Cosmopolitan (magazine) as a "bland" and boring magazine by critics. Cosmopolitan's circulation continued to decline for another decade until Helen Gurley Brown became chief editor in 1965. Helen Gurley Brown changed the entire trajectory of the magazine during her time as editor. Brown remodeled and re-invented it as a magazine for modern single career women. Completely transforming the old bland Cosmopolitan magazine into a racy, contentious and well known, successful magazine. As the editor for 32 years, Brown spent this time using the magazine as an outlet to erase stigma around unmarried women not only having sex, but also enjoying it. Known
Helen Gurley Brown Gurley, her sister Mary Eloine (later Mrs. Alford), and their mother moved to Los Angeles, California. A few months after moving, Mary contracted polio. While in California, Brown attended John H. Francis Polytechnic High School. After Gurley's graduation, the family moved to Warm Springs, Georgia. She attended one semester at Texas State College for Women and then moved back to California to attend Woodbury Business College, from which she graduated in 1941. In 1947, Cleo and Mary moved to Cleo's native Osage, Arkansas, while Helen stayed in Los Angeles. After working at the William Morris Agency, Music Corporation of America,