Quote Origin: Success Is a Great Deodorant

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Elizabeth Taylor? John Madden? Jason Kidd? Richard Meryman? Derek Donald? Apocryphal?

Illustration of spray bottle deodorant

Question for Quote Investigator: A person who has been ostracized can achieve rehabilitation over time. The key to this re-acceptance is the attainment of success in some endeavor. An athlete who wins a big game, an actor who stars in a popular show, an entrepreneur who builds a prosperous company are all candidates for social recovery. An adage expresses this notion. Here are five versions:

(1) There’s no deodorant like success.
(2) Success is a great deodorant
(3) Winning is a great deodorant.
(4) Winning is the best deodorant.
(5) Winning is the greatest deodorant.

This saying has been attributed to U.S. actress Elizabeth Taylor, U.S. sports commentator John Madden, and U.S. basketball player Jason Kidd. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In the early 1960s Elizabeth Taylor starred in the film “Cleopatra”. During the filming of this epic she engaged in an extramarital affair with co-star Richard Burton. Subsequently, the two divorced their spouses and married one another in March 1964. In December 1964 “LIFE” magazine printed an interview of Taylor conducted by journalist Richard Meryman. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1

I have learned, however, that there’s no deodorant like success. Richard and I had been pretty scandalous and all of a sudden, after the opening night of Hamlet in New York, everybody was beaming and sighing. People that hadn’t spoken to us in two years were patting him on the back and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

In 1965 Taylor published “Elizabeth Taylor: An Informal Memoir”, and she acknowledged “Richard Meryman for his help and his tape recorder”. Taylor repeated her remarks from the “LIFE” interview with a slightly different phrasing:2

I learned in New York that there is no deodorant like success. Richard and I had been called so scandalous we could get very few people on the phone. All of a sudden, after the opening of Hamlet, all the people were beaming and sighing. People who hadn’t spoken to us in two years were patting him on the back and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

In 1970 the saying appeared in the syndicated gossip column of Jack O’Brian:3

Melina Mercouri quote: “It is easier to live in sin if you have money. Somehow the world does not think so badly of you.” . . . Liz Taylor said it more succinctly: “Success is a great deodorant.” True.

In 1975 a letter published in a Binghamton, New York newspaper attributed an instance of the saying to Taylor:4

Elizabeth Taylor is supposed to have said, “Success is the world’s greatest deodorant.”

In 1997 “Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations: The Most Notable Quotes Since 1950” included an entry for the saying which cited an appearance of Taylor on the ABC television network in 1977:5

Elizabeth Taylor
Success is a great deodorant.
ABC TV 6 Apr 77

In 1988 John Madden was asked about a rumor concerning the retirement of Bill Walsh who was the coach of the San Francisco 49ers football team. Madden employed a variant of the saying with the word “winning” instead of “success”:6

Madden said the rumors may have had validity earlier in the season, especially after the 49ers suffered a 9-3 loss to the Los Angeles Raiders. Things have picked up recently, Madden said. “Winning is a great deodorant. It covers up so many things.”

In 1994 ice hockey player Derek Donald of the Dayton Bombers employed an instance with the word “best” without attribution:7

“When you’re winning, you’re not worried about anything,” Derek Donald said. “When you’re winning, you don’t look for anything. When you’re losing, you look for something.

“Winning is the best deodorant. It covers up everything.”

In 1997 a sports journalist in Florida credited Madden with an instance using the word “best”:8

Football analyst and former NFL coach John Madden loves to say winning is the best deodorant.

In 2000 the “Boston Sunday Globe” of Massachusetts credited Madden with an instance using “greatest”:9

“Winning is the greatest deodorant,” Madden said. “When you win, everything smells good.”

In 2003 basketball player and future coach Jason Kidd employed the saying:10

“I don’t care if we’re (0-4) and the Lakers are the last game,” Kidd said. “We have to find a way to get back to playing Nets basketball and get a win out on this trip. Winning is the best deodorant.”

In conclusion, Elizabeth Taylor deserves credit for initiating this family of sayings. She employed an instance with the word “success” during an interview in “LIFE” magazine in 1964. Taylor later rephrased the saying to make it more compact and direct. John Madden employed a version with the word “winning” in 1988. Others such as Derek Donald and Jason Kidd used the saying after it was already circulating.

Image Notes: Illustration of a spray bottle deodorant from Mediamodifier at Unsplash. The image has been retouched.

Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Laurence Horn whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Also, thanks to Ben Zimmer who located crucial citations in 1964 and 1988.

  1. 1964 December 18, LIFE, Volume 57, Number 25, Elizabeth Taylor Speaks Out, Interview by Richard Meryman, Start Page 74, Quote Page 82, Column 1, Time Inc., Chicago, Illinois. (Google Books Full View) ↩︎
  2. 1967 (1965 Copyright), Elizabeth Taylor: An Informal Memoir by Elizabeth Taylor, Chapter 7, Quote Page 149, Avon Books: A Division of The Hearst Corporation, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  3. 1970 October 19, Lebanon Daily News, The Voice of Broadway by Jack O’Brian (Syndicated), Quote Page 17, Column 2, Lebanon, Pennsylvania. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  4. 1975 March 23, The Sunday Press, Section: You Wrote It, Key to Praise Lies With Death and Misfortune, Letter from John T. Wilcox, Quote Page 18A, Column 3, Binghamton, New York. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  5. 1997, Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations: The Most Notable Quotes Since 1950, Revised Edition, Edited by James B. Simpson, Section: Actors and Actresses, Person: Elizabeth Taylor, Quote Page 437, Column 1, HarperCollins Publishers, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  6. 1988 December 12, San Francisco Chronicle, Television’s Winning Team / CBS’ Madden, Summerall Just Keep Getting Better by Tom Gilmore, Quote Page E2, San Francisco, California. (ProQuest) ↩︎
  7. 1994 January 20, Dayton Daily News, Bombers can’t figure out how to win by Marc Katz (Dayton Daily News), Start Page 1D, Quote Page 3D, Column 1, Dayton, Ohio. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  8. 1997 December 23, The Tampa Bay Times, My, how Bucs’ fortunes change by Ernest Hooper (Times Staff Writer), Quote Page 1A, Column 2, St. Petersburg, Florida. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  9. 2000 August 20, Boston Sunday Globe, Madden exceeds the hype by Howard Manly, Quote Page D5, Column 5, Boston, Massachusetts. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  10. 2003 January 24, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Warriors roll past Nets by Star-Bulletin wire services, Quote Page B5, Column 2, Honolulu, Hawaii. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
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