While watching a 1967 episode of ‘My Show’, the name it is affectionately it’s been given, I had a hunch. One of the guests the panel had to guess was a young man named Howard Kennedy. No, I never heard of him before this show. Once I found out what his occupation was, where he worked, and his goals, I had to check.
Begin at 12:20.
Howard E. Kennedy was an apprentice perfume sniffer/tester with Revlon. What was his goal? He wanted to go beyond sniffer and create his own fragrances. Did he succeed?
Let’s find out.
Mr. Kennedy didn’t stay with Revlon, he moved on to Pfizer’s Consumer Products Division (Coty). I have no idea what that is, okay, I didn’t know before now. Maybe the ladies do. Did he advance there?
Let’s find out.
Mr. Kennedy became chief perfumer for World Wide Fragrance and Development and ended up with five FiFi awards for Fragrance of the Year. Have you heard of his fragrances?
Let’s find out.
Iron, Lady Stetson, Stetson for Men, Sophia, and Nuance.
I know I’ve used Stetson for Men. Stetson and Sophia are two Mr. Kennedy most identifies with in what he wished to achieve. The others you may have heard of.
Let’s find out.
Wild Musk (Coty), Undeniable (Avon), and Ginger with a Twist (Origins). After such success what does a man do?
Let’s find out.
How about two companies formed?

With Royal Essence, Ltd. and H.K. Enterprises, Inc., 1987 and 1990 respectfully, Mr. Kennedy became his own boss and fulfilled an ultimate dream.
A few pieces of non-Perfume trivia:
- He created the flavoring for Seagram’s Extra and Sunfrost Tea Wine Cooler.
- He created the flavoring for Country Kitchen Syrup (Log Cabin).
Is that show still on? Seems fun, only I wouldn’t want the answer ahead, would prefer to figure it out with the panel.
I didn’t really get that last bit, non perfume trivia. Is there supposed to be links or should I google it myself?
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Instead of making perfumes he made flavorings for those things. 🙂
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You can watch almost every episode that survived on youtube from the beginning, in order. I just finished all 17.5 years of the original run of the show. I believe it was 876 shows. Some missing of course. Start here. Then just type What’s my Line? [1955 to get the next set of years. Safe fun. The first of the series takes a while to find its legs. But once they find the right combination of panel members it works great.
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Thanks 🙂
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Great post. Thanks for sharing.
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