Charla Krupp, Self-Help Author on Women's Looks, Dies at 58 Charla Krupp, who gained a national following by offering women advice on looking younger and thinner with best-selling books like "How Not to Look Old," died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 58, but looked a perennial 49. The cause was breast cancer, her husband, Richard Zoglin, said. In her books and in more than 100 appearances on the "Today" program on NBC, Ms. Krupp offered down-to-earth style tips intended for real women, not red-carpet icons. Her "five things that will make you thinner by dinner," for example, included a properly fitted brassiere. Women were advised to trade in their "O.L." (Old Lady) granny glasses for sexier frames and to retire their relaxed "mommy jeans" in favor of more svelte styles. "How Not to Look Old," published in 2008, spent 15 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, rising to No. 2 in the advice and how-to category. It sold more than 300,000 copies, according to the book's publisher, Grand Central Publishing. At a moment when many women of a certain age in the United States were debating whether to Botox or not to Botox, the book provided nonsurgical suggestions on how to avoid the appearance of senescence, often delivered as capital-lettered pronouncements like: "NOTHING AGES YOU LIKE ... The book became a style manual intended for women of all stripes, whether they were sales clerks, homemakers, college professors or venture capitalists. "My book is hitting a nerve because I am giving not looking old a spin as if your life depended on it," Ms. Krupp said in an interview with The Times in 2008. But the book's central tenet - that the best way for a woman to counteract ageism is to make a Herculean effort to disguise her age - also invited controversy. Some critics likened the premise to encouraging people to fight prejudice by hiding their ethnicity. Ms. Krupp argued, however, that in an era of ubiquitous cellphone cameras, Facebook photo albums and workplace downsizing, camouflaging one's age was a professional necessity for women. "For our generation, looking younger isn't just about vanity," Ms. Krupp wrote. Looking good is about our personal and financial survival. Charla Miriam Krupp was born on Jan. 29, 1953, in Chicago, the eldest of three children. She grew up in Wilmette, Ill., a Chicago suburb. Her father, Walter Krupp, worked in the clothing business. Her mother, Esther Krupp, is a real estate broker. Interested in journalism at an early age, Ms. Krupp was editor in chief of the school newspaper at New Trier West High School. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1975. After college, she was a summer editorial intern at Mademoiselle magazine in New York City and remained in New York to pursue journalism. Ms. Krupp began investigating the relationship between a woman's attractiveness and her career trajectory early in her own career. At Glamour magazine, where she was entertainment editor from 1980 to 1995, she wrote articles about ageism and salary disparities in Hollywood. One article questioned why Julia Roberts earned less than Sylvester Stallone. Ms. Krupp also introduced "Women of the Year" awards in Glamour's entertainment pages. Ms. Krupp went on to work as a senior editor and television commentator for InStyle magazine; as a beauty director at Glamour; a columnist for More magazine; and a contributing editor at People StyleWatch. In addition to her mother and her husband, Time magazine's theater critic, Ms. Krupp is survived by a sister, Lora Nasby, and a brother, Jay. Ms. Krupp's second personal grooming book, "How to Never Look Fat Again," was published in 2010 and spent four weeks on the Times best-seller list. Like her first advice book, it told women in humorous but blunt terms what to do - and, more important, what not to do - to appear more attractive. Using before-and-after photos titled "High Fat" and "No Fat," the book offered stark illustrations of how a simple change of neckline, hemline, undergarment or accessory could instantly streamline a woman's look. "When you are wearing a choker or any short necklace, you are in effect taking a yellow highlighter and drawing a circle around the circumference of your neck," Ms. Krupp wrote. Who needs that?