Foster Grant
Encyclopedia
Foster Grant, or FosterGrant, is a brand of eyewear
founded by Sam Foster in 1919. The FosterGrant brand is a subsidiary
company of FGX International, a consumer goods wholesale
r with headquarters in Smithfield, Rhode Island
, USA.
Foster Grant's original production line was ladies' hair accessories; over the company's lifetime they also produced other plastic materials including heart-lung pumps.
, included celebrities Peter Sellers
, Louis Jourdan, Carroll Baker
, Claudia Cardinale
, Elke Sommer
, Anita Ekberg
, Vittorio Gassman
, Anthony Quinn
, Mia Farrow
, Robert Goulet
, Julie Christie
, Woody Allen
, OJ Simpson, Raquel Welch
, Terence Stamp
, and Vanessa Redgrave
.
That famous ad campaign was reintroduced around the year 2000 with model Cindy Crawford
and race car driver Jeff Gordon
.
Beginning in January 2009, Raquel Welch will be the star of a national television advertising campaign for the Foster Grant Reading Glasses collection. FGX International plans to spend over $12 million in measured media on consumer television advertising in 2009. The ads are created by Ferrara & Co. of Princeton, NJ and produced by television director Bob Giraldi.
Foster Grant is launching television commercials in 2010, once again including Hollywood icon Raquel Welch
.
Eye protection
Eye protection is protective gear for the eyes, which comes in many types depending upon the threat that is to be reduced. The threats can be particles, light, wind blast, heat, sea spray or some type of ball or puck used in sports...
founded by Sam Foster in 1919. The FosterGrant brand is a subsidiary
Subsidiary
A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
company of FGX International, a consumer goods wholesale
Wholesale
Wholesaling, jobbing, or distributing is defined as the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services...
r with headquarters in Smithfield, Rhode Island
Smithfield, Rhode Island
Smithfield is a town in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. It includes the historic villages of Esmond, Georgiaville, Mountaindale, Hanton City, Stillwater and Greenville...
, USA.
Foster Grant's original production line was ladies' hair accessories; over the company's lifetime they also produced other plastic materials including heart-lung pumps.
Advertising
Foster Grant's 1960s sunglasses ad campaign "Who's that behind those Foster Grants?," by the Geer, Dubois advertising agencyAdvertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
, included celebrities Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
, Louis Jourdan, Carroll Baker
Carroll Baker
Carroll Baker is a former American actress who has enjoyed popularity as both a serious dramatic actress and, particularly in the 1960s, as a movie sex symbol...
, Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale is an Italian actress, and has appeared in some of the most prominent European films of the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of Cardinale's films have been either Italian or French...
, Elke Sommer
Elke Sommer
Elke Sommer , born Baroness Elke Schletz, is a German actress, entertainer and artist.-Career:Sommer was born in Berlin to a Lutheran minister and his wife...
, Anita Ekberg
Anita Ekberg
Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg is a Swedish model, actress and cult sex symbol. She is best known for her role as Sylvia in the 1960 Federico Fellini film La Dolce Vita which features the legendary scene of her cavorting in Trevi Fountain alongside Marcello Mastroianni.-Biography:Ekberg was born in...
, Vittorio Gassman
Vittorio Gassman
Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI , popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian theatre and film actor and director...
, Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn
Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...
, Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...
, Robert Goulet
Robert Goulet
Robert Gerard Goulet was a Canadian American entertainer as a singer and actor. He played the role of Lancelot in the Broadway musical Camelot of 1960.-Early life:...
, Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
, Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, OJ Simpson, Raquel Welch
Raquel Welch
Jo Raquel Tejada , better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress, author and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a "new-star" on the 20th Century-Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in a animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. , for which she may be...
, Terence Stamp
Terence Stamp
Terence Henry Stamp is an English actor. Since starting his career in 1962 he has appeared in over 60 films. His title role as Billy Budd in his film debut earned Stamp an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA nomination for Best Newcomer.His other major roles include...
, and Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
.
