ISRAEL-CURLEY, Marcia

PERSONAL: Born in NY; married Larry Israel (an aeronautical engineer), 1947 (died 1991); married Jim Curley, December 28, 1995; children: (first marriage) Judy, Jane. Politics: Republican.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Overlook Press, One Overlook Drive, Woodstock, NY 12498.

CAREER: Author, model, bookkeeper, buyer, and entrepreneur; University of Southern California, adjunct professor. President Ronald Reagan's Committee for Small and Minority Business Ownership, chair; Yale Cancer Center, member of board of directors; Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, member of board of directors.

AWARDS, HONORS: Named Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year, 1964; University of Southern California Entrepreneur Award, 1983; decorated by U.S. Navy and by the government of France.

WRITINGS:

Defying the Odds: Sharing the Lessons I Learned as a Pioneer Entrepreneur, Overlook Press (Woodstock, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: The life of Marcia Israel-Curley is a modern-day rag-to-riches story. She was born into poverty, graduated from high school at age fifteen, found work in New York City, then moved to Los Angeles, and after many decades of hard work, found herself the owner of 104 fashion stores. Along the way, she won many awards for her efforts, and in 2002 she wrote a book, Defying the Odds: Sharing the Lessons I Learned as a Pioneer Entrepreneur, that fills in all the details of her illustrious career.

Israel-Curley was born on a farm outside New York City. When her father abandoned his family, he left his wife with no means of caring for herself and her four daughters. For awhile, Israel-Curley's mother was dependent on the generosity of members of her extended family and other sources of charity. She was an enterprising woman, however, and soon moved her family to New York City, where she took a job as a janitor. Meanwhile, her daughter excelled at school, especially in business courses, and after graduating from high school Israel-Curley found a job as a part time model and bookkeeper. Several years later she was courted by a Hollywood movie studio and a friend encouraged her to go to Los Angeles in order to pursue a career as an actress—a career that Israel-Curley eventually turned down. Instead, she became a buyer for Mayson's, a Los Angeles department store.

Defying the Odds is an autobiographical account of Israel-Curley's climb to fame, a rise that culminated in being named Entrepreneur of the Year by the University of Southern California, an experience that Israel-Curley has referred to as one of the biggest highlights of her life. The entrepreneur aspect of the story begins modestly in the late 1940s. Israel-Curley was looking for a place she could call her own. She had always wanted to own a store. With her background in fashion and merchandising, she thought she had a sense of what customers were looking for. The only storefront she could afford at that time, was a tiny retail space next to a movie theatre on Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles—not one of the more glamorous areas of town. However, she took it and named the store Judy's, for two reasons: she admired the actress Judy Garland and the store was so narrow, only seven feet wide, that the sign in front could only hold six characters. The name Judy's fit just right.

Judy's was a specialty store, one of the first of its kind. The merchandise targeted young women who were looking for clothes that were markedly different from the things that their mothers were wearing. Although this kind of store prevails in most shopping districts today, in the late 1940s, it was a novelty. The store was a hit. Israel-Curley had taken a gamble and won. In the Beverly Hills Courier online, Connie Martinson described the interior of the early store: "The walls became like an art gallery of clothes, where customers could visualize the mix and match before their eyes." The store became more than just a place to buy cool clothes. It also became a gathering place. Young women often brought their boyfriends with them, making an event out of the shopping excursion.

Judy's stores eventually expanded as Israel-Curley opened shops in California malls. Major American publications such as Women's Wear Daily, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal ran frequent stories on the business and the entrepreneur behind the Judy's stores. Israel-Curley was making more than a fashion statement. She was quickly becoming a role model for all small businesses. A reporter for News Max online described Israel-Curley's story as that of "a businesswoman with vision and an uncompromising work ethic who let nothing stand in her way."

Israel-Curley had her share of challenges. As a Publishers Weekly reviewer pointed out, the author "opens her memoir with her doctor telling her the tumor in her lymph nodes is malignant." This horrifying event was the stimulus for Israel-Curley to write her autobiography. She wanted to record the exciting adventure she had lived. A few years later, she lost her husband to cancer. This inspired her to give a major portion of her profits to charity, including a very generous gift to the Yale Cancer Center, which has a laboratory named in her honor.

She grew her business to the point where she had two thousand employees. Then, in 1989, Israel-Curley sold all her stores to Law's Knitting Company, a firm with roots in Hong Kong. She was later asked by the dean of the business school at the University of Southern California to teach a class on business. The dean saw to it that she was tutored for two and one half years and then given the title of adjunct professor. Israel-Curley's business experience, her courage, and her innovative spirit more than made up for the lack of a college degree. The dean had heard her speak the night she accepted the university's award as Entrepreneur of the Year. He told her later that his students needed to hear what she had to say.

When asked by a writer for Westside Life online why she wrote her book, Israel-Curley replied: "I realized [upon learning that I had cancer] that all the things I learned building a business in a man's world, without a formal business education, would be lost. All the experiences of growth, relations with the employees, customers and vendors would be gone." A Kirkus Reviews writer summed it up nicely: "Israel-Curley was a rare bird, and it paid off handsomely."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 1, 2002, Barbara Jacobs, Defying the Odds: Sharing the Lessons I Learned as a Pioneer Entrepreneur, pp. 458-459.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2002, Defying the Odds: Sharing the Lessons I Learned as a Pioneer Entrepreneur, p. 1197.

Publishers Weekly, September 2, 2002, review of Defying the Odds: Sharing the Lessons I Learned as a Pioneer Entrepreneur, p. 66.

ONLINE

Beverly Hills Courier Online,http://www.thebeverlyhillscourier.com/ (December 9, 2002), Connie Martinson, review of Defying the Odds: Sharing the Lessons I Learned as a Pioneer Entrepreneur.

News Max Online,http://www.newsmax.com/ (January 12, 2003), Defying the Odds: Sharing the Lessons I Learned as a Pioneer Entrepreneur.

Westside Life Online,http://www.westsidelife.com/ (January 12, 2003), Martha Singer, "The Mother of All Specialty Stores" (interview).*