European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 22, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                50 years of by Joan Hanauer United press International life Magazine celebrates its 50th birthday this month proving that in the publishing world there is life a 1er , the la Rel american Magazine devoted to photojournalism was bom on nov. 23.1936. It reached a circulation High of 5.2 million in the years after world War ii then became a victim of the circulation wars of the 19603 and suspended publication on dec 29.1972. Ten special issues were published Between 1972 and 1978 Iii Par a Lega necessity if time inc. Wanted to project its copyright on the name and logo and then in 1978 life was reborn As a monthly that now enjoys a circulation of 1.5 million. The live decades since life began have been years of escalating change which the Magazine has chronicled in pictures of everything from a Jitterbug Jamboree to an atomic bomb test a Bikini atoll in the Pacific. Life is a picture Magazine but its text has not been confined to captions there have been essays reports and memoirs with bylines that included sen. John f. Kennedy and Ernest Hemingway and memoirs by Winston Churchill Hemingway Douglas Macarthur and Charles Degaulle. Life Magazine was 1he brainchild of time and Fortune Magazine founder Henry Lues and his new wife Clare Boothe. Luce toyed with titles such As dime Parade rehearsal and show Book of tha world before paying $92,000 Lor the title of a failing humor Magazine called life. Volume 1, number 1 of life came Oul with a newsstand Price of 10 cents introducing americans to its big red rectangular logo and outsize pages. The Magazine had four Stafl photographers Margaret Bourke White. Peter Stackpole Thomas Mcavoy and Alfred Eisenstaedt. Tha fint cover by Bourke White displayed the Stark and lowering geometry of fort Peck dam in Montana the first picture inside the Magazine snowed a doctor holding a Newborn baby. The headline read life  inside were features on climate Abc Brazil Helen Hayes movie Star Robert Taylor Black widow spiders and on the final pages the first life goes to a party a game shoot at a French aristocrat s chateau. Life changed tremendously Over the years Ralph Graves the weekly life s last managing editor said in an interview. Craves who was 12 years old when life was bom went to work at the Magazine straight Oul of Harvard and served As managing editor from 1969 to 1972. In the 30s, it was a Magazine that was almost saying. Look these Are pictures pictures of things during the Early Days they really taught readers through captions and taut How to look at pictures. That lasted until world War ii. Then the Magazine became very much of a War Magazine beginning before Pearl Harbor and offering tremendous War  photographers such As Carl Mydans and Robert Capa made americans eyewitnesses to 1hat War a prelude to what was to come later when television brought the Vietnam War into the american living room. Tim a cd a picture of a Sailor kissing a Nursa in times Square caught perfectly Tho mood of America and ushered in a new Era. Ai the end of the War. Al Tho time i started at life life Graves said the Magazine suddenly discovered America. There was a whole marvelous Post War feeling Hal everybody was Home now and we could get Bach to Normal. There was a tremendous emphasis in life in those years on what he country was really like How people really lived Between new York and los angelas. That does t mean life slopped covering Hollywood we never did but the emphasis was on 1he real America its people and How hey  in the 1960a. He said. Life began covering the revolution of thought in America but there also was a communications revolution with major implications Lor tha picture Magazine television. We on life realized that television had preempted tha headline  a said. The front Page stories and pictures were on lbs news. We could t continue the Way a did in the 50s and before. We started changing to try to cover a different kind of news to cover what was in the air. What people were feeling wha they were doing How they were  it Wai not television that i died weekly life Graves said. Life and other american magazines of the Era including look lha saturday evening Post and Colliers committed a torm of Magazine mass suicide bankrupting themselves by undercutting each other s subscription prices in a murderous circulation War. When the final edition was published dated dec. 29, 1972, printed below lha Date was the word  the new monthly version of life began with the october 1978 Issue ils cover resplendent with Gold red White and Blue hot air balloons. The familiar red logo was in the upper left hand Corner and the Eltora committed themselves to the Power of the  the Magazine s opening circulation was 700,000 and has since More than doubled. The monthly Magazine is completely different from the old life said Graves who went on to become editorial director of time inc., a Job he left in 1983 although he remains a Magazine consultant. Because it is a monthly not a weekly its closing schedule is a much longer one. It can t cover weekly events the Way tha old life could. When it started As a monthly everybody knew thai but they still tried to stay As close to what was current As possible. If you try to do straight news and you re a month late boy. Are you late. I think they have found a Way which did t exist when the Magazine first cams Back to look ahead and do stories that will have meaning and currency even though they will not appear for months. It s a different lorm of thinking. Ai a former life editor i envy the monthly for its really Good paper Quality you could see through the pages of the old life if you held them up to the Light. And lha editors can use As much color As they want. They can run a whole Issue in color. In tha 60s the Magazine Well Over 200 pages with some regularity although during life s last Days it was Down to about 90 but we were limited to 12 to 13 pages of color. Color and Black and White give very different effects. Color is better for Beauty action or science but Black and White is better for emotional  Point is illustrated by what he considers the most memorable feature of his tenure As managing editor a picture layout Hal Many Media watchers Felt marked a turning Point in . Public opinion concerning the Vietnam War. On june 27,1969, life printed Small yearbook style Black and White photographs of the american servicemen killed during one week in Vietnam. There were 242 dead and their pictures filled 12 pages. Clare Booth Page 14 the stars and stripes