David Brown (producer) editor of "Cosmopolitan" before his wife, Helen Gurley Brown, joined the magazine. In 1951, the producer Darryl F. Zanuck hired Brown to head the story department at Zanuck's studio, 20th Century-Fox. Brown eventually rose to become executive vice president of creative operations. He and Richard D. Zanuck, Darryl's son, left Fox in 1971 for Warner Bros., but the following year they set out to form their own production company. The caper film "The Sting" (1973) starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford was a Zanuck/Brown "presentation". In 1974, the company produced, along with Universal Pictures, "The Sugarland Express", Steven Spielberg's directorial
Helen Gurley Brown magazine played an important role in helping young women redefine their roles in society." Audie Cornish from NPR said that Helen "has been called a bad girl, a pioneer in Prada, a revolutionary in stilettos." Brown looked at herself as a feminist, but this description was contested by several others. After a brief hospitalization, Helen Gurley Brown died August 13, 2012 at the McKeen Pavilion at New York–Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia. She was 90. In a statement announcing the news of her death, Hearst Publications noted that "Helen was one of the world's most recognized magazine editors and book authors, and a