But despite John’s efforts to turn the focus to more meaningful issues, he remained the spectacle. During the question-and-answer session, many audience members used their index cards to convey home phone numbers and lipstick kisses instead of hard-hitting questions. John, always the showman, jokingly put one of the cards in his pocket, but he maintained his professional manner. The only bit of his private life that he revealed was, in response to a question, that his childhood idols were Mick Jagger and Muhammad Ali.
Following the Adcraft event, both Berman and Kennedy watched with surprise as advertiser interest in the magazine grew steadily. Their original proposal had budgeted only thirty pages of ads, but now they faced overwhelming attention. To help deal with the advertising deluge, they recruited Elinore Carmody, who boasted fifteen years’ experience in the world of magazine publishing, including stints at New York magazine and, most recently, at Hachette-owned Tell magazine. The timing could not have been more perfect, as Elinore had just taken some time off after getting married. Pecker hadn’t wanted to completely cut ties, so he told her, “Go get married, come back, and I will have something for you.”
A few months later, when Elinore read in the New York Post about John’s fledgling magazine, she informed Pecker she would love to be involved in the venture. Not only did she know that the magazine would attract plenty of attention because of John, but also she liked the unique concept. Elinore arranged a meeting to discuss coming aboard. “My first impressions were very positive about both John and Michael,” she reflected. “I thought they were smart guys who did their homework, conducted research, and had clearly worked closely with consultants.”
At that meeting, they asked Elinore if she could estimate how many advertising pages the magazine would attract. “It’s not a question of how much; it’s a question of how much you can handle,” she said. John and Michael seemed shocked when she told them they could have at least a hundred pages of ads, probably more. Elinore’s confidence came from an informal survey she had conducted among her advertiser friends. The two founders had not realized how much the fashion industry would embrace George. Professionals in the advertising world associated Hachette with automotive, liquor, and other brands. But not fashion. However, Elinore called a friend, the marketing director at the fashion house Giorgio Armani, and asked, “I am going to call on you. What are you going to say?” Her friend promised to fax the offer to headquarters in Milan, Italy, and assured Elinore that Armani would instantly agree. At that moment, Elinore sensed that George would draw a wider range of advertisers, from both female-driven fashion and male-driven automotive industries, than most other magazines.
Elinore insisted that the magazine produce a prototype to present to advertisers. “I knew from experience that advertisers need to see something, they need to look at something, they need to touch something, they need to have the sense of the feel of it, the look and feel of it,” she said. Pecker, unwilling to spend the money, resisted, but John and Michael agreed. The prototype ended up being a huge hit, boosting their confidence that they truly had “a real magazine” on their hands, something that did not depend solely on John’s cult of personality. “It legitimized the adventure,” Elinore recalled.
Soon enough, all the major fashion brands hopped on board. Elinore requested all advertisers to purchase the same number of ads, at the same price, in the second edition. Their top advertisers included the biggest names in fashion: Armani, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Gianni Versace, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein Fragrance, Abercrombie & Fitch, Isaac Mizrahi, Donna Karan, Ellen Tracy, Nautica, Neiman Marcus, Reebok, and Anne Klein. At one point, the roster grew so long that they had to stop selling advertising space. “We were getting near to close,” she remembered; there wasn’t going to be enough editorial to support any more advertising.” Demand was outstripping supply at such a rapid rate that Michael told Elinore, “I know this sounds crazy, but you got to stop selling.”
These many advertisers had different motives for buying into George, ranging from the idealistic to the practical. Some hoped that George would grow into a successful crossover magazine, just as John and Berman envisioned. “It’s different than being in a purely fashion magazine. Maybe it’s the next Vanity Fair,” explained Sam Shahid, head of an agency that placed ads for Abercrombie & Fitch in the first two issues. Tommy Hilfiger embraced the concept, saying: “People in my age group are certainly interested in learning about politics from a younger angle. I think it will go beyond politics. I think it has a really good shot.” Others had more immediate reasons, simply buying into the buzz surrounding the magazine. “Isn’t exposure the whole point of advertising?” said Donna Karan, while according to Ann Richardson, vice president of advertising at Neiman Marcus, “Part of our thinking was it will be a launch that will get a lot of publicity and generate an exceptional amount of interest. We figure it will reach an educated and affluent audience, which is right for us.” She added, “Down the road, we’ll see if the interest stays past the first few issues.”
One of the fashion advertisers who expressed interest in the magazine was Valentino, whose full name was Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani, a favorite designer for socialites and Hollywood royalty, including Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, and John’s mom. In 1964 Mrs. Kennedy ordered six black-and-white dresses, which she wore during the year following JFK’s assassination. Valentino also designed the dress that she wore when she married Aristotle Onassis in 1968.
John wasn’t sure why Valentino needed to meet with him personally, but Berman knew exactly why. “He wants to meet you,” he said. They were eating lunch at Valentino’s Fifth Avenue apartment with a few other people when the fashion designer interrupted the conversation. “John, may I ask you a question?”
“Yes, of course. Ask me anything.”
