Lillian Brown

Mary Lillian Josephine Brown (née Brooks; August 8, 1914 – September 13, 2020) was an American radio and television producer, university administrator and instructor, author, makeup artist and image consultant. She provided makeup and image services to nine Presidents of the United States from Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Clinton, and to Martin Luther King Jr.

Early years Brooks was born in 1914 on a farm near Huntsville, Ohio. Her father was a farmer and her mother a schoolteacher. After receiving a two-year teaching degree from Bowling Green State College in 1933, she taught first, second and third graders at the same school as her mother. She did graduate work at Ohio State University and worked at a department store in Cleveland. She married George Brown, a Navy pilot, in 1941. They had three children, Carla, Kristi, and Kimi.

Makeup and image consulting In the 1950s, Brown's show, Do You Wonder?, was made at the same studio as Face the Nation. When Kennedy became president, she continued to work with him and Jackie Kennedy. She applied the First Lady's makeup for her appearance on A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy (1962). In 1967, she advised President Lyndon B. Johnson to let his hair grow longer and grow sideburns to provide "more of a frame around his face."

As her reputation grew, she provided makeup and image services to many Congressional leaders and nine U.S. Presidents from Eisenhower to Bill Clinton. Others included Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, Margaret Chase Smith, and Columbia University president Grayson Kirk.

Later years Brown continued teaching speech and elocution until age 95. She taught the course "Speaking to Be Understood: English as a First or Second Language" to graduate students at Georgetown's school of law, medicine, foreign service, and business. She died in 2020 at age 106 after suffering a stroke at her home in McLean, Virginia.