
(07:20):
always be pictures of him with his family, his kids.
Revstend was also advertising himself, Revlon with himself at the
Polo Fields, real macho guys. But Tom Loyle, he and
Emory live a cloistered life. While everybody was out advertising
their products with their names and pictures, he was concentrated
(07:43):
on contracting movie stars. The biggest movie stars in Hollywood
represented Maybe Lee, well everybody you know, promoting themselves. He
contacted the silent filness stole through the advertising agency at
MGM Studios and contracted these people privately. He never exploited himself.
(08:11):
It was always just the product. Just the name Mabelinge
was out there, but nobody knew who was behind it.
They thought it was just some corporation, some company, And
so he hired his first models, which was actually silent
film star Harold Lloyd's wife, Mildred Lloyd, and that was
(08:31):
his first beautiful model who endorsed Mabeling. It was the
first time that women were beginning to see how magnificence
the eyes were. Women had started to buy it more
out of the classified and Mabeling since the product to
them wrapped in brown paper so that nobody would know
(08:57):
that they were actually buying something that would be for
the eyes. Husbands threatened to divorce their wives if they
were I make up, so it had to come, you know,
in cognito. But more and more women were going to
the movies, and more and more the stars were having
the close up of their eyes. But the genius was
(09:19):
to have these stars endorsed it. I recommend Mabelene because
it gives my eyes the sparkle that attracts and Maybolene
by the time, I mean, but nineteen twenty nine was
you know, already a million dollar company and the depression hit.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
And we've been listening to Sharry Williams, the great niece
of Maybelene's founder tom Lyle Williams influencer marketing before anyone
ever thought of it. And when we come back more
of the story of Maybelene's.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Founder, tom Lyle Williams. Here on our American stories, and
we returned to our American stories and to Sherrie Williams,
(10:14):
the great niece of tom Lyle Williams, the founder of
the company Mabelene. Now we jump back to nineteen twenty
nine where our story continues.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
The depression hit and now businesses were going out. Tom
Lyle was actually buying up any other little mascara company
that might be taking root. He bought them all up,
so there was no competition in those days of Mabelene.
But the problem was when the banks closed, he lost
(10:52):
all of his money. So then he decided the best
thing to do now is take it out of the
classified and put it into the dime stores. Once it
went into the dime stores in the nineteen thirties, women
who were now going to talkies that's what they call
them in those days, and seeing really beautiful displays of costumes,
(11:18):
you know how it was in the nineteen thirties spectacular,
and women now could go right into the drug store
and buy their products, no more being scared that it's
going to come in the mail and someone might see it.
And by nineteen thirty seven, Mabelene was really I mean,
they were going to the moon. The products were just selling.
(11:47):
He came out with the most beautiful art deco ads
that were done like watercolor, and you can find those
two their magnificence. You could actually frame them if they
are so beautiful. The first one that came out was
a little one and a half inch ad in the
classifieds in the Police Gazette, and it had the original
(12:09):
Mabeline girl. She's not the vamp, she's the virginal one,
and she is just so wholesome looking. She hadn't bobbed
her hair yet, it was all up like a Gibson girl.
And she was the first one to introduce Mabeline to
the public. And so it came in real soft, like
(12:32):
that real gentle, you know. And then the vamp came out,
and then she was she had the short hair, you know.
And she was the one that slowly introduced women to
how they can charm with their eyes. You can use
your eyes. You don't even need to talk, right, you
(12:55):
can just use your eyes to fascinate him. And that
is one of the things that he always did was
talk about how the eyes can fascinate, how the eyes
can charm, how the eyes can be mysterious. So he
was also planting those thoughts in women's minds. You know, Oh,
(13:15):
are you actually saying that I can flirt with my eyes?
Oh no, no, that could never be. And yet isn't
that what happened.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
In the quiet moments? There are no words. The important
things you say with your eyes. Make sure your eyes
are eloquent, beautiful, make sure with maybe Ly the eye
makeup that brings out hidden loveliness.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
We all learned to use our eyes to look up
and look down and looked at the side and you know,
very mysterious. You don't even need to talk, Just use
your eyes.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
What will your eyes say to him tonight? Will they
be silent or will they be beautifully eloquent with Maybely.
