A new biography of Mary Kay — the big-haired, bleach-blonde and perpetually pink-clad cosmetics titan — reads more like a juicy Judith Krantz novel.
In “Selling Opportunity” (Viking), journalist Mary Lisa Gavenas tells her rags-to-riches story.
With Dolly Parton’s hyper-feminine pluck and the glitzy showmanship of Liberace — a friend of hers — she created one of the biggest direct-selling companies in the world.
“It’s a Texan tall tale of second chances and self-invention,” Gavenas writes.
Born in 1918 in Hot Wells, Tex., Mary Kay Ash was the fourth and final child born of Alexander Wagner and Lula Hastings, poor itinerant farmers who had lived and worked all over the Lone Star State.
The family eventually settled in Houston. Lula ran a greasy spoon. Alexander suffered from tuberculosis and couldn’t work.
As a child, Mary cared for her sick father, rushing home from school midday to prepare his lunch before running back to her classes. She did all the housework, too, since Lula was at the diner 16 hours a day because, as Mary would later put it, “she couldn’t make as much money as a man.”
Despite her responsibilities at home, Mary was a top student known for being a crackerjack debater. Most of her family didn’t make it past eighth grade, but Mary got straight-As and finished high school at 16.
Six weeks later, she eloped with a local musician she thought was the “Elvis of Texas.” Sadly, he was not, and she soon found herself working the waffle iron at her mom’s restaurant — with a deadbeat husband and a child on the way. It was the Depression, and jobs, particularly for women, were hard to come by.
Eventually, Mary began selling cleaning Stanley Home Products door-to-door to other housewives. Direct selling had its drawbacks, mainly no salary and no security, but Mary had a knack for it. Plus, it was one of the only decently paying jobs available for women at the time — even if only men got promoted to manager. She ditched the musician husband and married her boss’ boss. He bought her a big house in Dallas. Right before their first anniversary, when Mary was just 29, he had a heart attack and died.
At that point, she had three children to support and a house that she could no longer afford. She sold harder, leaving Stanley for the new World Gift, where her selling parties generated double the sales of anybody else’s.
Meanwhile, a friend set her up with a lowlife brother — another union that would end in divorce.
By her mid-40s, Mary was sick of seeing men with no sales experience promoted to management over her. She had procured a new husband — a fellow salesman — and the two planned on starting a beauty company together. But then, a month after their marriage, he had a heart attack “mid-monologue” as the two sat at the breakfast table anddied instantly.
As she buried yet another husband, she agonized over what to do about money. Her three children — now adults with kids of their own — convinced her to launch her own beauty brand. Her oldest, Richard, became her business partner.
In 1963, they launched Beauty by Mary Kay with just $5,000. The company initially sold wigs and skin care products that were tweaked from a formula that Mary bought from a former client.
Her first “beauty show” netted a paltry $2. But she signed on eight women as consultants to sell her wares and — crucially — recruit other consultants to join the team. By the end of the first year, Mary Kay had ditched the wigs and the team had made $198,514 in sales. Two years in, sales reached nearly $1 million. In 1968, it went public — the first company chaired by a woman to be on the New York Stock Exchange.
At first, Mary Kay targeted gals like her: hard-working Texans who “weren’t being paid what they were worth.” Some had college diplomas, others were weather-beaten farm wives and Mexican immigrants who spoke little English. They all had in common an ambition.
Mary Kay gave them 40 to 50% commission, generous promotions and showered them with lavish gifts, from diamond bracelets to luscious minks to the iconic pink Cadillacs.
Aside from a downturn in the 1980s, when the family bought out the company and took it private, the company’s success has been ongoing over the decades.
The company is now one of the largest direct sellers of skin care and cosmetics, with 3.5 million reps around the world. According to Forbes, it’s sold in 40 markets and has some 5,000 employees. The company remains private without publicly disclosed financials, but it’s estimated to be worth several billion.
Mary Kay, ever the optimist, found love again. In 1966, she married a supportive man named Mel Ash. They lived happily together in a $5 million, 30-room pink Dallas mansion, complete with chandeliers and a Grecian pool, until he died of lung cancer in 1980.
Mary Kay suffered a stroke in 1996, yet still continued to make appearances at company meetings despite losing her ability to speak. She died in 2001, at age 83, of natural causes, with an estimated net worth near $100 million.
She once said, “You can have anything in this world you want—if you want it badly enough and you’re willing to pay the price.”
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