Mary Wells Lawrence was born Mary Georgene Berg in 1928, and in 1990 she
resigned from her post as the president of Wells Rich Greene advertising
agency. What she did in the 62 years between those two events changed
the face of advertising, and the role women play in that industry
indelibly. Born in Youngstown, Ohio Mary was raised a dancer, as well as
an actress. She left Youngstown at the young age of 17 when her mother
took her to New York's Playhouse School of Theatre, wished her well, and
set her out on
her own.
Mary Berg left New York for the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. It was
there that she met her first husband, Bert Wells. The two moved back to
Youngstown, and Mary got her first job as a writer for McKelvey's
department store. This job was the first stop in her career, and from
1951 on Mary's career would be a
whirlwind of success, failure, life long lessons, love, divorce, family
and fortune.
A year after beginning her job at McKelvey's Mary got a job at
Macy's and wound up back in New York.
It was from Macy's that Mary began her job in the advertising industry.
She moved from Macy's to McCann-Erickson and was a writer there for
three years, when she was stolen away by Doyle Dane Bernbach- although
at the time Bill Bernbach barely considered her a worthy investment.
From DDB Mary moved to Jack Tinker & Partners, where she was being paid
$60,000 and in effect transformed the agency into a strong creative
force. It was at Tinker that Mary worked on and revolutionized the
Branniff airlines account. It was also during her time at Tinker that
she divorced Wells. Through a series of office politics, some serious
loans, a lot of courage from a few
good friends, in 1966 Mary Wells left Tinker to start her own agency:
Wells Rich Greene.
The Branniff account followed Mary and after six months of being in
business Wells Rich Greene was billing $30 million and was the talk of
the advertising industry and Madison Avenue. Shortly after the start of
the agency, in November of 1967 Mary wed the man whose company she was
responsible for turning around: Harding Lawrence, key player of Branniff
International Airways.
Mary was diagnosed with cancer, but mentions it only briefly in her
book. It appears that the sickness didn't slow her life, either
personally or professionally. Outside of having two daughters,
two husbands and surviving cancer, Mary traveled all over the world, has
been inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame, and was the first woman
CEO of a company on the NYSE.
In 1990 Mary resigned as president of Wells Rich Greene, and only
eight years later the company closed. About the closing of the agency
Mary said, "I kept thinking how frail creative businesses are,
especially advertising agencies...Wells Rich Greene was once an agency
filled with exciting, talented people who were passionately in love with
advertising, that was the spirit of the place. It's gone; people have
moved on and are forgetting. I am not haunted by the past, but I loved
Wells Rich Green..."(Lawrence 2002).
It is said that Mary now resides in a villa in the south of France.
Photo of Mary courtesy branniff.org
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