Have you ever asked yourself if there's a limit to your dreams? Maybe you think you're not talented enough, or connected enough, or you're gonna have the right looks or background to make it to the top. Well, guess what, You are only limited by yourself. None of the rest of it matters. And the person I'm going to tell you about proves it. Ever heard these from the golden age of Madison Avenue ad Agencies? I love New York. Oh, I'm a bad voice. Sorry, PLoP plup, fizz fizz. Oh, what a relief it is. Well, they came from a really surprising source. I'm Patty Steele. This kid from Youngstown, Ohio became the most powerful and wealthiest woman in the ad world at a time when women were not really welcome. Mary Wells Lawrence believed in herself and the future. That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back. Okay, you're just a shy, middle class kid from Youngstown, Ohio. But within a few decades you become the most powerful woman in the ad industry's mad Men era with iconic ad campaigns, and you have spectacular homes around the world and a massive yacht in the Mediterranean sounds like my kind of life. And imagine being a part of the impossibly glamorous world of Madison Avenue advertising in the nineteen sixties and seventies. I love the show mad Men. You sort of get a peak at all that glamour, but you also get a peek at the prejudices that put up roadblocks for so many talented people in those days. Mary Wells Lawrence was one of them, but she wasn't going to let anybody stop her. Mary created some of the most iconic advertising of that time period. For Ford Quality is job one for Alka Seltzer PLoP PLoP, phizz fizz. Oh, what a relief it is, Midas Muffler Trust, the Midas Touch, also Twa PanAm Hertz, IBM, Procter and Gamble, and notably the State of New York. You know the tune I Love New York. And she completely rebranded Braniff, an unsuccessful regional airline, making it into the airline of the jet set through brilliant advertising, fresh customer relations, and a colorful makeover of its jets and flight attendant uniforms. Then she married the CEO and continued to grow her own business. She was the first woman to found own and run a major ad agency, and the first female CEO of a company that traded on the New York Stock Exchanges Big Board. Okay, now, let's go back to that shy little girl. An only child growing up in a middle class family in Youngstown, Ohio, a world away from all the glitz of post World War II New York City. Her dad sold furniture, and her mother wanted Mary to be an actress, enrolling her in music, dance, and acting classes, all, as it turned out, useful in the world of advertising. In her late teens, her dad took married to New York City to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Think what that must have been like in nineteen forty five. She'd never seen a person of color, a really big city, or even an ocean before a year later, at eighteen, she headed to the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh to study business. Eventually, while working as an ad copy writer back in Youngstown, she got married and then divorced. Several years later, she moved to New York City working in Macy's ad department, and then came her career at several iconic ad agencies. From there, she just kept moving up. During those years, she and her team came up with iconic ads, including one for Braniff, which at the time was a struggling regional airline. The CEO asked her to put Braniff in the news, and so that's what she did. She said, Braniff's terminals looked like a prison camp, the planes were drabbed, and flight attendants dressed like nurses. But it was the nineteen sixties, and she said, I saw Braniff in a wash of beautiful color. The airliners were painted in those brilliant colors, interiors were redone in gorgeous mods sixties fabrics. Terminal lounges were redesigned with primitive art, and flight attendants were dressed in Emilio Pucci fashions, clothing and sexy designs, all in brilliant colors that were removed in layers during the flights. An idea she called the airstrip. Although they never got naked. The ad slogan the end of the plane plane. Braniff suddenly became the airline of the young jet set and had an eighty percent jump in business. Mary thought she'd earned the right to be her agency's president, and her CEO said, you're absolutely right. We're going to give you all the decision making power and the money of the president. But here's the thing, You're a woman, and a woman president will scare clients away. So she didn't get the title. Mary was livid. She said he could see that I was feeling a red rage, and he said, you wouldn't want to ruin something you bill, would you. That's when I just walked out the door. I wanted my own agency. Her team went with her and they set up shop in a hotel suite. Pretty soon they had clients like Ford, IBM, Procter and Gamble, American Motors, Cadbury, Schwebs, Hurts, Philip Morris and Pan MTWA, and of course Braniff. She then married the brand of CEO. Then came her most far reaching ad campaign of all. It was I Love New York, which began