Modesty Personified

Adventures With The

Borgnines!

I later had the occasion to work side-by-side with
him when he was hired by Ernest Borgnine and his wife
Tova who, at the time, had a struggling cosmetic
company. Ernie and Tova were, at first, highly
skeptical about the changes Halbert insisted they make.
But, that skepticism evaporated when he took their
company, Tova 9, from $20,000 to over $800,000 per month
in just a little over half a year. You may remember the
first major ad he created for them. It ran for years
and had one of the most famous headlines ever written.
It was...

The Amazing Facelift In

A Jar Used By

Hollywood Stars Who

Don't Want

Plastic Surgery!

That ad brought in millions of dollars in sales
but it was another ad Halbert wrote for the Borgnines
which contains, I believe, the most powerful headline in
advertising history. Back then, Mrs. Borgnine wanted to
begin marketing a new perfume called "Tova" (it's still
on the market) and she wanted to do the "launch" at a
friend's boutique in Beverly Hills. Her friend was
Candy Spelling, wife of famed TV producer Arron
Spelling, and the boutique, by my estimation, would
probably only hold a total of 150 people. When Gary
heard about this he went ballistic. He informed Tova,
if she was going to let him do the perfume advertising
his way, she'd need a much bigger space such as... the
entire bottom floor of the Century Plaza Hotel! She
gasped a little but, when she recovered, she let Gary
have his way and wrote an ad that got 7,000 people to
come to the Century Plaza on a weekday for a sample of
her perfume. If you've got even one drop of
salesmanship blood in your veins, you don't need to read
the ad to realize how he did it. All you've got to know
is the headline which said...

Tova Borgnine Swears

Under Oath That Her

New Perfume Does Not

Contain An Illegal

Sexual Stimulant!

By the way, the "subhead" of that ad was "Wife of
famous movie star agrees to give away 10,000 samples of
her new fragrance just to prove it's safe to wear in
public." Personally, I'll never forget that ad. It was
my job to coordinate everything and the damn hotel was
so jammed with people nobody could hardly even move.
And, get this: The only reason we didn't have more than
7,000 people at the perfume launch is because... the
fire marshalls wouldn't let anybody else into the hotel!

A $30,000,000

Success Story!

During Gary's stint in Los Angeles (his previous
office was located at 595 Madison Avenue in Manhattan)
he also worked with a number of other celebrities. One
was Geoffrey Scott of Dynasty fame (he played Linda
Evans' "Krystle" ex-husband) and the ad he wrote
featuring him brought in over 30 million dollars for
Gary's client. Gary also put together more than a dozen
successful "infomercials" starting with "Can You Look
Younger?" which sold the cosmetic products of Vikki
LaMotta who was once married to boxer Jake LaMotta and
the oldest woman ever to pose nude for Playboy. (By the
way, I hear she still looks great!)

Gary also worked on a number of shorter (usually
2-minute) TV commercials and probably the most memorable
is the one which featured Nancy Kwan who was the star of
"The World of Suzie Wong," "Noble House" and many other
famous productions. Personally, I was especially
intrigued with the work he did with frequent-Playboy
model and B-movie queen, Becky LeBeau and I understand
he currently has Margaux Hemingway (granddaughter of
Ernest Hemingway) under contract to help promote his
forthcoming book tentatively titled...