13-30 Corp. – finncandenza

To mark the 50th anniversary of the release of Jaws, here’s a repost of my Roy Scheider story:

*Thanks to first-rate photographers, Moviegoer cover subjects always*
*looked absolutely fabulous.* [Photo: Lance Staedler]

I didn’t go out of my way to piss off Roy Scheider, the star of Jaws, the man who uttered the immortal line, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Who in their right mind would set out to anger the one-time boxer and two-time Academy Award nominee (Best Supporting Actor in 1971 for The French Connection and Best Actor in 1979 for All That Jazz)? But you have to understand. I had no choice.

It was the summer of 1982. I was at the beach with my family, enjoying time away from my job at 13-30 Corp. in Knoxville, Tennessee. It had been a hectic 12 months since I landed the assignment to lead the team producing Moviegoer, a monthly film magazine. But it was about to get more hectic. The phone at the beach house rang. Lisa, one of the Moviegoer editors, was calling. “We have to pull the Roy Scheider cover,” she said.

My first year heading up the Moviegoer staff had been a crash course in the workings of the Hollywood publicity machine. To land established movie stars for your cover, you had to pitch their publicists, the gatekeepers who manage their media exposure. These publicists made you jump through hoops before they would recommend your magazine to their clients.

Hoop #1: How much exposure will my client get? Print media couldn’t–and still can’t–match the millions of “eyeballs” delivered by TV shows like Today; Good Morning, America; Entertainment Tonight; and 60 Minutes. Fortunately, we distributed one million copies of Moviegoer to theaters in the top 100 markets every month. Hoop #1: Check.

Hoop #2: Will your coverage be “friendly” to my client? Contrary to the old saying, there is such a thing as bad press. Few movie stars are willing to sit down for an interview and be peppered with questions about their love life or a recent DUI. At Moviegoer, we assured the publicists, we focused on the work–the art of filmmaking. And the journalists we hired were pros who wrote for leading magazines and newspapers, not gossip sheets. Check.

Hoop #3: Will you make my client look good? A movie star’s face is his/her fortune. Before they will sit for a photo session, they need to know that the person behind the camera will capture them at their best. Moviegoer only worked with the top photographers in New York and L.A., and our photo editor or art director (or both) attended the shoots to make sure we got outstanding portraits. Check.

Hoop #4: Have you featured other stars of my client’s wattage on your cover? Actors want to know that they are in good company when they agree to appear on a TV show or a magazine cover. In the case of Moviegoer, our first eight cover subjects in 1982 were:

January – Burt Reynolds
February – Alan Alda
March – Harrison Ford
April – Michael Caine
May – Arnold Schwarzenegger
June – Rachel Ward
July – Jon Voight
August – Sylvester Stallone

The September issue with Mick Jagger on the cover was on its way to theaters and October featuring Susan Sarandon was in production. Check and double check.

Hoop #5: Is the timing right? When an actor signs to star in a movie, they agree to do publicity to promote ticket sales. And with publicity, timing is everything. The studio, the actor, and their publicists all want the TV interviews and the magazine covers to land just before their movie hits theaters. It’s all about making sure the film “opens big.” The phone call about the Scheider cover was triggered by a timing issue.

*Roy Scheider in a publicity still from* Blue Thunder.

Scheider and his publicist had agreed to do the Moviegoer cover with the understanding that it would appear just before the November release of Blue Thunder, an action flick featuring Scheider as a police helicopter pilot flying a high-tech chopper and battling bad guys in the skies over L.A. Our November issue was “advance dated,” meaning that the magazine would be available in theaters during October. Everything was set until director John Badham (Saturday Night Fever) ran into post-production problems with the special effects, forcing the studio to delay the film’s release until May.

So now, Scheider’s publicist had called to say we had to postpone the cover. The problem was, in late August, production of the November issue was too far along to allow a change. In the pre-digital age, to put one million copies of a magazine into hundreds of theaters nationwide in October, you had to get the materials to the printer two months in advance.

In the end, we had no choice but to tell Scheider’s publicist no. We pointed out that he had another movie coming out in December–Still of the Night–in which he co-starred with Meryl Streep, fresh off her Academy Award-winning performance in Kramer vs. Kramer. Unfortunately, Scheider hated Still of the Night and swore he would do nothing to promote it. (He wasn’t alone. Years later, when Streep was asked if she hated any of her films, she answered, “Still of the Night.”)

Were Scheider and his publicist upset with our answer? Oh, yes–big time. The publicist said, “None of my clients will ever again appear in Moviegoer.” Fortunately, by late 1982, our magazine was in high demand among other publicity firms. They knew we were a great vehicle for promoting their clients and their movies. We never had any trouble getting A-list actors to do the cover.

