Felker, Clay Schuette

▪ 2009

      American magazine editor

born Oct. 2, 1925, St. Louis, Mo.

died July 1, 2008, New York, N.Y.

was credited with the creation of a widely imitated magazine formula during his tenure as editor of New York magazine, which combined glossy pages and unique typography with thoughtful literary articles that targeted the city's intellectual elite. As editor, Felker was both feared and revered and was well known for his confrontational, volatile manner, but much of the magazine's success resulted from the talented writers whom he found and encouraged to contribute to New York, including Gloria Steinem, Jimmy Breslin, and Tom Wolfe. Felker printed his first newspaper, the Greeley Street News, when he was eight years old. He edited the student newspaper at Duke University, Durham, N.C., and after graduating (1951) with a political science degree, he went to work for Life magazine, where he helped develop (1954) Sports Illustrated. In 1963 he joined the staff of the New York Herald Tribune, and a year later he began editing its fledgling Sunday supplement magazine, Today's Living (renamed New York). When the newspaper went out of business in 1967, Felker bought the rights to New York and relaunched it in a newer, hipper format. He purchased (1974) The Village Voice and in 1976 launched New West, a West Coast version of New York, but in 1977 he lost all three magazines in a highly publicized takeover by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Felker edited a number of other publications, and from 1994 he taught at the University of California, Berkeley. The university's Graduate School of Journalism in 1995 established the Clay Felker Magazine Center in his honour.

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