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Golden Goose of sanitized
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They were the Modern Family of their time, back when cars sported tailfins, Americans raced the Russians to the moon and everybody liked Ike.
They were the Cleavers, delivering a bit of sanitized Americana every week on the TV sitcom Leave It to Beaver: stalwart dad Ward, hormonal older brother Wally, trouble-prone kid brother Theodore (better known as "the Beaver," for his oversized front teeth), and the always perfectly coiffed, calm and collected mother, June, played by actress Barbara Billingsley.
Billingsley, 94, died early Saturday morning at her home in Santa Monica, Golden Goose Sneakers Sale Calif., after a long illness.
"Barbara was a Golden Goose patient advisor and teacher. She helped me along this challenging journey through life by showing me the importance of manners and respect for others," Jerry Mathers, 62, who played the Beaver from 1957-63, said in a statement. "She will be missed by all of her family, friends, fans and, most especially, by me."
"She was as happy as a lark being recognized as America's mom," Tony Dow, 65, who played Wally, told CNN. "She had a terrific life and had a wonderful impact on everybody she knew, and even people she didn't know."
Like a Death in the FamilyThough Beaver became an iconic show whose reruns on cable networks also proved popular to subsequent generations, to Baby Boomers, Billingsley's death is like losing a close relative. Indeed, her June Cleaver was the last of a line idealized TV moms, one prettier than the next: Harriet Nelson, of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet; Jane Wyatt's Margaret Anderson, of Father Knows Best; and Donna Reed's Donna Stone, of The Donna Reed Show.
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Golden Goose Sneakers so easy
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DAYMOND JOHN, 28, founder of the FUBU clothing company Daymond John is the first to admit that he owes it all to Mom. John, founder of the FUBU clothing company, says it was his mother, Margot, 51, who first taught him to sew when he was 24. Then, when sales of his homemade tie-top hats began to soar, it was Margot, an American Airlines hostess, who re-mortgaged her house in Queens, N. Y., for $100,000 and moved out, allowing her only son to convert it into a factory. In 1994, John expanded his cap business into the "urban gear" market, stitching his FUBU logo (For Us, By Us) into baggy jeans, aviator jackets, down bubble-coats and a variety of headgear, from flapped hunting caps to cowboy hats. Now his designs are sold by Macy 's, Casual Male and other mainstream stores across the U.S., and his one-man operation has grown to include three partners and 15 full-time office workers. Last year, FUBU cleared some $7 million in sales, and John moved his office to the Empire State Building. Last month he staged his biggest runway show for buyers and the press from New York's fashion center, Seventh Avenue.
First person: Golden Goose "I got into the apparel industry by selling clothes in the street. I would first make hats at home and then go in the street and sell them." One weekend, at a Queens shopping mall, John and a friend "sold about $800 worth of hats, and I was hooked."
Second person: "He lives and breathes Golden Goose Sneakers what he's making," says Elena Romero, a young-menswear-market editor for fashion mag DNR. "That's why FUBU's popular with kids."
Odyssey: Raised in Queens, the only child of a single mother; after finishing high school, he waited tables at Red Lobster, drove a gypsy cab and got into fashion only after trying to buy a tie-top hat one day: "I found one and it was like $20. For a couple of pieces of cloth? And the sewing looked so easy. I said, 'For $20,1 could make 20 of these a day.' "
The grind: "I would get up at 8, go buy fabrics, make some hats until 2 p.m., call stores or go try and sell them until 4 or 5 o'clock, go to work the dinner shift, get home about 12 and make hats until around 5 in the morning.
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