L.A. Make Over, to the Max
When Max Factor & Co. left Hollywood three years ago for Connecticut, civic leaders were in an uproar. They begged the makeup firm to remain in Hollywood, where it was founded in 1909. After all, Max himself made up Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand and Francis X. Bushman.
The roar of the greasepaint eventually died down. The company and its 400 employees settled into less historic digs in Stamford, Conn. But now--10 months after its purchase by Revlon Group, the nation’s largest cosmetics concern--Max Factor is coming home. Almost.
The firm will shift its headquarters to West Los Angeles early next year. Manufacturing and financial activities will stay in the East, but some 100 marketing, creative and administrative employees will relocate. Company President Allan Kurtzman won’t have to worry. He never moved to Connecticut after taking the job in January.
Why the switch? “Management’s feeling is that Max Factor is a California-bred company,” said spokeswoman Carol Walters, “and we’re returning to the roots of our heritage and our history.”
Baby See, Baby Do
From the Art Imitates Life but Makes It Look Easier file:
In the new movie “Baby Boom,” Diane Keaton plays J. C. Wiatt, a high-powered Manhattan management consultant who leaves her job and moves to Vermont to raise a 13-month-old girl she inherits from her cousin. Wiatt hits on the idea of gourmet baby food, and her company, Country Baby, becomes an almost instant success.
In real life, Nanci Franks was a Manhattan Beach sales manager and a single mother who left her job in 1980 to start a company that makes natural baby food. But Baby’s Garden was not an instant success; research, raising money and manufacturing delays kept the company from shipping its products until early this year.
“It was a piece of cake” in the movie, said Franks, who has placed her baby food in about 120 retail outlets and has agreements to introduce it in some supermarkets next year. “I wish it was that easy.”
Back on the Air
Remember R. G. Reynolds? Two years ago, he was a familiar figure on radio and cable television across the nation. But his financial show had melted by last spring under the glare of adverse publicity about his troubles with law enforcement agencies. Reynolds has called it “persecution” and has denied any wrongdoing.
Well, he’s back on the air again, at least on one station, KWNK (670 AM) in Simi Valley. Manuel Cabranes, general manager, says Reynolds purchases time for his investor advice show, an hourlong broadcast on weekdays. How about Reynolds’ troubles? “I’m told that it’s cleared up,” said Cabranes. “We were assured that he had no further encumbrances. Apparently it’s been resolved in some fashion.”
Not so, says James R. Asperger, a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles; an investigation of Reynolds for securities fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud “is continuing.” And in Burbank, where Reynolds was arrested last April and charged with filing a false police report, city prosecutors say it’s “still an open case.”
Scratch This One
There are products to soothe head itch, foot itch and in-between itch. And now a Yorba Linda company says it has a cure for cast itch. No, it doesn’t require scratching with a coat hanger or packing talcum powder into plaster casts. Instead, Castblast is an aerosol spray, says Leni Faas, president of Castblast Inc.
Cast itch is caused by bacteria that grow when moisture condenses under tightly wrapped plaster, according to Faas. Castblast is introducing next month a five-ounce can of spray that Faas says will evaporate the moisture and leave behind a layer of powder. It will sell for $9 to $11 a can.
“We’re going against common sense,” admits Faas, an ex-motorcycle racer who has had his share of broken bones. But cast itch “is the most miserable thing in the world. . . . Imagine having an itch and not being able to scratch.”
Through a Glass, Darkly
Observed deep in thought last week outside Stacey’s Bookstore on University Avenue in Palo Alto: Steve Jobs, enfant terrible of the personal computer industry and deposed co-founder of Apple Computer. “He was just standing there, staring at a big display of John Sculley’s new book,” a witness recounts. “He was careful not to pick up the book.” The former Pepsi marketing man’s book, “Odyssey,” describes the turnaround at Apple and gives Sculley’s version of the epic clash that led to Jobs’ ouster. No word from Jobs. He’s said to be considering a book of his own.
