E. Jean Carroll
Encyclopedia
Elle (magazine)
Elle is a worldwide magazine of French origin that focuses on women's fashion, beauty, health, and entertainment. Elle is also the world's largest fashion magazine. It was founded by Pierre Lazareff and his wife Hélène Gordon in 1945. The title, in French, means "she".-History:Elle was founded in...
magazine since 1993, and was ranked one of the five best magazine columns (along with Anthony Lane
Anthony Lane
Anthony Lane is a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Personal life:Lane lives in Cambridge with Allison Pearson, a British writer and former Daily Mail columnist...
of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
and Lewis Lapham
Lewis Lapham
Lewis Henry Lapham was an American entrepreneur who made a fortune consolidating smaller business in the leather industry. He was also one of the founders of Texaco Oil Company....
of Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
) by the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
in 2003.
Born Elizabeth Jean Carroll in Detroit, Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, and nicknamed "Betty Jean" from an early age, Carroll's opinions on sex, her impatient, boisterous counsel that women should “never never” wrap their lives around men, and her compassion for letter-writers experiencing life’s hard knocks, make her column unique in women’s magazines.
Amy Gross, former editor-in-chief of Elle and currently the editor-in-chief O, The Oprah Magazine
O, The Oprah Magazine
O: The Oprah Magazine, sometimes simply abbreviated to O, is a monthly magazine founded by Oprah Winfrey and Hearst Corporation.-Overview:...
, recalls the “Ask E. Jean” debut. “It was as though we had put her on a bucking bronco and her answers were the cheers and whoops and hollers of a fearless woman having a good ol time.”
NBC’s cable channel, America's Talking
America's Talking
America's Talking, a cable television channel created by NBC and spun off from CNBC, was launched on July 4, 1994. The headquarters were based in an office building in Fort Lee, New Jersey, 2 floors below CNBC's original studios, on Fletcher Avenue...
, produced the Ask E. Jean television show based on the column from 1994-1996 (when the channel became MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
). Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
called Carroll “[T]he most entertaining cable talk show host you will never see.” Jeff Jarvis
Jeff Jarvis
Jeff Jarvis is an American journalist. Previously he was a television critic for TV Guide and People magazine, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor and associate publisher of the New York Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner.-Career:Until recently Jarvis was...
in his review in TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
said watching E. Jean and her “robotic hyperactivity drove [him] batty.” He went on: “However then I listened to her, and couldn’t help liking her. E. Jean gives good advice.” Carroll was nominated for an Emmy for her writing for Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
, (1985) and a Cable Ace Award for the Ask E. Jean show (1995).
The AskEJean.com website, based on the Elle column, is an on-going experiment in the gripping ways people give and get advice. Users can type in questions and receive instant video answers on topics such as career, beauty, sex, men, diet,
"sticky situations," and friends. Or, users can join the Advice Vixens (a section where “YOU become the advice columnist”). "Top Campus Sex Columnists" features the best college advice columnists from across America.
Journalism and Books
In 2002 Carroll's “The Cheerleaders” which appeared in SpinSpin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
, was selected as one of the year's “Best True Crime
True crime
True crime is a non-fiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.The crimes most commonly include murder, but true crime works have also touched on other legal cases. Depending on the writer, true crime can adhere strictly to...
Reporting” pieces. It appeared in Best American Crime Writing edited by Otto Penzler, Thomas H. Cook, Nicholas Pileggi (Pantheon Books
Pantheon Books
Pantheon Books is an American imprint with editorial independence that is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.The current editor-in-chief at Pantheon Books is Dan Frank.-Overview:...
, 2002).
Carroll has been a contributing editor to Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
, Outside
Outside (magazine)
Outside is an American magazine focused on the outdoors. The first issue debuted in September 1977 with its mission statement declaring that the publication was "dedicated to covering the people, sports and activities, politics, art, literature, and hardware of the outdoors..."Its founders were...
and Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazines. Her beat is “the heart of the heart of the country”. For an April 1992 issue of Esquire, she chronicled the lives of basketball groupies in a story called “Love in the Time of Magic.” In June 1994, she went to Indiana and investigated why four white farm kids were thrown out of school for dressing like black artists in “The Return of the White Negro”.
In “The Loves of My Life”, (June 1995), she tracked down her old boyfriends and moved in with the fellows and their wives. Bill Tonelli, her Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
and Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
editor has said: “All of E. Jean’s stories are pretty much the same thing. Which is: ‘What is this person like when he or she is in a room with E. Jean?’ She’s institutionally incapable of being uninteresting.”
For Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
(February 1988) at the height of the “Sensitive Man” era, E. Jean told her editors that "modern women run around complaining that they want a primitive man, so I thought it would be fun to come to New Guinea and find a real one.” Carroll hiked into the Star Mountains
Star Mountains
The Star Mountains are a mountain range in western Papua New Guinea, stretching from the border with Indonesia, at about to the Hindenburg Range...
, with an Atbalmin tracker who stood 4’2” and a Telefomin warrior. She became the first white woman to walk from Telefomin
Telefomin
Telefomin is a station town on the border of Sandaun and Western Provinces in Papua New Guinea. The town started during the Second World War after Mick Leahy was assigned to engineer an air-strip in 1944 for the United States for use against the Imperial Japanese Army forces based in New Guinea.The...
to Munbil in the former West Irian Jaya
West Irian Jaya
West Papua is a province of Indonesia covering the western peninsula of the island of New Guinea. It is the least-populous province of Indonesia and one of two situated in Indonesian New Guinea, with the province of Papua also lying to the east. Prior to 2007, the province was known as West Irian...
, and came close to perishing.
For Outside
Outside (magazine)
Outside is an American magazine focused on the outdoors. The first issue debuted in September 1977 with its mission statement declaring that the publication was "dedicated to covering the people, sports and activities, politics, art, literature, and hardware of the outdoors..."Its founders were...
, Carroll wrote about (among other things) taking Fran Lebowitz
Fran Lebowitz
-Life:Born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey, Lebowitz is best known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York sensibilities. Some reviewers have called her a modern-day Dorothy Parker...
camping and going down the Colorado with a group of “Women Who Run With No Clothes On.” Several of E. Jean’s pieces for Outside have been included in various Non-Fiction collections such The Best of Outside: The First 20 Years (Vintage Books
Vintage Books
Vintage Books is a publishing imprint founded in 1954 by Alfred A. Knopf. Its publishing list includes world literature, fiction, and non-fiction...
, 1998), Out of the Noosphere: Adventure, Sports, Travel, and the Environment (Fireside, 1998) and Sand in My Bra: Funny Women Write from the Road (Traveler’s Tales, 2003).
E. Jean Carroll authored four books:
- Female Difficulties: Sorority Sisters, Rodeo Queens, Frigid Women, Smut Stars, and Other Modern Girls (Bantam BooksBantam BooksBantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
, 1985) - A Dog in Heat Is a Hot Dog and Other Rules to Live By (a collection of her Ask E. Jean columns, Pocket BooksPocket BooksPocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...
, 1996) - Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. ThompsonHunter S. ThompsonHunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...
(Dutton, 1993) - Mr. Right, Right Now (HarperCollinsHarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
, 2004)
Websites
In 2002, Carroll got “sick sick sick of women writing to me asking how to find a man,” and co-founded (with her sister, Cande Carroll) Greatboyfriends.com. On the site, women recommend their ex-boyfriends to each other. (The Oprah Winfrey Show did a show about it in 2003). The Knot, Inc. bought GreatBoyfriends in 2005. In 2004 she launched Catch27.com as a spoof of FacebookFacebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
. On the site, people put their profiles on trading cards and buy, sell, and trade each other. The Boston Globe headline was “You Can’t Buy Friends Like These...Well, Actually You Can.”
AskEJean.com was launched in 2007. The Top Campus Sex Columnists (a section of the AskEJean site) is the only select gathering of college columnists in the world.
Biography
Her father, Tom Carroll, is an inventor, and her mother, Betty Carroll, is a retired Allen County Indiana politician. Betty Jean Carroll was raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana.She attended Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
(on probation, her SAT scores were horrendously low) where she was a Pi Beta Phi
Pi Beta Phi
Pi Beta Phi is an international fraternity for women founded as I.C. Sorosis on April 28, 1867, at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. Its headquarters are located in Town and Country, Missouri, and there are 134 active chapters and over 330 alumnae organizations across the United States and...
and was crowned Miss Indiana University. She received an F in the only journalism course she took. She was also a cheerleader.
In 1964, representing Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
, she won the Miss Cheerleader USA title.
Carroll appeared on the mid-1980s edition of Card Sharks
Card Sharks
Card Sharks is an American television game show created by Chester Feldman for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. Two contestants compete for control of a row of oversized playing cards by answering questions posed by the host and then guessing if the next card is higher or lower in value than...
hosted by Bob Eubanks
Bob Eubanks
Robert Leland "Bob" Eubanks is an American television/radio personality and game show host, best known for hosting the game show The Newlywed Game on and off since 1966, where he was known for using the catchphrase, "Makin' Whoopee"...
.
She currently resides in upstate New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.