Graduates of Life

When an institution lasts as long as Life has lasted and undergoes as many metamorphoses as Life has undergone, it acquires a sizeable body of alumni. Last week one of Life's most promising graduates was editing the fourth issue of a rising free weekly; another published Vol. 1 No. 1 of a new funpaper.

The Family Circle. Georgia-born Harry Evans traces his connection with Life back to the 14th hole of a sectional golf tournament played at St. Augustine, Fla. in 1925. The man he was playing against hooked his shot, waved his club angrily. The next thing Mr. Evans knew he was lying on the fairway with a painful lump rapidly rising on his forehead. The club-waver was curly-haired Clair Maxwell. Life's president. A year later Mr. Evans quit his sportwriting job and was working for his assailant. He became Life's managing editor, is still its cinema critic.

Following one of the magazine's periodic readjustments, last spring Harry Evans talked with Charles E. Merrill, chainstore promoter, about producing a newer, better kind of free-circulation magazine to attract advertising. Four weeks ago The Family Circle appeared on the counters of 1.275 Piggly Wiggly, Sanitary and Reeves Stores in Richmond, Baltimore, Washington and Manhattan.

The Family Circle is a gravure-printed tabloid of 24 pages. It contains information about food, cinema, radio, fashions, cosmetics, also many illustrated jokes, fiction, advertising at $400 a page for separate units (Manhattan as one unit, Washington, Richmond, Baltimore as the others) or $700 a page for entire coverage. Such a compendium might be very sad were it not for the fact that Harry Evans writes most of the copy. It is a one-man magazine. He has a tremendous talent for making people like him, and among those who do are most of the nation's electric-lit names. He works hard and circulates fast, so that readers of The Family Circle are let in on what Lupe Velez said to Johnny Weissmuller when she wanted him to hit a drunk at the next table; what Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Joan Crawford told about their trip to Europe; how George Olsen travelled all the way to Cincinnati because he thought he could beat Ben Bernie at golf. The Family Circle also brightens the lives of its consumers with a department of puzzles called "Do You Know Your Groceries?" Sample: a caddy is depicted hopping up in the air, exclaiming, "Whoops! He--putt!" Grocery knowers will insert the trade name Sanka in the blank.

Editor Evans hopes to make a good deal of money from his new venture. He maintains that advertisers err in shying from a give-away circulation. "Billboards, car cards and the radio give free circulation, don't they?'' Last week he was delighted that his publication was one of four picked by Gotham Hosiery for its new runless stocking campaign. Circulation last week was 350,000. Editor Evans hopes to increase it to 3,000,000, distribute his journal through 15,000 stores.

Pastime is "a magazine of five hours entertainment." Its editor, William W. Scott, reached Life by way of the Harvard Lampoon. His term of service wvith Life, seven years coincided with that of Editor Evans.

Pastime's 34 pages are crammed with 76 drawings (mostly by old Life artists like Nate Collier and Crawford Young), eleven games and puzzles, articles by Life Alumni Robert Charles Benchley, Baird Leonard and Donald Ogden Stewart. Thrifty Editor Scott got his puzzles from Simon & Schuster, his big-name pieces from old football programs. The magazine is printed (first order: 85,000 copies) at Mount Morris, Ill., published in Manhattan. Its angel is one Charles Howard, confection and gum manufacturer ("Choward" brand). Asked by Editor Evans how frequently his publication was to be published. Editor Scott replied: "Don't embarrass me."

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