America's Reluctant Prince

by Steven M. Gillon

  By the end of 1994, it appeared that George was dead. “We were a little dejected at the time,” Berman recalled. Little did they know that they would soon find an unlikely ally.

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  David Pecker was born in 1951 in the Bronx, the son of a bricklayer. After graduating from Pace University, he worked as an accountant for the prestigious firm Price Waterhouse. In 1979 he secured a position as a bean counter at CBS’s magazine division, then quickly ascended the ranks to become company vice president. Eventually the magazine division was sold to Hachette Filipacchi Magazines, which named Pecker its new president in 1990. He rapidly cultivated a reputation as “the bad boy of magazine publishing.” His critics dismissed him as a “used car salesman” and a “bottom fisher” who presided over a “bargain basement” empire. He had raised Hachette’s profile in the United States by buying failing magazines, cutting staff to reduce costs, and offering big discounts to advertisers. Sometimes he tailored the editorial content of his magazines to suit advertisers. His tactics, however unconventional, worked. He made Elle the number two fashion magazine behind Vogue and ahead of Harper’s Bazaar. He was also central to the success of Metropolitan Home and Car and Driver.

  Pecker, with his slick black hair and thick mustache, relished his bad-boy image in the industry. He was a larger-than-life figure who swaggered around the office and did little to hide his ruthless ambition. He thought there was nothing that money and success could not buy. John used to tell the story about a conversation he overheard between Pecker and his wife. Pointing out that they did not have children, she asked him, “Who will mourn us when we are dead?” Pecker responded: “We will hire people.”

  Hachette’s president was not the kind of person John ever imagined being in business with; in fact, for most of his life, he had studiously avoided celebrity hounds like David Pecker. But facing a string of rejections, John probably realized he could not be picky.

  Kennedy had approached Pecker at a benefit dinner in June 1994. According to Pecker, after John introduced himself, he immediately started detailing his idea, but other people came between them, and they never finished the conversation. When Pecker returned to the office, his director of communications mentioned that John had also pitched him his magazine idea at the event. “I was really interested,” Pecker recalled, but for the next few months, his calls to John went unanswered. Now running low on options, John finally decided to return the call. “I just want you to know we have a lot of interest, and not just in having lunch with John Kennedy,” Pecker told him.

  A few weeks later, Pecker made a dinner reservation at an Italian restaurant on East Sixtieth Street in Manhattan. He arrived first and watched as John pulled up on a bicycle, despite the frigid December night, with a briefcase slung over his shoulder. John confided that he had approached several other publishers, but none believed in the concept. Pecker knew that under normal circumstances, a magazine combining politics and pop culture could never work. John and Michael had conducted a successful test showing there was interest in the concept even without John’s name attached. But attracting advertisers would be the challenge. Could John’s fame and celebrity overcome this obstacle and make such a combination plausible? Pecker planned to find out, using John to sell not only George but also the other magazines in his stable. Most important, he intended to raise Hachette’s national presence and to elevate his own profile. According to Wenner Media executive Kent Brownridge, “every fucking publisher in New York” had turned John down, but Pecker “instantly saw the world’s greatest ad sales machine was standing right in front of him.”

  John made it clear, however, that he did not want his celebrity to overwhelm the magazine. “I want the magazine to speak for itself,” he said. The conversation at this first meeting set the tone for the next few years, with Hachette desperately trying to commercialize John’s celebrity and Kennedy resisting. This tension was never resolved.

  Pecker inquired whether John was developing the magazine on his own. John told him about Berman and his background. “You should be the editor, and since Berman is a PR guy, he should be the publisher,” Pecker stated. They agreed to hold a follow-up meeting that would include Berman as well as members of Pecker’s team. “Look,” Pecker said, “I love your idea. I love your concept. I appreciate the research you have done already. But I am going to put together a little SWAT team.”

  They worked over the next week to produce an executive summary, a white paper, and a business plan showcasing the magazine. The new blueprint was far more ambitious than anything Berman or Kennedy had imagined. Their initial proposal aimed for a circulation of 150,000, whereas Pecker had his sights set on more than double that: 400,000. It would require an initial investment of $20 million, but Hachette estimated that George could turn a profit in two and a half to three years. The first year, it would appear only on newsstands. The plan was to publish twice in 1995 before going bimonthly in 1996, with the possibility of switching to monthly later that year to provide coverage of the upcoming presidential election.

  Pecker hoped that John’s celebrity would allow him to make a big splash in the magazine world. “The original plan has changed one hundred eighty degrees,” he told the trade magazine Mediaweek. “This is more of a Vanity Fair type of launch.” Vanity Fair, with its celebrity writers and renowned photographers, exercised enormous influence and was considered the grande dame of magazines. Now, with John in tow, Pecker dreamed of adding to his stable a magazine that could compete against the venerable Vanity Fair.

