Felker, Clay

Clay Felker was born October 2, 1925 in Webster Groves ( Eng. , Missouri ), in a family of journalists. His father, Karl Felker, worked as an editor at the weekly magazine Sporting News and the monthly catalog of the Sporting Goods Dealer . Mother, Cora Tyree Felker, was the editor of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ^[1] . Clay's ancestors bore the surname of von Fredrikstein and moved to the United States from Germany ^[2] . At the age of eight, he began making his own newspaper for neighbors, later calling it the equivalent of a lemonade stand ^[3] .

At Duke Clay University, he entered the spring of 1942, before graduation, which was not unusual during the war . During his studies, he was the editor of the student newspaper Duke Chronicle ^[1] . Felker's studies at the university were twice interrupted. In the fall of 1943, he went into military service for three years, during which he continued to practice journalism - he worked in the Blue Jacket fleet newspaper, engaged in photography. In the fall of 1948 he was expelled for violation of the curfew. He was able to return back in the fall of 1950, already married to Leslie Blatt Aldridge who had studied with him. In 1951, Felker graduated from the university with a degree in political science. During the break, Clay worked in a group that covered the activities of the New York Giants baseball team. He traveled with the team, worked on statistics, and wrote for newspapers that did not have their field correspondents ^{[3] [4]} .

After graduation, Felker took a job at Life magazine, for which he wrote about sports and politics. Thanks to this experience, Clay later participated in the creation of the magazine Sports Illustrated , which was prepared by the publisher Time Inc. and first released in August 1954. A few more years he worked as a Life political observer in Washington . In 1957, Peter Maas , who was familiar to him from university, recommended Felker to the post of editor at Esquire magazine, where he worked for the next five years. During this period, his style and technique were formed, later called the new journalism ^{[3] [5]} .

Esquire Clay left in 1962, giving way to the post of editor Harold Heys . After that, he advised publishers Viking Press and Curtis Publishing Company . In the same year he married actress Pamela Tiffin ^[6] . This marriage, like the first, ended in divorce in 1969 ^[7] . In 1963, Felker became a consultant to the New York Herald Tribune , and later was appointed editor of the Sunday supplement to it. Under his leadership, the magazine has become a kind of laboratory of new journalism. In 1966, three major New York newspapers — the New York World Telegram and the Sun , the New York Journal-American and the New York Herald Tribune — merged under the name World Journal Tribune . The new edition lasted only ten months and was closed in May 1967. After this, Clay began planning to create his own journal ^[3] .

Received at the time of dismissal of money, he spent on the registration of rights to the name of New York . During the year, he also negotiated with investors, receiving financial support in the amount of 1,100,000 dollars . The editorial office is located in the premises of the art studio Push Pin Studios , owned by Milton Glazer , who became the designer of the new magazine. In 1974, the editors moved to Manhattan . In the same year, Felker began publishing the magazine New West , published in California. The resulting increase in spending two years later forced Clay to look for new investors. However, he rejected the offer to sell the magazine, received from media mogul Rupert Murdoch . It seemed that the magazine would be saved after a ransom offer from the editor of The Washington Post Catherine Graham . However, Murdoch still managed to acquire a 51% stake in the magazine and Felker, with the majority of employees, resigned from the editorial board ^{[2] [3] [5]} .

In 1977, Clay acquired Esquire magazine. Together with him came to the editor and Glazer. Felker expanded the staff and changed the schedule of the magazine, starting to release it every two weeks. He planned to "get back to basics and make Esquire a literate and useful men's magazine." However, his initiatives did not help to improve the financial situation of the magazine and in less than two years Clay sold it ^[3] .

Later he worked as an editor at The Daily News Tonight , Adweek and the magazine Manhattan inc . For a short time, he worked on his weekly project East Side Express . In the early 1980s, Felker collaborated with the Twentieth Century Fox film company. Stories published in his journals became the basis for such films as “ Saturday Night Fever ” and “ City Cowboy ”. In general, the experience of cooperation with the cinema disappointed Clay, who was dissatisfied with the frequent change of leadership in the film company. ^[3] In 1984, he married for the third time. The writer and journalist Gail Sheehy ^[5] became the wife of Felker.

In 1994, Felker became a professor of journalism at Berkeley . A year later, the university also opened a center named after him ^{[2] [3]} .

Clay Felker died on July 1, 2008 at his home in Manhattan. In the last years of his life, he suffered from cancer of the larynx . ^[2]