When editors were gods

The editor who took on Davy Crockett

Sixty-four years ago this month, John Fischer, editor of Harper’s magazine, made nationwide headlines when he took on an unlikely foe: the late Davy Crockett.

Crockett, who died during the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, had recently been resurrected and thoroughly Disneyfied for a series of episodes on the “Disneyland” TV show and a movie spinoff. Disney’s Crockett, played by actor Fess Parker, proved hugely popular with elementary schoolers, setting off a craze for coonskin caps that, happily for the raccoon population, seem to have been made from fake fur.

The show’s hit theme song, “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” further burnished the legend, crowning Crockett the “king of the wild frontier” and enumerating his many supposed achievements, from killing his first bear at age three, to fighting battles almost single-handedly, and “fixin’ up” the government in Washington after his fellow Tennesseans sent him to Congress for a couple of terms. He also seems to have found time to repair the Liberty Bell.

That was all a bit much for Fischer, who in the July 1955 issue of his magazine, decided to set the record straight.

Fischer’s Crockett was a “juvenile delinquent” who ran away from home at age 13, deserted his wife after she had “produced a small herd of children” for him, “weaseled his way out of the army by hiring a substitute,” and “was never king of anything except maybe the Tennessee Tall Tales and Bourbon Samplers’ Association.” 

Fischer didn’t think much of the Alamo, either, calling it the “worst blooper in American military history, short of Pearl Harbor,” which began when “a little band of hotheads occupied an indefensible and strategically dubious outpost, in defiance of orders from their commander-in-chief.”

As Fischer might have expected, especially since he’d once lived in Texas himself, debunking Davy didn’t go over especially well in Alamo territory.

The San Antonio Light reported that the local chamber of commerce responded by launching a “Dollars for Davy” campaign, which it hoped would bring thousands of visitors to the city to “see and hear the true story of the heroic defense of the Alamo” during Davy Crockett week, starting on his birthday, August 17.

“Committee officials said Texans throughout nation are up in arms in defense of Davy and the Alamo,” the article noted, adding that Fischer would be getting a special invitation to attend the celebration.

A subsequent article noted that the editor had declined politely. And perhaps wisely.

Two famous editors, one legendary TV fiasco

On this day (June 6) in 1978, two notable magazine figures — Harold Hayes, the highly regarded editor of Esquire during its 1960s glory years, and Robert Hughes, longtime art editor of Time — made their network TV debut as co-hosts of a new ABC news magazine program, “20/20.”

It didn’t go well.

As the Washington Post observed, “Critics from coast to coast and from border to border exhausted a vocabulary of abuse.”

Indeed, the reviews were anything but mixed.

Jay Sharbutt of the Associated Press: “ABC should hang this show in shame.”

Tom Shales of the Washington Post: “an animated smudge on the great lens of television and probably the trashiest stab at candycane journalism yet made by a TV network.”

John J. O’Connor of the New York Times: “pointless…. dizzyingly absurd.”

Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times: “shallow, journalistically unsound and just plain dull.”

An anonymous NBC executive quoted by the Washington Post’s John Carmody: “the kind of show that gives bad taste a bad name.”

What got everybody so worked up?

Much of the criticism had to do with the rapid pace of the show and its jarring mix of fluffy and violent stories. As Sharbutt described it, the program “had greyhounds tearing apart rabbits, Flip Wilson crying, California Gov. Jerry Brown boring, a Greek tanker exploding, a former teen-aged nuclear extortionist reminiscing and some closing thoughts about the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.” Not to mention a claymation puppet of then-President Jimmy Carter lip-synching along with Ray Charles’s “Georgia on My Mind.”

The hosts, too, came in for some criticism, faulted for their stiff presentation and even their accents (Hayes being from North Carolina, Hughes from Australia). But while they seem to have been the least of the show’s problems, their talking heads were the first to roll. They were replaced for the second episode by the genial Hugh Downs, a familiar face to TV viewers.