  Pecker relished John’s celebrity stature and rarely missed an opportunity to exploit it. Several George editors complained that the publishing executive used Kennedy for his own benefit. “He treated John as a possession,” said one. “He was like a toy. He was like a shiny object that he could tout to these advertisers and potential advisors and people he wanted to rub elbows with.” Pecker’s memories of working with John are filled with images of hysterical women, surging crowds, and flashing cameras. Reflecting on their trip to Paris to sell the concept to the French, Pecker said, “John was a rock star. From the time we got into the Charles de Gaulle Airport and walked through the airport to get our bags, to the time we arrived at the hotel, people were screaming as if he was Mick Jagger.”

  The day after their arrival in Paris, they sat down with the French executives. The session could not have begun more awkwardly. Pecker had warned CEO Daniel Filipacchi that under no circumstances was he or anyone else to refer to their guest as John-John. But as soon as they walked into the room, Filipacchi greeted him that way. “He was pissed,” Pecker recalled. “He was clearly pissed.” Apparently, the French were as starstruck as Pecker, who described John’s presentation as “mesmerizing.” Despite the uncomfortable start, the French left the meeting convinced.

  At Berman’s suggestion, they announced the partnership on February 22, 1995: Washington’s birthday. Since he believed that he had more experience, and, frankly, was the more reliable partner, Michael wanted 51 percent controlling interest of their share of the business, but John balked at the idea, and they ended up splitting their 50 percent share equally, while Hachette controlled the other 50 percent. Neither man put any of his own money on the table. They both considered John’s celebrity status as their investment. The contract called for a salary plus a performance bonus that could potentially pay each of them $1 million a year.

  That evening, Pecker organized a special dinner at Rao’s in East Harlem, one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city. The upscale setting seemed the perfect place to celebrate two years of hard work and sacrifice. David brought his wife, Karen, and Michael’s wife, Victoria, joined in the celebration. John came alone. Even Madonna and actress Sharon Stone, who were sitting at an adjacent table, decided to join them for the festivities.

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  With the contract signed, George moved into the Hachette Buildi
ng, a forty-eight-floor skyscraper constructed of black glass and steel and located at Broadway and Fifty-First Street. They set up camp on the forty-fourth floor, in a windowless conference room containing three metal desks, three computers, two phones, and no watercooler. “I couldn’t believe we were stuck in such a shabby hole,” RoseMarie Terenzio reflected. But John was composed. “This is the life,” he said.

  At this point, George magazine consisted of only three people: John, Michael, and RoseMarie. But it soon became apparent that John and Michael would not be treated as equal partners. Within a few weeks, someone from Hachette arrived to escort them to their individual offices. John received a large, beautiful corner office with two waist-to-ceiling windows that offered sweeping views of the Hudson River to the west and Central Park to the north. Michael, on the other hand, got a small cubicle. “It was predictable, and almost laughable,” he recalled. But it also reminded him that even though he and John had begun this enterprise jointly, Berman would always be overshadowed by his celebrity colleague. John found the whole arrangement ridiculous and rushed to Michael’s defense, “Look, if you want me to go up and talk to them, I am happy to do that.” He did exactly that, and Michael was switched to a more appropriate space.

  But a much bigger problem than office space arose on that first day. Up to that point, everyone had theoretically agreed about the magazine, its name, and its purpose. Now Hachette argued unexpectedly that the magazine should be more akin to People, revolving around John’s life. The company’s editorial director, Jean-Louis Ginibre, wanted the magazine to write puff pieces about the powerful celebrities and politicians they needed for their covers, and he insisted that John write as many as seven articles per issue. He even proposed a different name—Crisscross—since the magazine would operate at the intersection of power, money, and culture.

  Upon learning of the plan, John erupted in anger. “He was furious,” recalled Berman. “He was beyond furious.” Both men felt betrayed. During early negotiations, there had been no ambiguity about the magazine’s name or about John’s role in it. Suddenly, on the first day, Hachette derailed all of their carefully developed plans. “It was amateur hour,” said Berman. “John was freaking out.” Berman assured John that he would handle this latest setback himself. John gave him clear instructions: “Look,” he said, “we are going to walk out right now. We couldn’t have been any clearer about what this magazine was about. And you know this is not a John Kennedy fan magazine. I am the editor, and that’s all. If they think they got me in the door so that they could compete with People magazine, then they are completely wrong.” Berman delivered the message. Pecker quickly apologized and dropped the issue. “It was,” Michael recalled, “a very unpleasant first day.”

  The incident highlighted an important dimension of John’s leadership style. John preferred to remain above the fray, avoid conflict and confrontation, and have someone he trusted play the role of bad cop. “Suddenly the struggle over the direction of the magazine is very serious,” an anonymous source told the author Michael Gross. “There are different conceptions. John is smart, but he lacks an edge. He’s one of the least assertive people you’ll ever meet; he’s never had to assert himself—he’s John Kennedy! Now, suddenly, he’s in a huge corporation. He wants a magazine of ideas with a sugar coating. They want a political People.” For the first time in his life, John found himself thrust into the brutal and often uncompromising style of corporate politics, and, for now, he trusted Berman to protect his back.