“I know that when your mother died, you sold off many of her things.”
“Yes, we did. She lived differently than my sister and me. We thought other people would enjoy her, and that would have made Mummy happy. They are bringing joy to other people.”
“Your mother’s clothes . . . what happened to your mother’s clothes? I notice you didn’t auction off any of those. During your mother’s lifetime, I must’ve designed her a hundred beautiful custom dresses that I was so proud to make for her. I would like to buy those dresses from you. They are among the most beautiful I’ve ever created.”
“We don’t have the dresses.”
“You don’t have the dresses? You sold the dresses?”
“No, we couldn’t bear the thought of walking down the street and seeing people in her clothes, so we gave them away.”
At this point, Valentino was practically gasping for air. “You gave away my dresses? My beautiful dresses? Who did you give them to?”
“Well, Mr. Valentino, sir, we gave them to a convent in Rhode Island.”
“You gave my dresses to a convent? Why?”
“We just thought it was a good home for them. Just think how happy those sisters are when the lights go down at night and everybody has gone home, and they turn up some music and are twirling around in your clothes.”
Valentino was just one of many potential advertisers whom John met personally. It seemed that two or three times a week, John found himself attending an event or dinner. He understood that he needed to get advertisers to buy space in his magazine, but he resented the way Pecker seemed to be putting him on display. Pecker had one of the biggest celebrities in the world in his stable, and he planned to use him. He dragged John to all kinds of events, even some unrelated to George. On one occasion, Pecker was being honored by a Jewish organization in Manhattan and asked John to attend. As usual, John was late and came strolling down the center aisle wearing a tuxedo after everyone else had already been seated. The event, however, was not a black-tie dinner. John sat down at the head table next to GM’s Michael Browner, leaned over, and said, �
��Am I the only jerk wearing a tuxedo?” Michael looked around the room and said, “No, the waiters are wearing tuxedos.” Without missing a beat, John took his napkin, draped it over his arm, and went around the table taking drink orders.
CHAPTER 8
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MEET GEORGE!”
Having built a firm foundation of advertising revenue, John and Michael turned their attention to hiring editors who could help realize their vision of a magazine that used pop culture to make politics more accessible. Over the next three months, they interviewed numerous candidates to fill important roles on the team. John wanted smart individuals with experience in journalism, but he had an additional criterion. He would often say, “Would you want to see this person every day, and could they be your friend?” It was not that John was hunting for new friends; rather, he remained concerned about his privacy. He would now be surrounded daily by people working closely together in an intense environment. Apprehensive about being so exposed, he wanted coworkers who were not only smart but also trustworthy. According to senior editor Elizabeth “Biz” Mitchell, he also cared about the work environment, “and he really believed you needed a place to work where you were happy every day to see the people there.”
Mitchell, twenty-eight, had originally been considered for the position of executive editor. As an editor at Spin, she ran investigative features on subjects ranging from the Irish Republican Army to the opium trade in Myanmar. Mitchell had graduated with honors from Brown and had planned to leave Spin to enter a program at Cambridge University to study political history, but she put her academic career on hold when she learned about the opportunity at George. Her own writing, which found homes in varied publications such as the New York Observer, Glamour, and The Guardian, made her an ideal fit for George. She did not want her colleagues at Spin to know that she was interviewing for a new job. The first few times that John called Biz at work, she received messages that John Kennedy from George called, so she asked him to use an alias when he contacted her at the office. One day she got a message that “Steve Kennedy” was on the line. “You have to come up with a better disguise than that,” she told him. Also on the short list was thirty-eight-year-old Eric Etheridge, who had held jobs at The Nation, Harper’s, and Rolling Stone before becoming executive editor of the New York Observer in 1994.
In the end, both Berman and Kennedy believed they needed a more seasoned editor than Biz. Since neither John nor Michael had any experience in publishing, they required someone who could handle the nuts and bolts of running a magazine. More important, their ideal executive editor would be capable of sending a clear message that the magazine should be taken seriously. Based on this calculation, they offered the position to the highly experienced Etheridge and brought on Biz as a senior editor.
Etheridge then recruited Rich Blow, a thirty-year-old editor of the recently defunct Washington-based business magazine Regardie’s. Blow had sterling academic credentials. After earning an undergraduate degree in history at Yale, he entered a highly competitive and demanding PhD program in American Civilization at Harvard. Although he completed all the required coursework, he left before writing a dissertation because he felt that he had found his calling in journalism, not academia. Despite his academic pedigree, Blow, whose father had been an editor at Reader’s Digest, “always felt a kinship with outsiders and the less than powerful.”
Since George’s distinctive mark would be as a serious but nonetheless eye-catching glossy magazine, John knew he needed a top-notch creative director. To fill that position, he hired Matt Berman (no relation to Michael), who worked for Elle, another Hachette-owned magazine. Matt bore a striking resemblance to actor Matt Dillon, and often bragged about his ignorance of politics, but he possessed a creative mind and a clear sense of what fashion advertisers wished to see in a magazine. John repeated his slogan that George would exist at the intersection of politics and pop culture, empowering Matt to discover how to represent that relatively vague concept in visual terms.
