Shirley Slesinger Lasswell
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Shirley Slesinger Lasswell (May 27, 1923 – July 19, 2007) was an American
marketer Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
. She was the wife of comics artist
Stephen Slesinger Stephen Slesinger (December 25, 1901 – December 17, 1953) was an American radio, television and film producer, creator of comic strip characters and the father of the licensing industry. From 1923 to 1953, he created, produced, published, develo ...
and, after his death, Fred Lasswell. She is furthermore best known for losing a lawsuit with
The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Disney Stud ...
due to her company's judicial misconduct in a dispute over
Winnie-the-Pooh Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. The first collection of stories about the character was the book ''Win ...
royalties..


Early and personal life

Lasswell was born Shirley Ann Basso in
Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
,
Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
on May 27, 1923. She was the daughter of Clara Louise Leasia and Michael Basso. She had one sister, Patricia Jane (Basso) Cornell. Shirley Ann Basso performed in Olsen and Johnson Broadway musical comedies. She spent 30 months with the
USO The United Service Organizations Inc. (USO) is an American nonprofit-charitable corporation that provides live entertainment, such as comedians, actors and musicians, social facilities, and other programs to members of the United States Armed F ...
entertaining American troops at military bases and hospitals in
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
and the
Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...
during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. She met her first husband,
Stephen Slesinger Stephen Slesinger (December 25, 1901 – December 17, 1953) was an American radio, television and film producer, creator of comic strip characters and the father of the licensing industry. From 1923 to 1953, he created, produced, published, develo ...
, while working on
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
in 1947, and married him in 1948. Actress
Clara Bow Clara Gordon Bow (; July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the ...
and her husband, actor
Rex Bell Rex Bell (born George Francis Beldam; October 16, 1903 – July 4, 1962) was an American actor and politician. Bell primarily appeared in Western films during his career. He also appeared in the 1930 movie '' True to the Navy'', starring Clar ...
, served respectively as the
maid of honor Bridesmaids are members of the bride's party in a Western traditional wedding ceremony. A bridesmaid is typically a young woman and often a close friend or relative. She attends to the bride on the day of a wedding or marriage ceremony. Tradit ...
and the
best man A groomsman or usher is one of the male attendants to the groom in a wedding ceremony and performs the first speech at the wedding. Usually, the groom selects close friends and relatives to serve as groomsmen, and it is considered an honor to be ...
at the Slesingers' wedding. The Slesingers lived in
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and on their ranch in the Blanco Basin near
Pagosa Springs The Town of Pagosa Springs ( Ute language: Pagwöösa, Navajo language: Tó Sido Háálį́) is a home rule municipality that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only incorporated municipality in Archuleta County, Colorado ...
, which provided the backdrop of Slesinger's
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and summer programs for inner city youth. Their marriage lasted until Stephen Slesinger's death in 1953. In 1964, she married Fred Lasswell, a
Reuben Award The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...
-winning cartoonist and inventor, who drew the comic strip ''
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith ''Barney Google and Snuffy Smith'', originally ''Take Barney Google, F'rinstance'', is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Billy DeBeck. Since its debut on June 17, 1919, the strip has gained a large international readership, appearin ...
''. Lasswell also invented the first practical citrus harvester and created creative educational programs for schools. The couple remained married until Fred Lasswell's death in 2001.


Winnie the Pooh

Stephen Slesinger created brands and trademarks for literary and cartoon characters. He is credited with creating the image of Winnie the Pooh in his red shirt when he obtained exclusive rights from A. A. Milne, beginning in 1930. In exchange, Milne received 3% of sales and 15% to 50% of other Pooh rights Slesinger would commercialize. Slesinger's rights included exclusive rights of character and name reproduction in connection with goods and services and all media such as television, radio and any future sound, word and picture reproduction devices. The deal included the rights to Winnie the Pooh, as well as the other now famous characters, such as
Christopher Robin Christopher Robin is a character created by A. A. Milne, based on his son Christopher Robin Milne. The character appears in the author's popular books of poetry and ''Winnie-the-Pooh'' stories, and has subsequently appeared in various Disney ...
,
Eeyore Eeyore ( ) is a fictional character in the ''Winnie-the-Pooh'' books by A. A. Milne. He is generally characterized as a pessimistic, gloomy, depressed, anhedonic, old grey stuffed donkey who is a friend of the title character, Winnie-th ...
,
Tigger Tigger is a fictional character, an anthropomorphic stuffed tiger. He was originally introduced in the 1928 story collection '' The House at Pooh Corner'', the sequel to the 1926 book ''Winnie-the-Pooh'' by A. A. Milne. Like other Pooh char ...
and
Owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...
. Stephen Slessinger died in 1953. His death left Lasswell a widow with a one-year-old daughter, Pati. Lasswell assumed leadership of her husband's company in 1956 and took over the marketing and licensing of Pooh along with Slesinger's other characters. She later said in an interview with the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'', "I thought, 'Now what do I do?' But it was right there for me. I decided to promote Pooh." Lasswell initially began designing Winnie the Pooh related products, such as clothing, toys and dolls for sale at upscale American department stores in the 1950s under Stephen Slesinger, Inc. However, Lasswell also began to expand Winnie the Pooh into other markets. She was in the initial stages of developing Pooh for television when she met
Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
, founder and head of the
Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
. Disney wanted to create a television show featuring the Winnie The Pooh characters. Lasswell signed the first of two licensing agreements in 1961, which licensed the Walt Disney Company exclusive television rights and certain other rights owned by Stephen Slesinger, Inc., in exchange for royalty payments.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slesinger Lasswell, Shirley 1923 births 2007 deaths Winnie the Pooh (franchise) American entertainment industry businesspeople American women in business People from Beverly Hills, California People from Detroit People from Pagosa Springs, Colorado