LIFE LEGENDS REVISITED
ALFRED EISENSTAEDT
TIME, INC.
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his self-described “business degree,” as he learned the ins and outs of the business world and rubbed elbows with top-notch business journalists like Max Ways. During his tenure as associate publisher at For-
tune, LIFE (both magazines are owned by Time, Inc.) had won the 1967 National Magazine Award, pub- lished a feature on America’s mission to the moon in 1969, and received great accolades. It was among the best-loved and most famous magazines in the world. But like Colliers, the Saturday Evening Post, and other major publications, LIFE couldn’t maintain its large circulation base because they were all competing with television viewership. The weekly magazine, as it was circulated at the
time, published its last issue in 1972. For the next six years, the magazine produced fewer than a dozen intermittent “special” issues to preserve its copyright. In 1978, Time, Inc., selected Whittingham as the founding publisher of the “reborn” LIFE magazine,
“The education you receive here and for which your parents have sacrificed will be your real treasure. It will be with you all your life wher- ever you go and whatever you may do.”
which returned as a monthly publication. During his tenure at LIFE, Whittingham was sur-
rounded by some of the most celebrated writers and photographers of the day. “At LIFE, when I walked out into the halls each day
and went down to the editing floor, I was surrounded by some of the most famous photographers in the world. .. . There was no job like it,” Whittingham says. “We held a lunch event one day featuring Tom
Wolfe, whom I consider a good friend. He wrote an article for LIFE on the ‘70s that was one of the best- written, most fabulous things. People were fighting to get in the door of the Four Seasons Restaurant to listen to him here in New York. It’s that type of thing—whether they were photographers or writers—I was surrounded by these people.” Whittingham was acquainted with people famous
outside of publishing as well. In the late 1970s, he hosted a lunch honoring Sophia Loren, who asked him to take her on a tour of Studio 54. “Studio 54 was probably the most famous place in the world at that point,” Whittingham says. “Nobody
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LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO
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