Still, I regret that I had to piss off Roy Scheider. If I run into him in the hereafter (he died in 2008), I will offer my hand and say, “Sorry about that Moviegoer cover, Mr. Scheider”–and then duck.

[Thanks to the James McKairnes Archives for the image of the November 1982 cover of Moviegoer.]

It was a perfectly reasonable question: Why on earth would someone quit a fine job at a top association magazine in D.C., sell his home, and relocate with his wife and two kids almost 500 miles to Knoxville, Tennessee? My answer: For the chance to work at 13-30 Corp., of course! When I told my family, friends, and colleagues I was making this move back in 1978, they all asked, “What the heck is 13-30?”

I had wondered the same thing in 1977 when I read in Advertising Age that the owners of this mysterious 13-30 Corp. had sold 50 percent of the business to the Bonnier Magazine Group of Sweden. The following May, 13-30 made news again when it flew all 55 staffers to Stockholm to meet the company’s new partners. I just had to learn more about 13-30. (The press coverage cleared up one mystery: The name, 13-30, referred to the target audience for the company’s earliest publications, students and young adults aged 13 to 30.)

During my time at Electrical Contractor magazine, I was constantly checking the media trades, on the lookout for the next opportunity to advance my career. I hoped to find a job with a company where publishing was its sole focus, not a secondary operation as it was at trade groups like the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA). Most ambitious people eager to work in magazines would move to New York City, the heart of the media industry. But I couldn’t see how I could afford to relocate to an even pricier city than D.C. and hope to find a decent place on a managing editor’s salary.

It so happened that my wife’s sister and her family had relocated from New Jersey to Cookeville, Tennessee, 90 minutes west of Knoxville. Wouldn’t it be nice, we thought, if I could land a job at 13-30 in a place where housing was much more affordable and my wife’s family would be a short drive away down I-40?

So when I saw a posting for an associate editor’s job at 13-30 on Successful Business, a new magazine for small businesses, I was quick to fire off my resume. No, I didn’t have experience at a business magazine, but most of Electrical Contractor‘s readers were small companies, I reasoned. Apparently, the powers that be at 13-30 agreed with that logic. In short order, I was invited to meet with the top editor in . . . New York?

*The* Successful Business *staff, 1979*. *Front row, from left: Lisa Akchin, Cindy Prince, Connie Jones, and Cindy Albiston.* *Back row, from left: Neal McPheeters, Michael Kranish, Laura Eshbaugh, Bill Shultz, Shelley Williams, and Frank Finn*

Yes, New York. 13-30 kept an apartment in Manhattan where the advertising sales staff stayed when they were pitching advertisers in the Big Apple. So I flew to New York and met with Laura Eshbaugh. The interview went well, and we agreed that I would make the trip to Knoxville for an audience with the editor-in-chief and co-owner, Phil Moffitt. My wife and I decided to combine the trip with a family visit, thus providing a cover story for taking a few days off from work.

When I arrived for my interview at 13-30’s headquarters in downtown Knoxville, one thing stood out. Actually, two things. There in the parking lot, sitting side-by-side, were two brand-new Porsche 911 Targas, one burgundy and one green. I soon learned that these beauties belonged to 13-30’s co-owners, Moffitt and Chris Whittle. Presumably, when two young men (Moffitt was 32; Whittle, 31) come into some money from selling half of their company, that’s what they do. They buy matching Porsches.

Clearly, Moffitt and Whittle were movers and shakers in these parts. They were both elected student body president at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In 1972, they founded 13-30 with three other UT alumni and published Knoxville in a Nutshell, a guide to the city for students. Editions of Nutshell for other college towns quickly followed, as well as magazines for high school seniors sponsored by the U.S. Army and a photography guide from Nikon. Successful Business was the company’s first publication for business owners, underwritten by Control Data Corporation, a computer manufacturer.

If I needed any more proof that Moffitt and Whittle were power players, I got it on my way to the editor-in-chief’s office. There in the office next door was the Republican candidate for governor of Tennessee, Lamar Alexander. He was borrowing office space at 13-30 during his 1978 campaign, which he won that November.

After that introduction, Moffitt and I sat down in his corner office to talk. I don’t remember anything about the conversation except the way it ended. He looked me in the eye and said, “Frank, I think if you come to work with us, you could become a real star.”

The following week, the job offer came through and I accepted right away. After all, who doesn’t want to be a star?

Tag: 13-30 Corp.

Repost: That Time I Pissed Off Roy Scheider

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