NY DAILY NEWS/By MICHELE INGRASSIA Ask Christie Brinkley about her days as a Cosmo Girl and she zooms in on the trauma of having to wriggle into a purple bikini so teensy and tricky that it took 15 minutes to put on. It was the '70s, the era of big hair, tiny clothes and legendary photographer Francesco Scavullo, who served up smoldering Cosmopolitan magazine covers month after month. When a shoot was over, I'd get in a cab, pull out a compact and go, 'WHOA! Who's that?' Brinkley laughs. She isn't the only one Cosmo could shock. With its provocative cover girls and racy cover lines, Cosmopolitan upended the canned-soup world of women's magazines. Long before Clinton (sorta) did it with the intern and Jude (definitely) did it with the nanny, editor Helen Gurley Brown dragged sex into the public dialogue. Years before Mary Richards made it cool to be single and Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha made it okay to have needs, the magazine preached female empowerment. It changed the landscape of women's publishing, says magazine consultant Martin Walker. It was a precursor of the women's movement. It said you can be a sexy, sensual human being, that you can be independent, that you can go for it. Or, as the motto goes these days, Fun, fearless, female. Add to that: 40. Yes, Cosmo hits middle age Tuesday, when its anniversary issue lands on the stands. But rather than swap her Cavallis for Chico's, the Cosmo Girl is still 24, single and driven. Undeniably, it's lost its ability to stun - what publication hasn't embraced explicitness? But with a circulation of 2.9 million, it remains the top-selling young-women's magazine in the country. And with the exception of Playboy, no magazine can claim to have changed the perception of sexuality so profoundly. It made it acceptable for women to seek pleasure, married or not, says writer Erica Jong, whose 1973 novel, Fear of Flying, echoed the message. For women of my daughter's generation, it's not a big deal to tell men what they want. For my generation, Cosmo said, 'I'm en_title_d to have pleasure.' Founded in 1886 as a magazine for the whole family, Cosmopolitan was on the verge of folding in 1965 when Brown, fresh from the wild success of her book Sex and the Single Girl, persuaded the Hearst Corp. to let her reinvent it. What Cosmo did was report on what was true out in the real world, but was never reported before, says Brown, 83, who retired from the magazine in 1996 but still serves as editor-in-chief of its international editions. Some of the principles were _base_d on 'Sex and the Single Girl,' which said that if you're single and 33, you don't have to go to the Grand Canyon and throw yourself in. Cosmo was unapologetic, from its then-daring use of SEX and ORGASM, to its breathless tone ( My Affair With a Cowboy ... or Swept Away on a Saddle ) to its cup-runneth-over cleavage. What I loved most was the aspect of a little girl playing dress-up, says Cindy Crawford, who appeared on the cover a record 17 times. It was in-your-face. Not that you expected women to walk around like that, but it gave them permission to be a glamazon, if even for one night. It was Cosmo's own brand of spike-heel feminism - get the man, the manicure, the MBA - seven years before the advent of Ms. magazine. Conservatives weren't alone in loathing it; so did many feminists. But four decades later, most agree the message got lost in the bodacious messenger. Brown's genius lay in showing that both sexes could play the game. It was daring, for instance, to run a buck-naked Burt Reynolds or Arnold Schwarzenegger across a centerfold. But she was equally skilled at making stars - Crawford, Brinkley, Beverly Johnson, Brooke Shields, Rene Russo and Kim Basinger, among them - and careers. Certainly Vogue was the total seal of approval, but Cosmo was up there, says Crawford. You had those and your cosmetics contract, and you were all set. These days, what Cosmo lacks in audacity it makes up for as a money machine. According to publishing insiders, it is the most profitable monthly in the U.S. Hearst has spun off 51 editions in 31 languages (including Cosmo Croatia and Cosmo Kenya), as well as CosmoGirl!, Cosmo_style_, Cosmo Mobile and, coming this fall, Cosmo Confessions, a $9.99 bookazine. Part of what propels it is its singular voice - in 40 years, the magazine has been edited by only three women, Brown (31 years), Bonnie Fuller (18 months) and Kate White (seven years). Sitting in the corner office that Brown once decorated in pink French silk, White says she has firmly resisted suggestions that the Cosmo Girl get married and move on. The target reader is still single, in a relationship and carving out a life. And though she won't tell you her formula - If I did, I'd have to kill you, jokes the author of four murder mysteries - White has her own vision. She has put more celebrities on the cover, bigger photos inside, more guy-friendly features (like the what-men-want sex survey) and spicier language (the staff spends two weeks a month lobbing cover line suggestions). But unlike the painfully thin, unapologetically enhanced Brown, White doesn't preach crash diets and plastic surgery. Her Cosmo Girl is finally comfortable with herself. If you're empowering women in their 20s, she says, why would you give them breast implants? PAST CELEBRITY COVERS:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/336404p-287060c.html July 1965 - Renata August 1967 - Raquel Welch January 1974 - Lauren Hutton February 1976 - Beverly Johnson Sept. 2005 - Scarlett Johansson
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