A Guru for Women over 40

By Laurence Zuckerman

Cheek resting gently on folded arms, the attractive, dark-eyed woman stares from the page with that familiar cover-girl gaze. But wait. Aren't those wrinkles on her forehead? And creases in her cheek? "At last!" declares the cover line. "A magazine for the woman who wasn't born yesterday." At last, indeed. After a tempestuous 2 1/2-year start-up that had Manhattan media circles sniffing with disdain, readers this week will see the first issue of Lear's. The brainchild and namesake of Frances Lear, former wife of Hollywood Producer Norman Lear, the new magazine is dedicated to the proposition that "women over 40 -- yesterday's 'mad housewives' -- are today's sanest, most creative, most interesting Americans."

In 1985, as her 30-year marriage was falling apart (she has two grown children), Lear decided to move to New York City to pursue an idea for a magazine. Bolstered by her $112 million divorce settlement, she has committed $25 million to the project. "I plan to make money," she says firmly, sitting in her cluttered Park Avenue office. "If it doesn't make money on schedule, we won't continue it." Behind that calculus, however, lies a crusade. After years of watching women get pushed aside at an age when many men reach their prime, Lear, 64, wants to change the way women over 40 perceive themselves and are perceived by others.

"Personally, professionally and creatively, these may well be the best three years of my life," she enthuses. "I am experiencing a rebirth." Such themes -- independence, job fulfillment and spiritual renewal -- are central elements of Lear's. Divided into five sections, including "Pleasures" and "Self Center," the premiere issue features an interview with Philippine President Corazon Aquino and original fiction by Doris Lessing. There are also inspirational profiles of half a dozen exemplars of the Lear's woman, a combination of elegance, success and self-awareness. Most revolutionary are the fashion pages, which feature models ranging from 33 to 60. "We are breaking the perception that age is dowdy," says Fashion and Beauty Director China Machado, 58, once of Harper's Bazaar. The only problem she notes is with the "male photogs . . . The poor guys are taking some time to adjust."

So did the editorial and advertising communities. When Lear set out, media types fed on her large fees for articles and dined out on her atrocities: editorial meetings attended by her masseuse, hairdresser and manicurist; mercurial changes of mind; an interview with a job applicant at which Lear announced that if she had such a resume she would consider committing suicide. But it went both ways. One early employee remembers an army of consultants, "men with boiled-out faces who said 'gals' and complained about 'old women.' So you see what the attitude was and how she had to fight." Isolde Motley, who was wooed from an editorship at Arts & Antiques and then fired before she even started working, nonetheless remains sympathetic. "I never met an entrepreneurial publisher who wasn't an egocentric maniac," Motley says. "She has a lot of guts and a great sense of mission."

Lear is a manic-depressive and reports she is on lithium to control the condition. But she does not blame her disorder for the magazine's stormy evolution. "In the beginning, there was a lack of experience on my part," she concedes. "It was difficult for me to make important decisions." ^ According to several on the 35-member staff, she settled down as the magazine neared takeoff. Initially a bimonthly with a 200,000 circulation, it is supposed to go monthly by 1990 and ultimately grow to 1 million subscribers. Can it? Executive Vice President Marc Liu reports that direct-mail solicitations have brought a high 5% return rate. The first issue contains 77 pages of paid advertising, including such blue chips as Cadillac, BMW and Volvo. And, of course, there are the current census projections: by 1990, more adult women will be over 40 than under. Says George Hunt, ad manager for Chrysler: "They've got it all together for the over-35, upscale woman."

Lear believes she has barely begun, with the magazine and with what she considers the start of the second half of her life. She is already considering expanding into retailing. "These women require different services: makeup, clothing," she says. "I would like to be the guru for women over 40." So far, she has the field to herself.

With reporting by Kathleen Brady and Martha Smilgis/New York