The finest ind I make in sensibly priced is always Maybely.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
On television, Tom Lyyle was the first cosmetic company to
have ads, Mabeline ads on TV. He invested every dime
that he made back into the company. And so here
we are in the fifties now just the mabeling. You
can't stop it. It's just on fire. Oh the guys make.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Dis are LOVELI Maybell use MAYBELLI use Maybellian man, you
have lovely eyes.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So that's what all his ads were. And then of
course the big endorsements came with the movie stars actually
signing the ad, and they were usually on the back
of a movie magazine and women would take them and
frame them because they were eight x tens, you know,
and they were beautiful of Joan Crawford or Betty Grable,
(14:52):
whatever big star was happening at the time. So now
people were putting them in the room or putting them
up on their wall. It was like they were doing
advertising for him. That's what made Mabelene great. It wasn't
so much the product, it was the advertising. He just said,
I don't want to be remembered as the man who
(15:13):
invented makeup. Makeup bit around since Cleopatra, but I want
to be remembered as the king of advertising. And that
is what the genius is behind Mabelene and it still is.
Look at it today. It's the ads. May tom Olile
(15:36):
was overkill, overkill on constant, constant, and hitting target markets
like in the thirties. He would say things like, it's
not your mother's makeup anymore. And in other words, it's
we're not flappers anymore. We have the Sheikh Bob, and
we have the we have the really cool fashion and
(15:59):
the Art Deco in the background and Valentino and you know,
so that's what he would do. He would really psychologically
put these things in the mind of the audience. And
that was his secret, was to put all the money
back into the ads and to pay the different stars.
And the reason Maybolene was so successful was he he
(16:21):
was old fashioned.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
He was born before the turn of the surgery. He
lived in a little one horse town. His family was
very humble. He didn't have a college education, and he
was able to live very meagerly. That company was like
a child to him. You know. You know how you
(16:44):
give your children everything, no matter what, they get spoiled.
So tom Yle believed that you didn't get in debt.
He didn't believe in living above your means. He wouldn't
buy a car unless he could pay cash for it.
And this is what he was really young. He wouldn't
buy the Mabeling building, you know, pay cash for it
(17:05):
so that it kept him fluent and solvent to keep
the company going. He says, you know, I only give
myself an income one hundred thousand a year. Everything else
goes back into the company. He's not out partying and
drinking because he wasn't out in the world anyway. So
he lived his life, you know, behind the gates. And
(17:26):
he did have parties and stuff, but he was practical,
That's all I can say. He didn't blow it all
on himself. If you aren't out shopping every minute and traveling,
then you're thinking of things to do that are creative,
you know what I mean. It's like you get a project.
(17:49):
You don't need money. So much is when you're writing,
and when you're drawing, and when you're dancing, and when
you're doing all these things.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
And you've been listening to Shari Williams, the great niece
of time Lyle Williams, the founder of the company of Mabelene,
and my goodness, when the great depression hits, Tom Lyle
does what businessmen should do.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
He brought up all the competition, but.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
He ran out of money, and that may have been
the best thing that ever happened to him, because he
took the product and brought it right into the dime stores,
and then well those beautiful ads, and then of course
the TV ads, then the endorsements, and always pouring every
dime of his money back in. But the core of
(18:31):
it was that he was getting people to think about,
particularly women, about their eyes, the fascinating charm, the mysteriousness,
and just listen to that, ed it's just brilliant.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It brings you in as.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
A woman, It even draws you when as a man
you begin to believe it.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
And the fact of the matter is it's also true.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
And the genius behind all of it, of course is
Tom Lyle Williams, and of course a man making this
giant lead and ultimately domination in a woman in a
woman's market. When we come back more of this remarkable story,
the story of Mabelene here on our American stories, and
(19:38):
we returned to our American stories and to Sherry Williams
sharing the story of her family and her great uncle,
Tom Lyle Williams, the founder of Mabelene. Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
My first years of my childhood of remembering him always
dressed to the teeth. By the way, here I am
this little kid, and there's all this laughter and music
all the time playing, and it was just so so
exciting all the time that I didn't know what was
going on, you know what I mean, I didn't know anything.
