Harry Sayles Conover was an American manufacturer and founder of the Harry Conover Modeling Agency.
Background
Harry Sayles Conover was born on August 29, 1911 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. He was the son of Harry Conover, Jr. , a washing machine salesman, and Claire Byrnes. He was the grandson of Harry Conover, the supposed inventor of the washing machine (the invention did not lead to wealth because a large company began to manufacture it before Conover's idea was patented). Shortly after Conover's birth, his parents were divorced. Conover and his mother moved in with her parents; her father, John Byrnes, was a well-known Chicago lawyer. When Conover was nine, his mother remarried; her second husband was Harold B. Griffen, the owner of the Griffen Tool and Die Company. They moved to Brooklyn, New York.
Education
Conover attended Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, from 1923 to 1928, taking frequent vacations to Palm Beach. After completing military school, he rebelled against his mother's plans for him to become a priest. He left Notre Dame University on the day of his arrival in 1930.
Career
Conover held department store jobs in New York City, performed in a radio soap opera, and then became what he claimed was the first radio disc jockey in the United States in Royal Oak, Michigan.
In 1935 Conover went to work as a model for the John Robert Powers Modeling Agency, the foremost agency of the day. Despite success as a model, Conover soon became more interested in management. With a $1, 000 loan from Gerald Ford (later president of the United States) and with some former Powers models as employees, Conover opened an office in New York City in 1939. Ford, then a Yale Law School student, did part-time modeling and was introduced by his girlfriend to Harry Conover, a full-time Powers model. His "silent partner" association with Conover ended early in 1942 but they remained friends. By that time, the Harry Conover Modeling Agency was serving as agent for about 200 models and grossing $750, 000 annually. In 1943, the agency made approximately $100, 000 profit. Ever conscious of trends and utilizing the knowledge gained from his exposure to advertisers and photographers, Conover saw the need for the fresh-faced, natural look in modeling, as opposed to the nameless show girls, "Long Stemmed American Beauty Roses, " popularized by Powers. In the 1940's photographs were rapidly replacing artists' sketches on magazine covers. These covers needed women with personality and appearance with whom ordinary women could identify. American GI's in World War II intensified the need for a curvaceous "girl next door" image. Conover provided it with his "Conover Cover Girls, " many of whom were coeds that he and his talent scouts found on college campuses. The "Conover Girls" participated in United Service Organizations (USO) trips during the war and Conover, who was exempted from active duty due to hypertension, worked at home in the United Youth for Defense. These activities, coupled with the appearance of "Conover Girls" on the covers of the leading magazines of the day--Mademoiselle, Glamour, Life, Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Vogue--gave the Conover modeling agency a national and international reputation. Conover's message as a recruiter of "intelligent" models on campuses and elsewhere was that "the modeling profession is one of the choicest vocations today the American girl can select. In addition to being a profitable profession, it is one of the few vocations that leads to other fields. " These remarks, made in 1941, proved prophetic. His models included movie stars Shelley Winters, Joan Caulfield, Nina Foch, and Anita Colby, and radio personality Jinx Falkenburg. Conover's primary talent lay in promotion technique. He brought out the individuality of a model and used it to his or her advantage. Frequently he rechristened models with names that were highly effective in gaining publicity--Lassie, Dusty, Choo-Choo, Chili, and Candy. He published an annual Who Is She?, which provided pertinent information on each model in his employ. The successful Paramount movie Cover Girl (1944), starring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly, gave the Conover model agency added prestige. Conover served as a technical adviser and provided both the name and the background models, and Anita Colby, a former Conover model and Conover's friend, assisted in producing the film and also appeared in it.
Conover established a special television department in 1949 that booked models exclusively for television. It, too, was successful, grossing one million dollars in 1954. As the agency became more financially complex, however, Conover's attention and daily presence at the office began to decrease. He indulged in lavish living and wild spending and the agency began to lose ground. The exclusivity of the model-agent relationship, which had sustained Conover's business, waned in the 1950's because of pressure from advertisers and photographers, and the predictability of receipts declined. Trouble came to the agency in May 1959 when Conover was unable to pay child models within a reasonable period of time. The parents of the children demanded an investigation of the agency's books and records and, as a result, its license could not be renewed. On May 28, 1959, the New York Times reported that Candy Jones had been running the business at her own expense since Conover deserted her in 1958. Warrants of arrest were eventually issued for both Conover and his ex-wife concerning the reported sum of $125, 283 owed to more than 200 models. Conover claimed the amount was closer to $25, 000. The case was eventually resolved out of court but it dealt a fatal blow to Conover's reputation. In August 1959 new regulations required that all modeling agencies keep a separate account for client fees. After the dissolution of the Conover Modeling Agency (the Candy Jones Career Girl School survived), Conover attempted to franchise his name for charm schools on the West Coast but without success. In the early 1960's he worked at a hotel in New Jersey. In 1964, dependent on the financial support of his mother, Conover was arrested for nonpayment of alimony and child support. He suffered a heart attack upon arrival at Hart's Island for a two-year prison sentence, and was released within a week after the intercession of his mother. He died of a second heart attack in Elmhurst, Queens, New York. Conover's business failure and untimely death has prohibited any positive evaluation of him as a trend-setter in the modeling industry.
Achievements
Views
Quotations:
"Sixty-five percent of a model's success depends on her intelligence. The remaining 35 percent depends on her face and figure and her sense of rhythm. "
"True beauty is best judged in everyday clothes and everyday settings. It takes more than a few minutes of watching a girl parade down a runway, too. "
Personality
He was tall, dark-haired, green-eyed.
Connections
On February 17, 1940, Conover married Gloria Dalton, a Conover model. They were divorced in 1946 after the birth of two daughters. On July 4, 1946, Conover married Candy Jones, the former Jessica Wilcox, whom he had discovered at the Miss Atlantic City Beauty Pageant in 1941. She was a highly successful "Conover Cover Girl, " and in 1947 became Conover's business partner as head of the Candy Jones Career Girl School. This was a separate business from the modeling agency. Conover and Candy Jones had three sons.