The Original ‘Fun Fearless Female’

R.I.P. Helen Gurley Brown, who edited Cosmopolitan magazine from 1965 to 1997 (publishing several books along the way, such as 1962's Sex and the Single Girl, which anticipated Sex and the City by about three decades), and passed away today, at age 90. Brown was an avid fan of beauty, never shying away from hairpieces and custom-cut false eyelashes, not to mention exotic prints, minidresses, fishnet stockings, and big jewelry. “You cannot sit around like a cupcake asking other people to come and eat you up and discover your great sweetness and charm," Brown told Nora Ephron in a 1970 Esquire profile. “You’ve got to make yourself more cupcakeable all the time so that you’re a better cupcake to be gobbled up.”