in nineteen seventy seven when the city was dangerous, filled with garbage and graffiti, there was a serial killer running around, and there was plenty of racial upset. To bring back tourism to the city and around New York State, Mary's company, Wells Rich Green was hired along with a graphic designer who came up with the heart logo to match the slogan I love New York, says Mary. The first ad we made ended with the actor Frank Langella as Dracula outside of Broadway Theater where he was starring as that vampire. He looked into the camera and he said, menacingly, I love New York, especially in the evening. The ad campaign was originally supposed to last just a few months, but it went on for years. One of the most successful in history, Mary Wells Lawrence came of age in an era when deals were made in exclusive New York City restaurants, spectacular seaside mansions in the Hamptons, and in the south of France, where she and her husband owned a chateau, and where her pal, Princess Grace of Monaco would drop in to wow her clients. They spent a lot of time on board their yacht, and in fact, after her husband died in two thousand and two, she sold it and bought a much bigger one, the one hundred and fifty five foot yacht called Strange Love. Mary said, I love to travel. I constantly want to learn things, learn something each day that I didn't know yesterday. In nineteen seven, she was named Woman of the Year by the American Advertising Federation and inducted into the ad Hall of Fame. In nineteen ninety nine, Adage called her advertising's most widely publicized symbol of glamour, success, wealth, brains and beauty. And she was tough. In the nineteen eighties, she survived both uterine and breast cancer, but Mary Wells Lawrence continued to believe in the future. One of my favorite stories about her came from an interview in the New York Times Real estate section. She was selling this incredible apartment she lived in in New York because she wanted to move to the UK. She said, all my life, I've been where I was supposed to be. I always wanted to live in London and never got the chance. So that's where I've bought a new place. Now here's the thing. She was ninety one years old at the time of that move, and she was looking toward the future. And that is the way to live your life. You gotta believe hope. You're enjoying the backstory with Patty Steele. Follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically and feel free to dm me if you have a story you would like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.

Have you ever asked yourself if there's a limit to your dreams? Maybe you think you're not talented enough, or connected enough, or you're gonna have the right looks or background to make it to the top. Well, guess what, You are only limited by yourself. None of the rest of it matters. And the person I'm going to tell you about proves it. Ever heard these from the golden age of Madison Avenue ad Agencies? I love New York. Oh, I'm a bad voice. Sorry, PLoP plup, fizz fizz. Oh, what a relief it is. Well, they came from a really surprising source. I'm Patty Steele. This kid from Youngstown, Ohio became the most powerful and wealthiest woman in the ad world at a time when women were not really welcome. Mary Wells Lawrence believed in herself and the future. That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back. Okay, you're just a shy, middle class kid from Youngstown, Ohio. But within a few decades you become the most powerful woman in the ad industry's mad Men era with iconic ad campaigns, and you have spectacular homes around the world and a massive yacht in the Mediterranean sounds like my kind of life. And imagine being a part of the impossibly glamorous world of Madison Avenue advertising in the nineteen sixties and seventies. I love the show mad Men. You sort of get a peak at all that glamour, but you also get a peek at the prejudices that put up roadblocks for so many talented people in those days. Mary Wells Lawrence was one of them, but she wasn't going to let anybody stop her. Mary created some of the most iconic advertising of that time period. For Ford Quality is job one for Alka Seltzer PLoP PLoP, phizz fizz. Oh, what a relief it is, Midas Muffler Trust, the Midas Touch, also Twa PanAm Hertz, IBM, Procter and Gamble, and notably the State of New York. You know the tune I Love New York. And she completely rebranded Braniff, an unsuccessful regional airline, making it into the airline of the jet set through brilliant advertising, fresh customer relations, and a colorful makeover of its jets and flight attendant uniforms. Then she married the CEO and continued to grow her own business. She was the first woman to found own and run a major ad agency, and the first female CEO of a company that traded on the New York Stock Exchanges Big Board. Okay, now, let's go back to that shy little girl. An only child growing up in a middle class family in Youngstown, Ohio, a world away from all the glitz of post World War II New York City. Her dad sold furniture, and her mother wanted Mary to be an actress, enrolling