Lawrenson, Helen (b. 1907)
Lawrenson, Helen (b. 1907)
American editor and writer. Name variations: Helen Brown; Helen Brown Nordern. Born Helen Brown on October 1, 1907, in LaFargeville, New York, seven miles south of the Canadian border; daughter of Lloyd Brown (described by his daughter as an "unsuccessful promoter"); attended Bradford School and Vassar; married Heinz Nordern (a musician), in 1931 (divorced 1932); married a Venezuelan diplomat named López-Méndez, in 1935 (divorced 1935); married Jack Lawrenson (co-founder of the National Maritime Union), in 1940 (died, November 1957); children: one son and one daughter, Johanna.
Helen Lawrenson was the managing editor and film critic of Vanity Fair (1932–35) and a frequent contributor to Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Look, Esquire and Town and Country. She was also the author of Latins are Lousy Lovers. Frank Crowninshield once said of "the dark and flashing Helen Brown Norden," that she was "an avowedly revolutionary spirit, a satirist of a bold, even Rabelaisian order, and the master of a highly personalized prose style. Unfortunately, she had so strong a distaste for writing that she rarely lifted her pen save under the direst compulsion." Her memoir Stranger at the Party (1975) details her career, her marriages, and friendships with Clare Boothe Luce , Bernard Baruch, and Condé Nast.