When she was 18, she enrolled within the Carnegie Institute of Expertise in Pittsburgh, the place she met Bert Wells. They had been married in 1949, divorced in 1952, remarried in 1954 and divorced once more in 1965. In 1967 she married Mr. Lawrence, Braniff’s president. Mr. Lawrence died in 2002.
Along with Ms. Bryan, Ms. Wells Lawrence is survived by one other daughter, Pamela Lombard; a stepson, State Lawrence; a stepdaughter, Deborah Lawrence; and a number of other grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Ms. Wells Lawrence wrote advert copy for a Youngstown division retailer and was an advert supervisor for Macy’s in New York within the early Nineteen Fifties earlier than becoming a member of the McCann-Erickson company in 1953. She rose quickly, however she felt undervalued. She joined Doyle Dane Bernbach in 1957 and have become a $40,000-a-year vice chairman in 1963. Her first memorable advert was for French tourism — a photograph of an previous man and a toddler, behind him, driving a bicycle on a rustic street.
“Assume you’ve seen France?” the caption learn. “Assume once more.”
In 1964, she took a $60,000-a-year senior partnership with Jack Tinker & Companions, one in every of many businesses within the Interpublic Group. The job, she advised Fortune journal, held “the promise of eventual command.” She and a small group, together with Mr. Wealthy and Mr. Greene, generally known as “Tinker’s Thinkers,” rented an workplace away from Madison Avenue’s bustle and devised the Alka-Seltzer and Braniff campaigns.
In 1966, having a number of high-profile campaigns below her belt and feeling entitled, Ms. Wells Lawrence requested for the presidency of Tinker & Companions. Her boss, Marion Harper Jr., the president and chairman of Interpublic, advised her that he would give her presidential authority however not the title — a girl, he mentioned, couldn’t win acceptance as president.
