Joanne Jordan and ‘Profits and Lassies’
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For the Sept. 24 obituary on Joanne Jordan, a top spokesmodel of the 1950s, we came across a grainy photo of six of the industry’s best-paid female product pitchers that ran in December 1956 in TV Guide. The headline said ‘Profits and Lassies’ (ouch!), but the caption positively screams Eisenhower era:
With some of America’s top corporations, the story is no longer one of profits and losses, but profits and lassies. And while they’re doing man-size sales jobs in pulling profits into corporate tills, salesgirls like these are looking for purses to hold queen-size salaries: (l. to r.) Joanne Jordan (Hazel Bishop) earns $50,000 a year; Julia Meade (Lincoln, Richard Hudnut), $100,000; Mary Costa (Chrysler), $50,000; Barbara Britton (Revlon), $50,000; Betty Furness (Westinghouse), $100,000; Bess Myerson (Colgate-Palmolive, Frigidaire), $150,000.”
-- Valerie J. Nelson
