‘Party’ girl BIO REVEALS TUPPERWARE MAVEN’S RISE AND FALL

She's been to all your parties, knows what's in your refrigerator and is not afraid to demonstrate a loud burp. Now you really get to know Brownie Wise.

long before Martha Stewart, Mary Kay and other celebrated mavens of domesticity, there was Wise, the face and genius behind the iconic tupperware Party.

author Bob Kealing offers an unvarnished look at how Wise used postWWII optimism to not only create an early social networking system to sell the home plastics products line, but also to recruit thousands of women into the workforce at a time when a woman's apron strings tied her to the home.

It was 1951 and Wise was a divorced mom who worked as a rep for Stanley Home Products when she caught the attention of Earl tupper, an inventor whose plastic storage containers were collecting dust on store shelves. She insisted he market his products through parties where women invited their friends into their homes for a combined sales and social presentation. It was she who came up with the idea to fill those tupperware bowls with liquids and fling them across the room to demonstrate their durability. It was Wise who famously showed moms how to “burp” the lid to force air out of the bowls and create a vacuum. Sales took off, as women previously had to put shower caps over dishes to prevent food from spoiling.

Her business savvy invented much of the corporate culture of tupperware.

Sadly, Wise's ascent was matched only by her fall. tupper, who had myriad creative differences with Wise, and perhaps fueled by the fact she had become a celebrity, fired her abruptly in 1958. Strangely he even wrote her out of the company's history and left her with just one year's salary. (about $30,000 in today's dollars.) She had no stock. Her life became modest, even messy. She died in 1992 at age 79 from cancer and in obscurity.

Originally published in 2008 by the university Press of Florida as “tupperware unsealed,” this revised edition puts Wise's life at the forefront. the book has been optioned by Sony Pictures with Sandra Bullock to star as Wise. But don't wait for the movie. Join the “Party” now.