Connie

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By FRANK SWERTLOW

Staff Reporter

When Warner Bros. refused to give Connie Stevens a raise from the paltry $250 a week she was getting for playing Cricket Blake in “Hawaiian Eye” during the early ’60s, the plucky actress began selling Avon cosmetics in front of the studio commissary.

Her bosses quickly relented. Connie got a $50 a week raise and quit the cosmetics business. But not forever.

Nearly four decades later, Connie Stevens is still on television, and she is still selling cosmetics. A lot of them. Forever Spring, her own line, has averaged $25 million a year for the last nine years on the Home Shopping Network, according to network officials.

The still-bubbly blond is an example of how an actress, long past her prime in Hollywood, can re-emerge by using her skills as a communicator.

“I filled a niche,” said the Brooklyn-born Stevens, who made movies like “Drag Strip Riot” and “Eighteen and Anxious,” but never hit the ranks of superstardom in Hollywood.

“I am a voice for women who are shy about putting on makeup or who don’t know how to ask questions,” Stevens said. “They know I am not a fly-by-night and I use my products, not like a lot of celebrities who might use a wig for their hair products. I think people have X-ray eyes. They see right through you. I don’t use a script when I’m on television. I mean what I say and I come alive.”

Gerald Bagg, senior vice president of Williams Worldwide Inc., a Santa Monica-based media buyer that also produces infomercials, said Stevens has struck a chord with viewers.

“She has a high level of credibility,” he said. “People look for her on the Home Shopping Network. It’s a destination.”

Morgan Hare, Home Shopping’s vice president of merchandising for health and beauty, agreed that credibility has served Stevens well in the highly competitive celebrity merchandising market.

“Viewers trust her,” she said. “They know she will deliver the goods, and to have been doing this for nine years is pretty miraculous.”

“She comes across as a friend,” he said. “People feel that what they see is what they get. She has a good bedside manner.”

Ed McMahon, who has been on the Home Shopping circuit himself selling French cookware, said part of Stevens’ appeal is to men, even though they generally don’t buy cosmetics.

“When the men are watching they call the wife in and say, ‘Look at this, why not get that stuff?’ ” he said. “She’s got a lot of pizzazz.”

Stan Moger, president of SFM Inc., a New York-based TV packaging company, thinks the key to Steven’s success is her relationship with older viewers who recall her stardom in the 1960s.

“The people who buy her products grew up with her,” he said. “It’s the people who are in their 50s and 60s. She is not a minor figure to them. She still has star quality to these viewers.”

Despite her success, the 59-year-old actress, born Concetta Rosalie Ingolia, is taking a few risks to expand her cosmetics empire. She just opened her own health spa, The Garden Sanctuary, on Robertson Boulevard in West Los Angeles, near the border of Beverly Hills. It’s a place where loyal TV customers can buy her products, get their hair done, dip into a Jacuzzi or get a massage.

Prices for a one-hour facial start at $70; a 60-minute Swedish massage is $70, and a makeup makeover is $65.

Haircuts for men are $35, but jump to $65 for women. A four-and-a-half-hour, head-to-toe treatment manicure, pedicure, massage, hair care and makeup is $390.

“It’s a one-stop refresher,” said Nancy Sinatra, who showed up at the spa’s recent grand opening.

Stevens converted the spa from a run-down warehouse that had been storing art for many years and spent $250,000 on renovations. She also uses it as corporate headquarters for her company, Forever Spring Inc.

One female friend admitted that Stevens’ gamble puzzles her. “She doesn’t need it,” the woman said. “She’s got plenty of money. Why take the risk?”

Stevens was unfazed by the remark.

“I don’t need to take any risks,” said Stevens, who previously was headquartered on the Sunset Strip. “And I don’t care if the spa is jammed or not. What I want is a place for people to come in and be treated properly and they can find what they need.”

Stevens, who has 30 employees, became a TV cosmetics queen serendipitously. An executive from the Home Shopping Network approached her a decade ago about selling cosmetics on the small screen. Stevens quickly agreed, and today she has 93 products that include hair treatments, skin care systems and perfumes. Her Kali scent sold 180,000 units last year. She’s also started a line of men’s cosmetics products.

Life wasn’t always this good. Before becoming a businesswoman, Stevens made her living on the road doing concerts and making occasional TV guest appearances. It was rugged life, especially for a single mother raising two girls, Tricia Leigh and Joely, both daughters from her marriage to Eddie Fisher. And Fisher wasn’t around very much.

“I had to make a decision whether or not they should be in school or with me, and I made a decision that they should be with me,” Stevens said. “Everybody knew the babies were coming, even in Las Vegas. Instead of champagne in my dressing room, they put out baby food and bicycles. They got a lot of schooling on the road.”

During her heyday as a Hollywood star, Stevens says she never got serious roles because she had a little-girl voice. Girlish-voiced or not, today businessmen listen to Connie Stevens when she talks.

“When I go to New York,” she said, “they sure listen to what I have to say.”

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