The Long Read Denby, Barbie and Zsa Zsa Gabor
Famed Hollywood actress Zsa zsa Gabor with husband Jack Ryan who had links to Denby
The day Barbiedesigner Jack Ryan visited Denby Pottery What have Denby, Hollywood actress Zsa zsa Gabor and Barbie got in common? The answer? A man by the name of Jack Ryan. Oliver Towers looks at the curious connection between Denby and Hollywood, and recounts the day Zsa zsa Gabor nearly (but not quite) made it to Stoke… In the mid-1970s the fortunes of London-born Lionel Simons were riding high. At the age of 40 by April 1975, he was the managing director and largest shareholder of Denbyware Ltd, with homes in St Albans and Beverley Hills and a flat in New York. He was happily married to Montreal-born Barbara with a son Jonathan
Lionel Simons with his wife Barbara
and a daughter Kimberly. In his job, Lionel was always on the lookout for new products to add to and complement Denby’s core stoneware lines. After being introduced to Jack Ryan during a visit to his home in California, Lionel commissioned Jack’s design company to produce prototypes for a new range of houseware that Lionel was considering adding to Denby Pottery’s product lines. The author of this short article has had the good fortune to talk to Lionel Simons and hear about his dealings with Jack Ryan and his wife at the time, Zsa Zsa Gabor. As you will read, these dealings were a lot more prosaic than the recent lurid articles about Jack Ryan’s private life would suggest. Lionel Simons background In the early 1960s Lionel had joined the fledgling import company Millard-Norman in Cincinnati as their marketing director after completing a MBA at Columbia in one year rather than the usual two. The salary wasn’t
The key players ■ Denby Pottery and Lionel Simons ■ Jack Ryan, Barbie and Zsa zsa Gabor 68 TABLEWARE INTERNATIONAL
the attraction. He negotiated a deal to buy the company at an agreed price if future sales met agreed targets. He was convinced that Millard-Norman could substantially increase its sales of the hand-made stoneware made by the Denby Pottery. Millard-Norman had exclusive US distribution rights for the Denby Pottery’s products, and Lionel visited a number of major retailers to support his view that the products had the right attributes to sell well but needed better marketing to support the premium prices relative to cheap, mass-produced crockery. Sure enough, by focusing on the aspirations of newly married graduates supported by innovative designs from Denby Pottery (notably Gill Pemberton’s Chevron and Arabesque patterns, or Camelot and Samarkand as they were called in the US) the targets were met, and by the late 1960s Lionel was the president and sole owner of Milnor (as Millard-Norman had been rebranded). US sales had become so
significant to Denby Pottery by the late 1960s it was decided to absorb Milnor into the group prior to launching a listing on the UK stockmarket in 1970. Lionel’s reward for selling Milnor to the pottery was a 25 per cent shareholding in the resulting Denbyware Ltd stock options based on future sales targets and a seven-year contract at an agreed salary. Meanwhile he remained president of Denbyware’s US operation. He moved with his family from their main home in Cincinnati to England, and the pottery’s decorating department led by designer Glyn Colledge welcomed Lionel and Barbara to the UK with ‘his and her’ psychedelic plates. Initially Lionel
Denby designer Glyn Colledge welcomed Lionel and Barbara to the UK with ‘his and her’ psychedelic plates