Zoneboy
08-05-2007, 09:50 AM
Link (http://theedge.bostonherald.com/styleNews/view.bg?articleid=1014739)
“Potsie” wants to make you pretty.
Former “Happy Days” star Anson Williams is breaking into the beauty biz with Starmaker Products, a Hollywood skin-care line used on the sets of hit shows such as“Grey’s Anatomy” and “Desperate Housewives” and now available to mere mortals at CVS.
“You know, when I was on ‘Happy Days,’ (director) Gary Marshall really inspired in us all an entrepreneurial spirit,” Williams said. “He kind of put a business foundation in all of us and it stayed with me.”
Williams, who left acting for directing in the ’80s, met his business partner, makeup artist JoAnna Connell, on the set of “Melrose Place.”
“The cast was raving about what was being done to their faces in the trailers and I thought, well, why not bring it to more people,” he said. “She knew about the chemistry of the product and I knew about marketing, but mass production, we were a little lost. But we learned.”
Williams and Connell joined forces in 2000, marketing Starmaker products to the entertainment industry - and it became the must-have makeup on television and movie sets. Then Williams and Connell were approached by Vertical Branding and decided to pitch the product to the mass market. After a successful stint on QVC shopping network, the Starmaker line was scooped up by drugstore retailer CVS.
“And when we got into CVS, it’s amazing if you think about the odds,” he said.
CVS will carry three proprietary lines: Micropearl Resurfacing, Hollywood Hands and the popular Pearl Moisturizing, Anti Wrinkle Mist.
Williams said making makeup is just as challenging as making good TV.
“But it’s the same creative process,” he said. “And that’s what makes it fun.”
“Potsie” wants to make you pretty.
Former “Happy Days” star Anson Williams is breaking into the beauty biz with Starmaker Products, a Hollywood skin-care line used on the sets of hit shows such as“Grey’s Anatomy” and “Desperate Housewives” and now available to mere mortals at CVS.
“You know, when I was on ‘Happy Days,’ (director) Gary Marshall really inspired in us all an entrepreneurial spirit,” Williams said. “He kind of put a business foundation in all of us and it stayed with me.”
Williams, who left acting for directing in the ’80s, met his business partner, makeup artist JoAnna Connell, on the set of “Melrose Place.”
“The cast was raving about what was being done to their faces in the trailers and I thought, well, why not bring it to more people,” he said. “She knew about the chemistry of the product and I knew about marketing, but mass production, we were a little lost. But we learned.”
Williams and Connell joined forces in 2000, marketing Starmaker products to the entertainment industry - and it became the must-have makeup on television and movie sets. Then Williams and Connell were approached by Vertical Branding and decided to pitch the product to the mass market. After a successful stint on QVC shopping network, the Starmaker line was scooped up by drugstore retailer CVS.
“And when we got into CVS, it’s amazing if you think about the odds,” he said.
CVS will carry three proprietary lines: Micropearl Resurfacing, Hollywood Hands and the popular Pearl Moisturizing, Anti Wrinkle Mist.
Williams said making makeup is just as challenging as making good TV.
“But it’s the same creative process,” he said. “And that’s what makes it fun.”