Gary Ginsberg, John’s friend since their days at Brown, came on board as a senior editor and legal counsel. John not only trusted Gary’s journalistic instincts but also enjoyed his company outside of work. The two men were as comfortable battling each other on the racquetball court as they were debating story ideas in the office. Early on, Michael Berman instructed Gary to require every staff member to sign a nondisclosure agreement in case any disgruntled staff members decided to sell a story to the tabloids or write a book about their experiences at George. Gary went to all the staffers and told them it was important to John that they sign the agreement.
Ginsberg’s request ignited an early confrontation with a few of the editors. Biz Mitchell signed after Gary amended the agreement so that it applied only to John’s personal life. Richard Blow held out the longest, claiming that the nondisclosure agreement allegedly violated his First Amendment rights. Eventually John delivered an ultimatum: “If you don’t sign it, you are gone.” Blow agreed reluctantly, but apparently he never intended to honor the agreement. Two years after John died, Blow penned American Son, an insightful and sympathetic account of John’s time at the magazine, but one that could only have been based on meticulous note taking.
By the end of May, the staff had filled out with the addition of three associate editors: Rachel Clark (who came from Esquire), Manny Howard (New York), and Hugo Lindgren (Metropolis). Not one of them had worked for a political magazine before. But John believed that each understood his vision and possessed the creativity to execute it. “I’m trying to create something different,” he told them, “and your nonpolitical background will be an asset.” When Matt Berman confessed that he knew nothing about politics, John said he possessed the ideal qualifications because “you are going to be working on a magazine for people who don’t know much about politics.”
Now they faced the seemingly insurmountable task of producing the inaugural issue in just three months, because it had to be shipped to the printer by the beginning of August. That challenge required the small staff to develop story ideas, designate writers, edit pieces, and prepare for publication. “I had something like six features to assign and edit, and they were not simple features,” reflected Mitchell. “It was grueling.” The staff worked forty days straight, many of which extended well past midnight. Following one day off, they returned promptly for another forty uninterrupted days.
What impressed the staff was that John remained there with them, laboring in the trenches day and night. “Whenever we thought we were working too hard, we would look over and see John slaving alongside us,” recalled a senior editor. “Here is a guy who could do anything he wanted, but he is sweating along with the staff.” Sometimes John would take a break in the afternoon, watching a movie at a nearby theater or going to the park to toss around a Frisbee. In the evenings, he often ate at a popular Brazilian restaurant, Rice ’n’ Beans, before returning to the office to continue late into the night.
John’s office reflected his varied interests and links to the past. On any given day, there might be a stack of books surrounded by half-eaten meals and sweaty gym clothes. On his wall hung a black-and-white picture of Mick Jagger in Hyannis and a photo of John as a boy on his father’s shoulders. Other reminders of his dad were scattered around the office. There was the American flag that had been planted on the moon in 1969 and then returned to Earth and given to his family to honor JFK for daring the nation to accomplish this feat by the end of the sixties.
Directly behind his desk hung the frame containing the signed portraits of every president from Washington to JFK. I had first spied the frame years earlier when it was hanging in John’s bedroom. I immediately appreciated its value, realizing that many of these signatures, especially those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, were rare, and for them to be together made this a valuable historical document. When I had asked him how he got possession of it, John told an interesting story. He sa
id that in the days after his father’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson invited him to the Oval Office. Before John left, Johnson took the frame off the wall and handed it to him, and he’d had it ever since. (It’s a story that I have tried but failed to verify. But if true, that rare piece of history probably belongs to the US National Archives and Records Administration.)
As suggested by the contents of his office, John’s greatest problem was that he was pulled in many different directions and easily distracted. In addition to his usual family demands and his need to exercise, John performed dual roles at the magazine. He served as an editor but also often found himself on the road meeting with potential advertisers. “He was a combination of highly attentive and then sometimes not,” Mitchell said. “He would be very engaged at certain times, but his focus was difficult to maintain because of his other commitments.”
Throughout the day, John faced constant interruptions. Hachette executives needed to see him, while staff from other Hachette publications found excuses to roam the George floor, hoping for a JFK Jr. sighting. According to RoseMarie, young women from Elle “turned John spotting into an ongoing contest.” Maintenance workers visited their floor to change unburned lightbulbs or fix the unbroken thermostat. Celebrities wandered the hallways searching for him. It was not unusual to spy supermodel Cindy Crawford, or rapper Sean Combs (Puff Daddy), or actress Demi Moore coming out of John’s office. On one occasion, John invited Muhammad Ali, his childhood idol, to visit him. In the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, the three-time heavyweight boxing champion had tremors but was able to communicate. Since there were no African Americans among the senior staff at George, John sent word to the largely black maintenance staff that Ali was in his office and invited them to meet him. For an hour, the George space, normally home to young white professionals, was overwhelmed by older, largely African American representatives from cleaning crews, clerical staff, and maintenance workers who managed to meet two of the most famous people in the world.
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