her in music, dance, and acting classes, all, as it turned out, useful in the world of advertising. In her late teens, her dad took married to New York City to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Think what that must have been like in nineteen forty five. She'd never seen a person of color, a really big city, or even an ocean before a year later, at eighteen, she headed to the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh to study business. Eventually, while working as an ad copy writer back in Youngstown, she got married and then divorced. Several years later, she moved to New York City working in Macy's ad department, and then came her career at several iconic ad agencies. From there, she just kept moving up. During those years, she and her team came up with iconic ads, including one for Braniff, which at the time was a struggling regional airline. The CEO asked her to put Braniff in the news, and so that's what she did. She said, Braniff's terminals looked like a prison camp, the planes were drabbed, and flight attendants dressed like nurses. But it was the nineteen sixties, and she said, I saw Braniff in a wash of beautiful color. The airliners were painted in those brilliant colors, interiors were redone in gorgeous mods sixties fabrics. Terminal lounges were redesigned with primitive art, and flight attendants were dressed in Emilio Pucci fashions, clothing and sexy designs, all in brilliant colors that were removed in layers during the flights. An idea she called the airstrip. Although they never got naked. The ad slogan the end of the plane plane. Braniff suddenly became the airline of the young jet set and had an eighty percent jump in business. Mary thought she'd earned the right to be her agency's president, and her CEO said, you're absolutely right. We're going to give you all the decision making power and the money of the president. But here's the thing, You're a woman, and a woman president will scare clients away. So she didn't get the title. Mary was livid. She said he could see that I was feeling a red rage, and he said, you wouldn't want to ruin something you bill, would you. That's when I just walked out the door. I wanted my own agency. Her team went with her and they set up shop in a hotel suite. Pretty soon they had clients like Ford, IBM, Procter and Gamble, American Motors, Cadbury, Schwebs, Hurts, Philip Morris and Pan MTWA, and of course Braniff. She then married the brand of CEO. Then came her most far reaching ad campaign of all. It was I Love New York, which began in nineteen seventy seven when the city was dangerous, filled with garbage and graffiti, there was a serial killer running around, and there was plenty of racial upset. To bring back tourism to the city and around New York State, Mary's company, Wells Rich Green was hired along with a graphic designer who came up with the heart logo to match the slogan I love New York, says Mary. The first ad we made ended with the actor Frank Langella as Dracula outside of Broadway Theater where he was starring as that vampire. He looked into the camera and he said, menacingly, I love New York, especially in the evening. The ad campaign was originally supposed to last just a few months, but it went on for years. One of the most successful in history, Mary Wells Lawrence came of age in an era when deals were made in exclusive New York City restaurants, spectacular seaside mansions in the Hamptons, and in the south of France, where she and her husband owned a chateau, and where her pal, Princess Grace of Monaco would drop in to wow her clients. They spent a lot of time on board their yacht, and in fact, after her husband died in two thousand and two, she sold it and bought a much bigger one, the one hundred and fifty five foot yacht called Strange Love. Mary said, I love to travel. I constantly want to learn things, learn something each day that I didn't know yesterday. In nineteen seven, she was named Woman of the Year by the American Advertising Federation and inducted into the ad Hall of Fame. In nineteen ninety nine, Adage called her advertising's most widely publicized symbol of glamour, success, wealth, brains and beauty. And she was tough. In the nineteen eighties, she survived both uterine and breast cancer, but Mary Wells Lawrence continued to believe in the future. One of my favorite stories about her came from an interview in the New York Times Real estate section. She was selling this incredible apartment she lived in in New York because she wanted to move to the UK. She said, all my life, I've been where I was supposed to be. I always wanted to live in London and never got the chance. So that's where I've bought a new place. Now here's the thing. She was ninety one years old at the time of that move, and she was looking toward the future. And that is the way to live your life. You gotta believe hope. You're enjoying the backstory with Patty Steele. Follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically and feel free to dm me if you have a story you would like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.