Word: macfaddens
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...nation's lesser known press moguls, cagey, crag-faced O. J. Elder, 63, has peddled vicarious thrills for 43 years. For 38 of those years, he served Bernarr ("Body Love") Macfadden. Since 1941, when he led a successful minority-stockholder revolt against his old boss, O.J. (as his employes respectfully call him) has been president of the Macfadden-less Macfadden Publications, content to hide anonymously behind the circulation-catching Macfadden name. Last week Elder launched a slick addition to his string of eight magazines (True Story, Photoplay, etc.). He had designed it for the most determinedly vicarious thrill-sharers...
...editor, Elder signed on another old Macfadden hand, ex-Liberty Editor Ernest V. Heyn. To write his first number Heyn lined up such big leaguers as Bill Tilden and Bill Stern, brought in Grantland Rice as consulting editor. The first issue, out this week, featured big picture spreads on such top-notchers as Joe Di Maggio, Ben Hogan, Ted Williams, Joe Louis. Readers would get no exposes of sports. O.J. assumes that all his readers are hero worshipers, will give his subjects the same kind of glorifying treatment that his movie magazines give screen stars...
When minority stockholders bought out his fat string of publications in 1941, one of the conditions was that the carrot-chomping millionaire physical culturist would give them no direct competition for the next five years. The five years are up in October. Last week, ancient (77) Bernarr Macfadden was all ready to announce the debut of the new Bernarr Macfadden's Detective Magazine, to appear then...
...Macfadden already has one magazine going: his old standby, Physical Culture, which he bought back for peanuts three years ago, after the stockholders had practically run it into the ground by trying to make a beauty magazine out of it. Culture, which once had 340,000 circulation, still has only...
Other magazines coming up when paper is available are a true story, and a true radio. As editor and publisher of them all, Macfadden will draw no pay, will continue to live on his $2,000 monthly annuity. He still leaps over chairs, does somersaults to prove his agility, scoffs at retiring. Says he: "The only place to retire is to the cemetery...