At least one critic came to Hayes’s and Hughes’s defense. Sort of. Marvin Kitman of Newsday wrote that, “the firing of the anchormen completely overlooks the fact that the problem was content, not hosts. The stories with and without Hayes and Hughes seem to be just meaningless sensationalism: blood and gore and potential disaster for us all.”

Next time you have 57:48 to kill, you can see for yourself onYouTube. But be warned...

Hayes and Hughes both went on to other, happier projects before their deaths in 1989 and 2012, respectively. As to  "20/20," it is now in its 41st season.

The magazine editor who inspired a '70s sitcom

Frances Lear, founder of Lear's, a pioneering magazine for older women, died in New York City on this day (September 30) in 1996. Lear spent a reported $25 million of her $100-plus million divorce settlement from TV producer Norman Lear to launch her magazine, which started up in 1988 and survived for six years. She was also widely reported to be the model for the title character in her husband's 1970s sitcom Maude. Her autobiography is "The Second Seduction" (Knopf, 1992).

The editor who supposedly inspired a sitcom character

Frances Lear, founder, funder, and editor-in-chief of Lear's, a pioneering magazine for women over a certain age, was born in the Vanderheusen Home for Wayward Girls in Hudson, New York, on this day (July 14) in 1923. Lear, who invested an estimated $25 million in the magazine, died in 1996. Her memoir is "The Second Seduction" (Knopf, 1992). Though she has been described as inimitable, among other things, Lear was supposedly the inspiration for the 1970s sitcom character Maude. 

Anybody with Frances Lear tales to share (and I have heard many over the years) is encouraged to post them here...

The editor/architect who helped design House and Garden

Herbert C. Wise, an architect who was one of three founding editors of House & Garden magazine, died on this day (June 11) in 1945, on the eve of his 72nd birthday. Wise was also the uncle of Bennett Cerf, the celebrated book publisher and "What's My Line?" panelist.

 

The magazine guy whose death gave birth to an urban legend

It was on this day (June 8) in 1971 that J.I. Rodale, founder of magazines such as Organic Farming and Prevention, died on the set during a taping of "The Dick Cavett Show." Though the incident lives on in legend, and many people swear they've seen it, it apparently was never broadcast.

TV Guide makes its debut, 1953

TV Guide published its first national issue on this day (April 3) in 1953. Its cover subject was another newborn, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV. Priced at 15 cents, the issue sold 1.56 million copies.

 

The magazine founder who was the model for 'Maude'

Frances Lear, founder of Lear's, a pioneering magazine for older women, died in New York City on this day (September 30) in 1996. Lear spent a reported $25 million of her $100-plus million divorce settlement from TV producer Norman Lear to launch her magazine, which started up in 1988 and survived for six years. She was also widely reported to be the model for the title character in her husband's 1970s sitcom Maude. Her autobiography is "The Second Seduction" (Knopf, 1992).

On this day...

... in 1971, J.I. Rodale, founder of magazines such as Organic Farming and Prevention, died on the set during a taping of "The Dick Cavett Show." Though the incident lives on in legend, and many people swear they've seen it, it apparently was never broadcast.

On this day...

... in 1957, Kenneth Gould, editor-in-chief of Scholastic magazines, was narrowly defeated by Charles Van Doren, a Columbia University instructor, on the rigged TV game show "Twenty-One," later the basis of the 1994 movie "Quiz Show."

Also on this day, in 1994, Spy magazine folded.

On this day...

...in 1925, Shana Alexander was born in New York City. Probably best remembered today for her debates with James J. Kilpatrick on "60 Minutes" and the parodies of same on "Saturday Night Live," Alexander had an earlier career as a magazine editor, including stints as entertainment editor at Flair and editor of McCall's. She died in 2005. (Incidentally, Alexander's father, Milton Ager, wrote the music for "Happy Days Are Here Again" and "Ain't She Sweet.")

On this day...

... in 1971, J.I. Rodale, founder of magazines such as Organic Farming and Prevention, died on the set during a taping of "The Dick Cavett Show." Though the incident lives on in legend, and many people swear they've seen it, it apparently was never broadcast.