All I know that our family was a lot different,
(20:19):
a lot noisier than everybody else. Big cars would drive
up in our little house. I mean, it wasn't that
big a house in Culver City right after the war,
and he here this big packard would pull up, and
then some other car, a Cadillac behind Nana's big Cadillac,
and all of it. We've kind of stood out. But
(20:41):
I didn't know why in those early days. And then
Nana started brainwashing me. All you could say if anyone
comes to the door is I don't know. Repeat it,
I don't know. If anybody comes and ask you any
questions about anything, your family or me or anything, I
don't know. We grew up with this kind of fear
(21:02):
of letting anyone know what was going on with all
of this excitement, and you know, little middle class neighborhood.
And I remember it was about nineteen fifty two and
I think Eisenhower was running for president, and we had
a TV. You know, those little TVs like they had
(21:23):
little teensy little screens were ridiculous. But all of a sudden,
a Mabeling ad would come on.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Your eyes can be made more beautiful in seconds. Just
see how quickly and easily you can use Maybelene to
form lovely expressive rounds.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
And we would be in there and then somebody would scream,
Mabeling's on right now. I mean, if we'd all run
in there, and I'm still a little kid, I don't
know what it.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Is, but they're making this great big deal over this,
these Mabeling ads, and unc is Ale was there, and
you know, it's just like a lot of parties and
celebration and so something was unusual, but I didn't know
what it was.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Just try it, you love it.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Nana when I was like six seven years old, was
teaching me how to pin curl or my hair and
put my little eyebrows on and then the little eyelashes.
And I remember wearing the mascara to the sixth grade
and everyone in the school was going, does she had
me scar?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
You know?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
And it was a parochial school, Lutheran school, and the
teacher was a pastor and he made me go in
and wash it off, and so I knew something weird
is happening around here. But it wasn't till the sixth grade.
I had to do a speech and I didn't know
what to do it on. And my grandmother said, well,
why don't you tell the Mabelene story. What is that?
What's the Mabelene story? And so she tells me, like
(22:48):
I told you the burning of the cork and Annie
mabel and putting it on. I did it, and I
won the speech contest, and all of a sudden, you know,
I'm beginning to see that Mabelne puts you on the map.
And then I was at the store with my little
girlfriend and her mother and they had the Mabeling twirling
which Mabeling was the first to come out with that
(23:10):
we take for granted now, the racks that twirl like
you know that have Christmas cards and Birthday cards on them.
They had all the Mabeling products at the market, and
I said, my uncle, my uncle invented this. And she
runs over and she tells her mother, and her mother
(23:31):
comes over. She goes, oh, no, honey, you mean your
uncle works for the company. And I said, no, he
invented it. And then I went home and I told
my mom and dad, you know, didn't Uncle invent you know.
I began to like put the pieces together. Then my
grandmother started telling me the story. She felt safe enough
(23:51):
at fifteen. Never stopped those stories, never stopped unbelievable stories.
And then everyone began to kind of know that I
was sort of the Mabeling girl. And then then I
started not liking it too much because people had a
they kind of figured who I was before they met me.
(24:13):
If they heard that I had anything to do with Mabeling,
they would think, oh, she's going to be a snob,
Oh she's going to be this and that, you know.
So I really started getting worried that people would already
kind of have an opinion of me before they met me.
