33. This also included sponsorship of the Miss United States Pageant. Griswold Lanham, “Harlan Davison,” Entrepreneurial History, 13 (1990), 25–42. Davison was also instrumental in winning sole commercial sponsorship for the inaugural (and ultimately only) television broadcast of the Miss United States Pageant, a brief rival to the popular Miss America Pageant. The contest was expressly organized by its eccentric producer Barclay Harwood to determine the most beautiful and talented young woman in all of the forty-eight states except Ohio. Davison felt that the broadcast would be an ideal opportunity to advertise Dandy-de-odor-o’s new deodorant line for women, Dandeene.
As with almost all of the advertising ventures shepherded by Davison, this one backfired. The stumble created one of the largest customer backlashes in the history of mid-century American trade and commerce. Residents of Ohio, angered over their state’s exclusion from the pageant, staged a boycott of all of Dandy-de-odor-o’s products, including “Dandy fresh swabs,” a product being test-marketed in Columbus and Cincinnati at the time.
Harwood’s hatred of Ohio was legendary, but still to this day inexplicable. It resulted in a highly publicized altercation with the chairman of the Indiana state pageant and its winning entrant to the national pageant, Barbara Jane Midkiff. The contretemps served as inspiration for a memorable comedy sketch on the television variety program Laffin’ Loud with Leila and Lee. I obtained a copy of the script from the Museum of the Media in Toledo, Ohio. An excerpt follows:
HARWOOD: Miss Indiana, it has come to my attention that you are a resident of College Corner.
MISS INDIANA (shaking her head): West College Corner, Mr. Harwood.
INDIANA CHAIRMAN: Which last time I checked was in Indiana.
HARWOOD: Interesting. Because I have it on good authority that the young lady isn’t from West College Corner, which, yes, is in Indiana, but from College Corner, which happens to be in…in…(His eyes suddenly roll back in his head and he loses control of his saliva.)
INDIANA CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harwood, are you unwell?
HARWOOD (now perspiring and shuddering uncontrollably): In…in…
INDIANA CHAIRMAN: I can assure you, Mr. Harwood, the girl who stands before you is a Hoosier. She’s always been a Hoosier, haven’t you, Miss Indiana?
MISS INDIANA: Always? Well…no..
HARWOOD (regaining his composure): May I ask, then, when it was, exactly, that you moved to the Hooter state?
MISS INDIANA: I beg your pardon.
HARWOOD: I said—
INDIANA CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harwood, I believe that you just referred to Indiana as the “Hooter” state.
HARWOOD: I did?
(Miss Indiana nods, scowling. She folds her arms guardedly across her chest.)
HARWOOD: I’m terribly sorry. My point is this: my sources tell me that you moved to Indiana only three months ago. And for one purpose only: to qualify as a contestant in the Miss United States Pageant!
MISS INDIANA: It’s true, you’re right. But I simply had to! You’ve made it quite clear that you’d accept no contestants from…
(Harwood slaps his hands over his ears, and begins to hum loudly the theme from Magnificent Obsession.)
MISS INDIANA (continued):…the Buckeye State. And why should I be penalized for this? Look at me. Am I not worthy of this pageant? Look at these hips. (Dropping her arms down to their sides and throwing out her chest.) Look at these hoosiers.
HARWOOD: I’m sorry, my dear. Your beauty and shapely figure are invalidated by the fact that you are from…from…(He goes into a seizure and collapses.)
INDIANA CHAIRMAN (to Miss Indiana, as he works the end of a pencil into Harwood’s mouth to prevent his swallowing his tongue): Face it, Babs, it just ain’t gonna happen. We should notify your first runner-up. Where is she?
MISS INDIANA: Back home with her folks. In Cleveland.
INDIANA CHAIRMAN: Oy!
34. “High expectation begot profound disappointment, as if a much anticipated Beaujolais revealed itself to be, in sad fact, aged to the point of insipidity, such is my feeling over the failure of this merger” Jonathan’s Diary, 17 April 1957. Jonathan was never more ready to step off the corporate stage, the merger with Gallico Industries permitting his release to pursue, full-time, his interests in venture capitalism, philanthropy, and the search ‘for my place in the universe.’” He writes in his diary at length of his devastation over the turn of events. Davison’s journal also records that Jonathan was not himself for several weeks. Had Jonathan known that Gallico’s anchor product, “Stenchaid,” a groin-directed atomizing cannon, would be ultimately discredited and maligned by the same industry that had earlier touted it as a revolutionary Godsend for obese, wheelchair-bound victims of unaerated-thigh space, Jonathan would not have spent so much time and ink bemoaning the sudden contractual reversal.
35. “Father, I am ready to take the reins of this swell company.” Addicus Andrew Blashette to Jonathan Blashette, 3 May 1957.
36. “I would like to groom my son to take my place.” Jonathan Blashette to Andrew Bloor, 5 May 1957. The letter that Andrew Bloor sent in response has been lost. My guess is that Bloor was cautiously supportive. Addy Andy had just turned twenty-two. His experience at Dandy-de-odor-o, Inc. up to this point had been limited to part-time mail-room clerk and warehouse stock boy. Yet the young man was eager to learn the ropes of his father’s business and move quickly up the corporate ladder. And Jonathan seemed unwilling to elevate anyone else. “This isn’t about creating a family dynasty,” he explained at a board meeting a few days later. “The boy is smart. He’s got the makings of a good businessman. I won’t pass the reins until I think he’s ready.” Minutes of the Board of Directors meeting, 10 May 1957, Dandy-de-odor-o Inc., Corporate Records.
37. “He’s ready.” Memorandum from Jonathan Blashette to all employees of Dandy-de-odor-o, Inc. Fortune Magazine crowed, “Tot of twenty-two takes the helm of multi-million dollar deodorant company. Wall Street scratches its head today. Will it be scratching its underarms tomorrow?” Company stock value plummeted the next day and did not rebound for several weeks. Jonathan, incredibly, knew what he was doing. By July, Addy Andy’s new youthful suntan oil line “Dandy Andy’s Shimmer and Shine” had become the runaway product hit of the summer and the wunderkind of the deodorant industry was on his way to corporate prodigy greatness.
One of my greatest regrets in preparing this book was the missed opportunity to interview at length Jonathan’s son Addicus Andrew. The CEO and president of DDO Industries gave me all of fifteen minutes of his time, this micro-interview taking place in the back seat of a limo on its way to LaGuardia Airport. Subsequently, I made numerous attempts to schedule a second, more leisurely, meeting between the two of us, but was ultimately thwarted by “scheduling conflicts.” I do not fault Blashette for assigning such a low priority to seeing me; I understand from his secretary Paulette Karlstrom that he had been very unhappy with Cordell Glover’s book about his father Three Legs, One Heart and also by Glover’s interviewing technique, which often involved sitting cross-legged on Blashette’s desk “like an chunky chanteuse sprawled upon an overtaxed grand piano lid.” I wish that I had somehow found a way to gain Blashette’s trust after this experience, but such was not to be.