Luce, Henry R.

Luce, Henry R. (Robinson) (1898–1967) publisher, editor; born in Tengchow, China. In 1923, scraping together $86,000 in capital, he and former Yale University classmate Briton Hadden founded the weekly newsmagazine Time, the first of its kind and the first of Luce's several highly innovative and lucrative magazine ventures; after Hadden's death, Luce completed launching of the upscale business magazine Fortune (1930), which succeeded despite the ongoing Depression; he also acquired Architectural Digest (1932). In 1936 Luce started the picture magazine Life, launching the modern era of photojournalism. Sports Illustrated, created in 1954, became successful as Life began to decline. Luce's communications empire, Time, Inc., also included broadcasting stations, real estate, a magazine export business, and Time-Life Books—which broke new ground in mail order bookselling. He was an active editor, and his magazines often embodied his views as a conservative Republican and ardent supporter of Nationalist China. His second wife was journalist and playwright Clare Boothe Luce.