Leslie Ellen always seemed to be ahead of the trends. How she knew, I’ll never know. In the early 80’s as the movie “10” with Bo Derrick swept us up into a romantic comedy, Leslie swept us up in our very own fantasy on the Connecticut shoreline. Leslie appeared with a leather string bikini with her red hair in cornrows. It was no wonder that Essie Nail Enamel would be Leslie’s nail polish of choice. Cutex and Revlon polish had been serving the nail industry since the early 1900s. By 1981, OPI arrived on the scene. So what made Essie so special? Launched in 1981,long before social media platforms like Facebook, Essie Nail Enamel took the nail salons by storm. Within a year Essie Polish was in more than 10,000 salons. Essie flooded the market and soon was trending in more than nail salons. What an accomplishment. In a leap of faith, Essie Weingarten using her life savings of $10,000 to launch 12 fashionable nail polish colors to the Las Vegas market. A New Jersey lab would be formulating these high quality nail enamels . Quickly, the brand would go on to gain celebrity recognition. Essie would receive it first major celebrity boost from Joan Rivers. In 1983 on the Tonight Show, Joan would mention she was wearing the shade “Jelly Apple”. By 1985, Essie began using its recognizable square bottle. In 1989 Essie got the “Royal Connection”. After her hairdresser wrote a letter to Essie requesting the shade”Ballet Slippers”, Queen Elizabeth II famously wore Essie’s “Ballet Slipper” for the next three decades. Other Royals would include Kate Middleton who wore Essie’s “Allure” on her wedding day. By 2010, L’Oreal purchased Essie for an “undisclosed sum, transitioning it from a boutique company to a global luxury product”.

I was first introduced to Essie Nail Enamel at Leslie Ellen’s, Essie was her chosen brand of polish to offer her nail clients. With the arrival of a new nail polish collection, the tradition was that when there was the arrival of a new nail polish collection, the colors would go on to be be renamed using men’s names.There was only rule that was applied to the naming, once named there were no changes to be made. It was final. The fun began with whoever was getting their nails filled. The chosen few participated in the re-branding of the new colors.When I left Leslie Ellen Nail Boutique, I carried on that tradition along with offering Essie Nail Enamel. It was that time of year when my new Essie polishes for the upcoming holiday season arrived.

At about the same time, Louise had arrived on time for her weekly nail fill. Clutching the Hartford Courant, she slide down into her comfort zone: newspaper and morning coffee, Almost simultaneously as if she was stalking Louise, Pat Seremet , a longtime Hartford Courant writer, swooped in and sat in an adjacent chair armed with “reporter” notebook. It was the day after a nationally televised presidential debate between Governor Michael Dukakis and Republican nominee, Vice President George H. W. Bush. Louise Bailey Kronholm was the eldest daughter of John Moran Bailey, legendary Democratic State and National Chair. John M. Bailey served as long-time Democratic Party Leader from 1961 until 1968. Her sister was Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly and her brother John (Jack) Bailey was Chief State Attorney. The Baileys were Connecticut’s very own Kennedy family. There was no better person to get an exclusive interview with the morning after 1988 presidential debate than Louise. Pat had one mission-get Louise’s reaction. It was more than obvious the morning after that Dukakis had not fared well and the camera was not kind to him and his timing was off in his responses. This was also the year of one of the most memorable POP culture moments. During the Vice President Debate, Lloyd Bentsen landed a zinger that devastated Dan Quayle and for years after impacted Quayle political career as being a lightweight. After Quayle asserted in the debate that he has as much experience in Congress as Jack Kennedy, the zinger that would go down as the biggest VP debate moment in history was delivered swiftly. “Senator, You’re No Jack Kennedy”.

In the late 80’s, Louise and I met at Leslie Ellen Nail Boutique, West Hartford, Ct.,She needed a broken nail fixed and I had an open chair. So serendipitous !!! What started off as my being the manicurist soon became a lasting friendship. As our friendship grew, so did my clientele following thanks to Louise. Soon my chair had Dr. Eileen Baccus, Barbara Kennelly , Evelyn Horn, Anne Roth, Connie Ware,Dr. Barbara Edelstein and Gayle King to name a few as new clients. All these women had one thing in common-they had achieved groundbreaking firsts in the fields they were working in. Louise was an incredible PR for me. Louise followed me to all my new locations and even when I moved West she stayed in touch. Her annual Christmas card always brought me a lasting holiday smile along with a box filled with her latest books she had binged on. It was like getting Oprah’s best seller book list. The phone calls and letters, always spontaneous, were a welcomed hug from Louise.

After all this time, I felt I knew Louise pretty well. First, she was not a morning person and secondly she wanted nothing more than to read the Hartford Courant and get a fill on her nails. Doing my best to deflect this encounter, I announced the new polishes had arrived and needed to be named. It was a tradition that all my new colors were named after men. There was no better time than now to make this happen. I declared these new colors were to become the political polish lineup. As Louise chuckled and climbed into her newspaper, totally shutting out Pat, I got out my labels and started bouncing new names for these new colors. Named after Dan Quayle was the bright red. It seemed appropriate since he has declared the “last few weeks before Election Day “, he was going to have fun. George H. W was a lilac and Micheal Dukakis was a pale pink. The hot frosted pink was to be Lloyd. Pat got her article-“Political Polish Line Up”, I got my business name in the Hartford Courant and Louise got exactly what she needed-the local newspaper paper and a fresh new coat of nail polish.

Months after the election and the Dukakis/Bentsen defeat, i was still enjoying the fun of the “Political Polish Line Up”, along with a delivery of The Hartford Courant. I brought in the New Year with a trip to DC that came with an invitation to a cocktail party hosted for Michael and Kitty Dukakis . I soon found myself entering the party in a high rise suite on the heals of Senator Bentsen. It was a spontaneous encounter with the Senator. In a tone similar to one he had used on Dan Quayle , the Senator responded to my opening statement “Senator, I named a polish after you”. As my charismatic date shrank away in embarrassment, Senator Bentson, without missing a beat, inquired “ you did what Madame?” Immediately, I heard myself say ‘I named a polish after you”. There was a brief pregnant pause in the room as he questioned ” what color ?” The fun filled banter continued generating much laughter which was very reminisce of my days of a professional clown. Giggling,I responded “frosted hot pink”. Typical of a candidate, the next question was “how am I doing”. My response of “you’re leading in the polls” was rewarded with a warm smile of appreciation. Weeks later Louise would report back how Lloyd had approached her sister, Barbara Kennelly, on “The Hill” inquiring about the “nail girl”. I had my “15 minutes of fame”.

On the heals of his defeat for a bid for the 5th Congressional District of Connecticut, we met. It was a Friday night at Max on Main, a Hartford bar on Main Street in Connecticut. Louise had invited me to join her and Dr. Eileen Baccus for drinks. I in turn had invited my client and friend Anne Roth. We were enjoying ourselves when the defeated candidate, Jim Cohen, approached our table. Immediately with no introduction, he swept up my left hand and began talking about my red sculptured nails. Louise quick as ever said “Chris does all our nails”. Then sharing with the table this is “Si Cohen’s boy.” Si Cohen was a legendary state jurist and a well respected Connecticut Superior Court Judge. After a brief conversation , I couldn’t resist to inquire “why did you run for the 5th District?” followed by” that is a blue collar district and you are white collar highly educated. No wonder you were defeated”. Later, Cohen would say I lacked “nuances”.

(In Loving Memory of Louise Kronholm 1934-2025 “I Did It My Way”)