Ex-Vice President & Copy Supervisor of Wells Rich Green
<<An interview with Mrs. Carole Anne Fine(1)
chuukyuu Are there many mom-copywriters in America?
Mrs.Fine I think yes, but I'm not sure.
chuukyuu Oh, really!
Mrs.Fine Because what happens is that they start young very often, they get married and by that time they're making 20,000 dollars a year, may be a little more. They're involved in it 'cause it can be a very exciting job as they go along. So all they do is stay home for a couple of months while they're having a baby. They're making more money than most women make, (we do make a lot of money) so they're able to hire people to stay home and take care of their children. And they just go on working.
chuukyuu Do you draw any advantage for copywriting from being a: mother?
Mrs.Fine Yes. One very great thing is that the way a child thinks and I use my child all the time for this. A kid thinks very cleary and very straight, no nonsense. If they see a fat lady they say, "Hey, look.
There's a fat lady". They don't try to cover up and weasel, they're just very straight and very simple. So just Ly seeing the way kid thinks and the way kid talks is a kind of great thing for me to be around. I feel if I could speak as simply as he does I could communicate perfectly on television.
chuukyuu So you get your ideas from everywhere including this office. your home and ...
Mrs.Fine Yes, everywhere.
chuukyuu What is your official title in your agency? What accounts do you handle now?
Mrs.Fine My official title here is copy supervisor. I have people working under me. At this agency, we have very small groups because it's a small.
young and growing agency. Now I'm working on Love, which is a cosmetic and Samsonite, which is a luggage and Personna, which is a razor blade.
chuukyuu How many years had you been at DDB?
Mrs.Fine Ten years.
chuukyuu Please describe your career history including why you came to pursue this caree.
Mrs.Fine Well, I'm not going to tell how old I am. I was born in Chicago in the middle west and I went to school there, I went to college. I didn't like Chicago and I came to New York. First of all, I went to the Coast, to California but that wasn't quite I was looking for and then I came to New York. And I was going to be a writer like a lot of people.
I had a little talent and sold a few stories. Then I met a guy and I got married and I stopped working.
chuukyuu Student marriage?
Mrs.Fine No, I met him when he was in the army. After a while, we raIllout of money and I had to start working, I just sort of fell into writing copy. I'd never, in my life, had any intention of going into advertising.
chuukyuu So you did it by accident?
Mrs.Fine Oh yes, just by pure accident. I worked at Ziff-Davis (Flying1.lagazine) for a very short time and then I left for another place. Each time I changed my job, this was all within the space of about a year or a year and a half that I went from one job to the other, the job was better and each time I was getting experiences and learning more about it.
chuukyuu Then at the same time you were distinguished yourself in terms of writing ability. But writing ability couldn't be developed until you show yourself to somebody.
Mrs.Fine I always had two qualities. One was I always had a talent for writing. The other thing, I was a sound thinker. I didn't have any training in anything but I could fasten myself on the problem. So as soon as I began to get training, the two things started to happen together.
chuukyuu What in particular did you learn at DDB and other agenices?
An Interview with Mrs. Phyllis Robinson
>>Zoo commercial for Polaroid which is now in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) of film library.
An Interview with Mrs. Lore Parker
Interview with Mrs.Paula Green