That famous ad campaign was reintroduced around the year 2000 with model Cindy Crawford
Cindy Crawford
Cynthia Ann "Cindy" Crawford is an American model. Known for her trademark mole just above her lip, Crawford has adorned hundreds of magazine covers throughout her career. She was named #3 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of the 90s...
and race car driver Jeff Gordon
Jeff Gordon
Jeffery Michael "Jeff" Gordon is a professional NASCAR driver. He is the driver of the #24 Drive to End Hunger/DuPont/Pepsi Chevrolet Impala. He is a four-time Sprint Cup Series champion and a three-time Daytona 500 winner. He is third on the all-time wins list, with 85 career wins, and has the...
.
Beginning in January 2009, Raquel Welch will be the star of a national television advertising campaign for the Foster Grant Reading Glasses collection. FGX International plans to spend over $12 million in measured media on consumer television advertising in 2009. The ads are created by Ferrara & Co. of Princeton, NJ and produced by television director Bob Giraldi.
Foster Grant is launching television commercials in 2010, once again including Hollywood icon Raquel Welch
Raquel Welch
Jo Raquel Tejada , better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress, author and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a "new-star" on the 20th Century-Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in a animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. , for which she may be...
.
Pop culture
- It is referenced in the song "Tomorrow's Woman" in Grey Gardens (musical)Grey Gardens (musical)Grey Gardens is an American musical with book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie, based on the 1975 documentary of the same title about the lives of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale by Albert and David Maysles. The Beales were...
which opened on Broadway in November 2006. Lyrics: "...with a scarf in our hair, Foster Grants for the glare..." - It is referenced in the title track of The New PornographersThe New PornographersThe New Pornographers is a Canadian indie rock band formed in 1997 in Vancouver, British Columbia.-History:The band's first four albums each ranked in the top 40 on The Village Voices Pazz & Jop year-end poll of hundreds of music reviewers. From 2000 to 2006, either a New Pornographers' album or a...
' album Mass RomanticMass RomanticMass Romantic is the debut album by Canadian indie rock band The New Pornographers. Produced by David Carswell and band bassist John Collins, it was released on Mint Records in 2000. The album was three years in the making, with musicians A.C. Newman and Dan Bejar writing songs as early as 1998...
. "Mass romantic fool wears Foster Grants..." - It is featured in the song "Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)" by Tom WaitsTom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
"...Dressed up in Purina Checkerboard slacks and Foster Grant wraparounds..." - It is referenced in the movie That Thing You Do!That Thing You Do!That Thing You Do! is a 1996 comedy-drama musical film written and directed by Tom Hanks. Set in the summer of 1964, the movie tells the story of the quick rise and fall of a one-hit wonder rock band...
, when drummer Guy puts on a pair of sunglasses and calls himself "Percussionist Foster Grant." - It is referenced in movie Midnight RunMidnight RunMidnight Run is a 1988 American action comedy film starring Robert De Niro as a bounty hunter and Charles Grodin as his prisoner....
, where Jack (Robert De NiroRobert De NiroRobert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
) makes fun of the FBI agents' sunglasses, at one point calling Mosely (Yaphet KottoYaphet KottoYaphet Frederick Kotto is an African-American actor, known for numerous film roles , and his starring role in the NBC television series Homicide: Life on the Street .-Early life:Kotto was born in New York City, the son of Gladys Marie, a...
) "Agent Foster Grant." - It is referenced in the opening line of the song "Otis and Marlena" by Joni MitchellJoni MitchellJoni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
on her album Don Juan's Reckless DaughterDon Juan's Reckless DaughterDon Juan's Reckless Daughter is a 1977 double album by the folk/pop/rock musician Joni Mitchell. It is unusual for its experimental style, expanding even further on the jazz fusion sound of Mitchell's Hejira from the year before...
. "Marlena under Foster Grants, She's undercover from the dawn's advance..." - It is referenced in the movie Vietnam, Texas, where a detective makes fun of one of the characters: "What are you? A friggin' Foster Grant commercial?"
- OJ Simpson - in a biography of the infamous star, during a paragraph highlighting his ubiquitousness at one time, it is stated that "it was OJ behind those Foster Grants"
External links
- Foster Grant Collection -- company publications, sales material, photographs, etc from World War II era and later
- Official website