Helen Gurley Brown Dies at 90

Posted on August 13, 2012

Legendary journalist, magazine editor and author Helen Gurley Brown has died at the age of 90 after a brief illness. People reports that Brown died Monday at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia. No cause of death was released.

The legendary editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine and the bestselling author of Sex and the Single Girl, continued to come in to her office every day at the Hearst offices until just before her recent illness. She headed up Cosmo from 1965 to 1997 and turned the magazine world on its head with her outspoken articles advocating the sexual revolution and women's careers. She always maintained that you can have it all -- it just takes hard work. She turned Cosmopolitan into the bestselling magazine in the world.

Frank A. Bennack, Jr., the CEO of Hearst Corporation, said in a statement, "Helen Gurley Brown was an icon. Her formula for honest and straightforward advice about relationships, career and beauty revolutionized the magazine industry. She lived every day of her life to the fullest and will always be remembered as the quintessential 'Cosmo girl.' She will be greatly missed."

Helen Gurley Brown was a pioneer who always spoke her mind. She clashed with feminists and conservative icons alike. Her influence on the magazine industry was monumental. She was inducted into the Publisher's Hall of Fame in 1988. She was the first female recipient of the 1995 Henry Johnson Fisher Award, awarded by the Magazine Publishers of America.

This year, she donated $30 million to Columbia and Stanford Universities. The donation created the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation. The Institute focuses on the "increasingly important connection between journalism and technology, bringing the best from the East and West Coasts," according to press releases issued by the schools.

Brown was married for 51 years to movie producer David Brown, who died in 2012. She rose from being a copy writer at an ad agency to one of the most powerful women in publishing. She was a true original who was as well known for her clever quips, as her publishing skills with lines like "Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere."