Sidsel Cook

97% distressed jeans & 3% champagne

Cardboard - 304 pages with color photographs

You are welcome to join us on a journey that begins in a basement room in Oslo in 1925. In a large American bed lay the dying father surrounded by his six children. One of the children was my father. From his father he had learned to recite poems, from his mother that anything was possible.

You will be able to follow him as he wanted to make all women more beautiful by manufacturing cosmetics. When he was supposed to learn all about film makeup at Warner Brothers in Hollywood, he was asked to give a lecture on the history of Norway. He seized the opportunity and spoke about the double standards towards Jews. He won a walking trophy depicting the “Statue of Liberty” and was offered the agency for Revlon for Scandinavia. But he took the job as sales manager for Helene Curtis in Sweden, where I grew up with samples instead of dolls.

My father had decided that I would follow in his footsteps. Much to his disappointment, I got married, moved to London and started working with Swedish design, and then started working as a freelance journalist. My first interview was with Tommy Steele.

You will also experience people and places in London and New York, meet artists at the Chelsea Hotel and visit Eartha Kitt in Connecticut. My father didn’t give up, though. He manufactured the hair care lines Zotos and Matrix in Sweden. In 1985, I agreed to become the general agent for Matrix in the UK. I had braids, little capital, didn’t know a single hairdresser, was newly divorced and 43 years old… But I had a backpack of samples and a pair of sturdy boots.

Now we go!

Side

Excerpt from the book:

1925- 1937


They have always existed – people who have lost everything – but who have managed to create new and better lives. Father experienced the results of the natural disaster in Texas when his parents had lost everything. When the father had malaria. When they lived six children and two adults in a basement room in Oslo and how everyone helped each other in the fight to survive. When the other siblings sang in chorus, father sat by the sick father's bed and learned to recite poems. The first thing father Leif conquered was the favor of older ladies.
"If you pay me 5 öre I will read you a poem and if you pay 6 öre I promise to close my eyes and then you will see my long eyelashes," he said, thus contributing to the household budget.

When Leif was 12 years old, his father died. From his father, he inherited a pair of gold cufflinks and the poem “If” by Kipling framed in a narrow wooden frame.
At 18, he studied business and economics in the evenings and sold insurance during the day. A model son who helped with the household finances at home, he managed to become a junior boxing champion plus a large circle of friends.

When they were out dancing, he always invited the ugliest girls. Leif wanted to prove that everyone could become more beautiful with self-confidence and good products. Together with two good friends, he would start making beauty products that would make all ugly girls happier.

But then it happened, father really fell in love for the first time in his life. They met at a big party. She wasn't poor and ugly. She looked like a goddess. And she drove a cream-colored convertible. He wanted her – a shipowner's daughter. Only the best was good enough. An invitation to Oslo's finest restaurant would probably make an impression.
When he had saved up 100 kronor, which was a fortune at the time, he went to Bristol and asked to speak to the butler.
- I think you're the only man in the world who can help me fulfill my dreams right now. I want to invite an unattainable woman to dinner.
But I've never been to a restaurant before. Can you teach me how to behave? You get my 100 kronor.
This was a task that amused the old butler who took him through the entire sequence of events from entering the restaurant to the cutlery and glasses. Not to sit down before the waiter had pulled out the chair for his lady. If the lady needed to visit the ladies' room during dinner, he would of course get up when she returned and so on.
Father also managed to save up money for new shoes and a navy blue tailored suit. His father's gold cufflinks came in handy. Inger, as she was called, had accepted. He had already rehearsed to himself: "Inger, we'll change rings."
"Welcome, Mr. Cook," said the caretaker.
The head waiter was waiting in the restaurant.
- You'd like your usual table, Mr. Cook.
Father asked Inger if she had any preferences when it came to the menu or if he could surprise her.
There was a waiter on hand all evening, filling glasses with champagne. When they had finished their meal, the head waiter arrived.
- Would you like it to be as usual, Mr. Cook, that we put the bill on your account?

When they left the restaurant, father felt that now he could probably say the phrase: "No one should change the ringer."
Out on the street she turned to him.
- I never want to see you again. You're a real playboy – just like all the others – and I thought you were different...