And I'm pretty nice person telling you the truth all
those years of parochial school. So no wonder the family
did not want me to tell the story. My dad said,
(24:34):
I don't want anyone to know who I am. He goes,
I live a quiet life. I can walk around anywhere
I want. If they knew who I was, I'd have
to have bodyguards. Tom Lyle lost his lifetime partner Emory
in nineteen sixty four at a heart attack and he
(24:57):
just couldn't go on. He was like, get seventies now, oh,
and he was looking for a buyer. He was looking
for someone to take over. So in nineteen sixty seven,
the year in December of sixty seven, maybe Lene sold
to a pharmaceutical company called Plow Incorporated. He opened his
(25:18):
stock or started the stock in nineteen fifty four in Delaware,
brought us all up to his house in bel Air,
told us what he had done and handed out all
the stocks just to the family and certain people who
had worked with the companies since the beginning. It was
never out there on the exchange or anything where people
(25:39):
could buy it. So when the company sold, the family
were the stockholders and became overnight millionaires. The family would
stick together, okay, they would just go over to each
other's houses and bring food. They would play cards. That
was their big thing, was playing cards. And they just
got each other through whatever it was. They just got
(26:02):
each other through. They had incredible sense of humor, which
Nana always said is the magic of getting through hard times.
As you just laugh about it, you know, it's just
really happening, you know, and you're just making a joke
out of it, and you just keep going, and you
just keep getting through another day and lo and behold.
You know, Mabelene sold made everybody overnight millionaires. But you know,
(26:24):
the public never knew what was going on. Mabelene was
the stage that the family played out on. The backdrop
was beautiful, untouched, perfect mabeling, but all of the ups
and downs of a fairly normal American family, I mean
not one hundred percent, but you know that was going
(26:45):
on at the same time. I mean, it is a circus,
but none of the public ever knew anything more than
Joan Crawford's big smile at the sale of that company.
My generation, we were the kids, so it was really
fun being the kids. Our parents were the ones that
(27:06):
inherited all the money, so we got to now live
in their big time world, you know. I mean as
soon as they got their money, all of that generation
of cousins, they were out buying cars and boats and
big mansions. I mean, it was just crazy, and we
were the ones that got to benefit, you know, because
we got to live in that world forever and ever
(27:27):
and ever till they died and we had to face
reality then and try to form worlds of our own.
This is really true what happened. And I went back
to school and got my degree in psychology and therapists,
got into twelve step programs, everything to try to find
who I was outside of the perfection of how we
had to be in public. And now I'm just such
a different person, very spiritual, and I can't even handle
(27:51):
being around any of the phoniness of the world anymore.
I've turned into Tom Lyle. It wasn't just a corporation.
It was a family behind the product. The family worked
for the company in the beginning, all of them, all
of them with the wheelbarrows, all of them. When it
(28:13):
became time for executive positions, they were the ones. His
brother Noel, who gave him five hundred dollars to start
the company, became the vice president of the company and
ran the company in Chicago while Tom Lyle was busy
at the Belle of Valentino having tea with one big
star after another. He was like the ultimate entrepreneur. When
(28:34):
he was like nineteen, he had a full company, never
stopping no matter what, no matter if it was the
depression or the war or more wars or whatever it was.
It came hitting and hitting and hitting him. He'd never stopped,
you know, pull up your boots by the bootstraps and
make it happen. Stay fierce and make it happen. And
(28:55):
that is what I learned growing up in this family.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Had a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Madison Dericot. And a special thanks to
Sharry Williams for sharing the story of her family and
her great uncle, Tom Lyle Williams, the founder of Mabeleine.
And what a story we just heard. Starting from nothing
in Morganfield, Kentucky, a town of fifteen hundred, moving to Chicago,
(29:23):
working for sears, and ultimately coming up with this brand
really by himself and the help of his sister Mabel.
And this was a family business, as you just heard.
When Sharry's uncle sold the company, the family with the owners.
This was not a publicly traded company. He owned the
shares and again he shared them with a family. This
(29:45):
happens throughout this great country family starting from nothing, building
up businesses, bootstrapping and my goodness, how she described her
uncle as an entrepreneur. No matter what, he never stopped,
He just stayed fierce. He just made it happen. Through
depressions and wars and changing markets. Stay fierce, make it happen.
(30:10):
A model for America and Americans. The story of Mayblene
here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.
iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2026 Winter Olympics.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.