On this day...

... in 1935, Ray Long, one of the most powerful magazine editors of his day and reportedly the best paid, killed himself with a rifle at his home in Beverly Hills. In 1931, after 13 years as editor of Cosmopolitan and head of Hearst's entire magazine group, Long quit to join a book publisher. He soon abandoned that job to sail to the South Seas. Near the end of his life he tried and failed to establish himself as a scenario editor at several Hollywood studios. Time magazine's report on his death quotes a friend as recalling, "He said he guessed he had passed his peak." At his death, Long was 57.