  Along with these early struggles over the new magazine’s scope, they also needed to recruit advertisers. Hachette had close ties with General Motors, which was not only a major car manufacturer but also the largest advertiser in the world, spending $1 billion on media every year. Pecker and John traveled to Detroit to meet with Linda Thomas Brooks, an executive vice president whose team handled strategic planning and buying across all General Motors brands. Thomas Brooks found both the magazine and its celebrity editor intriguing. Here was a publication that aimed to appeal to a younger demographic while demonstrating the same quality control, thoughtful editorial tone, and meaningful content of more traditional magazines. “It was just different from everything else out there,” she recalled. “We saw things all the time that were either the same or just slightly different from what already existed in the market. When John brought this in, I didn’t realize what a hole in the market existed. But it was there, and John found it. That’s why I thought it was interesting.”

  Unlike his very first attempts to court investors, John impressed Linda and the members of her team. “He had assimilated enough of the publishing business to have a meaningful understanding of the business,” she recalled. “He learned the game.” They had worked with celebrity editors before, but John appeared different. “He had obviously got himself schooled in what it really meant and how it worked.” He had become an expert on the interplay between politics and culture. He spoke passionately about how young people hungered for more information about the political process but had nowhere to turn. George, he said, was designed to locate future “thought leaders”—those who wished to have an impact on communities at home and abroad. There were, however, still unanswered questions: What was the editorial going to include? In essence, they needed to develop a unique style and voice that would distinguish George from other magazines and then assign articles that would communicate their distinctive message to readers.

  Linda asked John to return to Detroit later to meet her boss, Michael Browner, who had met his wife while campaigning for John’s father in 1960. Browner, GM’s executive director of media and marketing operations, eagerly welcomed John, who explained the magazine concept and asked him to place an advertising order. “I didn’t know whether or not George was going to be a big success,” Browner reflected, admitting, “I did not immediately fall in love with the concept.” But he hoped that John’s personal charisma and celebrity, along with the backing of a professional media company such as Hachette, would enable this unconventional magazine to both survive and thrive. What impressed him most was how John talked about politics, without malice: “It wasn’t left-wing politics or right-wing politics; it was how interesting the subject of politics could be.” Browner always thought of politics as a clash between two parties, but “John talked about it in a way that transcended partisanship. I was extremely impressed by him.”

  Most advertisers, along with Hachette executives, viewed John as a convenient tool to sell more magazines. John, however, longed to be taken seriously as an editor and as a businessman. He faced a delicate balancing act: he wanted to contribute just enough of himself to attract attention to the magazine, but he never wanted the magazine to be about him. In his meetings with both Thomas Brooks and Browner, John insisted that the new publication must succeed based on its quality, not his celebrity. “He did not want to turn it into a JFK Jr. magazine,” Browner reflected. While Browner believed that the magazine would have had a greater chance of success had John included more of his personal life in its pages, he admitted that “it would not have been the magazine that John wanted to edit.”

  But for all John’s inner conflict, no one could fully ignore the realities of his fame. Toward the end of the Browner meeting, a staff member came into the conference room and asked Linda to leave. “We have to take him out the back way,” she said. Word had spread that John was in the building, and the lobby had filled up with curious bystanders and reporters. They ended up smuggling John out through the freight elevator and into a car behind the building.

  After the meetings with Thomas Brooks and Browner, General Motors became the first company to make a major commitment to the magazine. “We committed to multiple pages in the initial schedule of issues,” Thomas Brooks recalled. But they made sure to structure the deal to minimize their own risk. They received the best rates, and the contract stipulated that if the circulation didn’t reach the agreed-upon targets, their rates would be redu
ced. If, however, the magazine struck a major chord, General Motors would have the first option to remain the premier advertiser.

  A few weeks later, John returned to the Motor City for a third time to speak at the Adcraft Club of Detroit, the largest association of advertisers in the country. The club rarely invited editors of start-up magazines, but it knew that John would prove to be the main attraction. Throughout the day, people lined up along the hallways of the Renaissance Center’s Westin Hotel hoping to snare one of the 1,900 tickets available for the event. Television cameras loomed everywhere. “It was more like something for a rock star,” said Adcraft Club spokesman Bill Jentzen. One magazine publisher told the Los Angeles Times that the “advertising world went nuts for this guy. It was bizarre. I can’t think of anyone else in this country who could have drawn the range of interest that he did. Everyone wanted to see the guy. Everyone.”

  Whether intentional or not, organizers scheduled the event on Secretaries Day, so hundreds of young women packed the audience. Pecker remembered how much John resembled a Greek god, striding down the center aisle while women in the audience shrieked. As he took his seat on the dais, dozens of women rushed to the stage to take his picture before being told to return to their seats. After introducing John, Michael Browner announced that he had committed to becoming the magazine’s largest advertiser.

  John understood the importance of this presentation, and he skillfully played with expectations by handing out small nuggets of personal information—just enough to make people feel they knew him, while still protecting his privacy. “I’m well aware of the expectation that sooner or later I would be giving a speech about politics,” he said. He talked about his career and his hopes for making the right choices in life. “I’m speaking not as a politician, but as a magazine editor,” he said. “And if I do that right, I hope someday to end up as president [long pause] of a very successful publishing venture.”