Cosmetics: Kiss and Sell

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about the Far East. All that gets pretty far removed from discos; certainly Revlon's admen would not dream of suggesting that a woman go disco dancing in a veiled hat. But if disco lights dictate dark lips and eyes, and that suggests an exotic aura of which veils are a symbol—well, who gives a damn about logic?

Other cosmetics makers dismiss the Gene Tierney look as, literally, old hat, but they agree enthusiastically with Bergerac on the more general theme that romance and mystery are back in, supplementing if not replacing the natural look. Having established their independence, women can shift from daytime pants to dressy fashions at night, and choose makeup and fragrances to match. "As we move from the '70s into the '80s, there is a general shift from feminist to feminine," says Frederick Scott, vice president of Elizabeth Arden. Marilyn Miglin, owner of a cosmetics salon on Chicago's Gold Coast, agrees: "The trend now is switching back to pure glamour." Which does not necessarily mean that the natural look and the life-style it suggests are out: happily for cosmetics sales, both it and smoky mystery can live in peaceful coexistence. One adman puts the point pithily: "Nobody is giving up sex for jogging. People like to do both."

It is rather surprising that Revlon's Bergerac has been so successful in sensing such subtle shifts in women's psychology and the subliminal instincts that shape it. A multinational manager who probably would do as well selling steel ingots or instant pancakes, Bergerac was trained in the exacting school run by flinty Harold Geneen, the creator of ITT.

Born in the French resort town of Biarritz, the son of a chief of the local gas and electric company, Bergerac studied economics and political science at the Sorbonne and Cambridge. He came to the U.S. at 21, earned an M.B.A. from U.C.L.A., and for one six-month period worked as a ranch hand roping horses in Oregon. He joined Cannon Electric Co. of Los Angeles as a salesman, and in three years worked up to international vice president. Meanwhile, he became a U.S. citizen and married Norma Langstaff, a Los Angeles abstract painter who has had several art shows. In 1963, ITT acquired Cannon and shortly thereafter ordered Bergerac back to Europe to straighten out a small group of companies that were losing money.

Geneen was then building ITT into the world's biggest conglomerate; in Europe the firm's satellite companies sold life insurance and made food products, auto parts and construction materials, among many other things—including a few cosmetics. Bergerac helped negotiate about 100 acquisitions of companies for ITT. In 1971, at the age of 39, he was promoted to the job of running all ITT European operations from a base in Brussels. By encouraging still more acquisitions and spurring the companies' internal growth, he doubled European sales during the next three years to $5 billion. He was a prime candidate to follow Geneen as head of ITT when Revson, who realized he was dying of cancer, started a search for a successor who could bring the company professional management.

Revson knew the Bergerac name; Michel's older brother Jacques, a onetime movie actor and briefly the husband of Ginger Rogers, worked for Revlon (he heads its French operations). Michel and Revson had a meeting at the Palm