[3] Boris was a tobacco industry magnate and owner of a paper factory, a printing house, and Préazosvki Kraï Novosti newspaper.

[3] Around the end of 1917, Hélène, Émilie, and their mother Élisabeth left Russia on a luxury train that took them towards the Black Sea,[3] and then they reached Istanbul, Turkey.

[3][4] During the travel, they cut Hélène's long hair to avoid attracting eye contact from the Bolsheviks.

[3] When she was a student of ethnology, Gordon-Lazareff spent time with surrealists such as Philippe Soupault, who dedicated a poem to her.

[7][9][11] After the outbreak of World War II, she left Paris for New York City with her husband [Pierre] Lazareff, director of Paris-soir.

[13] A year later, the first issue of Elle magazine was published "on paper so coarse and yellow that it reminded her of French bread".

[1] Colour photography and flash were not yet the norm in Post-War France, and the first covers of Elle were thus photographed in Manhattan.

[12] In 1946, Gordon-Lazareff hired journalist Françoise Giroud to be the managing editor of Elle, a position she held until 1953.

[16] In 1949,[1] she met a 15-year-old stranger named Brigitte Bardot on a station platform and simply told her, "Call me".

[12] Pierre Hedrich of L'Obs described Gordon-Lazareff as a "lively woman, always in a Chanel skirt suit set, seductive and authoritative, who puts her feet on her desk and drinks tea all day long".

[12] Alix Girod de l'Ain, a former journalist for Elle, would later explain that "Hélène Lazareff is not a feminist.

[11][19] At Georges Pompidou's request, the Hachette Group paid Gordon-Lazareff her full salary as chief executive of Elle magazine until her death.

[17] The twenty seats at the table were considered "prized", and a list of high-profile personalities would come there by helicopter or sedan, including Harry Belafonte, Habib Bourguiba, Marlon Brando, Maria Callas, Marlene Dietrich, Johnny Hallyday, Henry Kissinger, Martin Luther King, and Aristotle Onassis.

"[12] Bardot, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, Jacques Delors and Romain Gary were regulars at Sunday lunches at the home of the "influential couple" and "unmissable tandem of All-Paris" that Gordon-Lazareff and her husband formed.

[17] General de Gaulle was never invited but insisted that the list of guests from the previous Sunday be communicated to him every Monday morning.

[17] Sunday lunches at la Grille Royale were a crucial source of information and influence for Gordon-Lazareff and her husband.