By Cailin Brophy
Before it reached a worldwide audience and became a fixture of pop culture, he was there. Before there was such a thing as a supermodel, he was there. Before free agency, multimillion-dollar endorsement deals and the Super Bowl, he was there.
As long as there has been Sports Illustrated, Fred Smith has been a part of it.
“Before it even had a name, I wanted to be there,” Smith said of the publication that would grow to be one of the most popular magazines in the world.
As the 40th anniversary issue of Sports Illustrated’s immensely popular swimsuit issue hit newsstands this week, the current Wainscott resident, a former editor at the magazine who first suggested the idea, reflected on the birth 50 years ago of what is now one of America’s oldest and most popular magazines, the evolution of sport and popular culture in the United States that it helped to document, and the annual breath of summer scenery that stirs pulses and controversy every winter.
In the early 1950s, America was still adjusting to post-war life. The country had emerged from World War II as both a military and economic superpower, and its population was undergoing an evolution in its interests and pursuits.
In an effort to gauge what Americans wanted to read, Henry Luce, the founder of Time and Life magazines, gathered a group of researchers to conduct what later became known as the Greenwich Study. The study concluded that the new American leisure would be the group most likely to support a new magazine.
Thus, Sports Illustrated was born.
Joining the small contingent of writers whose names appeared on the first masthead, Smith became part of the Sports Illustrated staff two months before the inaugural issue hit newsstands in August 1954.
The magazine, which he said was geared at the time toward a “country club” audience, targeted both a male and female readership and, in addition to coverage of popular sports, included weekly articles on topics such as fashion, food, architecture and resorts. That was Smith’s area of specialty—what he now refers to as “soft sports.”
It was in this capacity that Smith would help give life to what turned out to be the most sought after annual edition of the magazine for years to come: the swimsuit issue.
The road to the swimsuit issue can be traced back to 1960. A major shift took place at the magazine, as Andre Laguerre was hired as managing editor, and the European sports enthusiast was determined to turn Sports Illustrated into the best sports magazine ever made.
“Things began to change,” Smith said. “And I thought, ‘Uh oh, there goes my wonderful little sinecure that I have.’ But he was very supportive of me and what I was doing.”
Smith maintained Laguerre’s support on the merit of his ability to keep current with the issues and stories that would intrigue the American public. Smith did more than keep up—he raised the bar with stories and ideas that gained acclaim from all areas of the country
It was his idea for a swimsuit issue that turned out to be the biggest success of all.
“I was an editor who believed in coming at things with a difference,” Smith said. “I had to compete for space with the given of what was going to happen in a World Series or a bowl game—those were naturals that were going to be in the magazine regardless. I had to come at things with a surprise element so they weren’t clichéd stories.”
The swimsuit issue certainly caught everyone off guard. But the most surprising element might be how a feature that was originally designed to simply fill space in the magazine during the winter months turned out to be a smashing, albeit controversial, success.
In the early 1960s, late January was a dead time for sports, Smith noted: the Super Bowl did not yet exist, college football’s bowl games were over, spring training for baseball was on the horizon, and basketball’s key late-season games were yet to come.
Smith’s solution? “I said, ‘Let’s grab an issue, take a pretty girl in the sun and discover resorts.’ And that’s what we did.”
Enter the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Although the inaugural issue came out in January 1964, it really grabbed the attention of the American public the following year when it featured 16-year-old Sue Peterson in a skin-baring swimsuit while frolicking on the shores of Baja California.
“That was the one that got the pulses going,” Smith said. “We received more letters about that cover than anything the magazine had ever done. That was sexy. Young Sue Peterson, with her baby fat coming out of the bathing suit—we had five or six hundred letters about that. That’s when we said, ‘Hey we’ve really got something here.’”
The cover story was, as it remains today, a piece about travel, an up-close look at various resorts and vacation destinations throughout the world. Once Smith’s idea was brought to fruition, he hired Jule Campbell, who managed the issue for the next 35 years.
Smith is quick to point out that although the original idea was his, Campbell was the one who made it a long-term success.
“She made it what it became, and I give her all credit,” he said. “You never heard of a model’s name until Jule started calling them. She made names like Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley and Stephanie Seymour famous.”
In the early years, Smith would go out and find the tropical places and then write the travel story. Once the location was chosen, Campbell and her entourage of models, stylists and photographers would fly there. Smith points out the care she took in choosing the models and the way in which they were depicted.
“She chose girls who looked as if they were capable of being sporty themselves, far removed from the bimbos of Playboy,” he said. “They were athletic looking with wonderful bodies. They always looked like the girl next door, just a little better. What made it wonderful was that it wasn’t vulgar; it was sexy but never vulgar.”
Although the amount of skin shown in the swimsuit issue today would make Sue Peterson’s display seem modest by comparison, the inspiration remains the same. Today, not only are the swimsuit models still athletic looking, several of them are professional athletes. Tennis stars Anna Kournikova and Serena Williams have bared their toned midsections and sculpted physiques in this year’s 40th anniversary edition. This year’s special issue, which celebrates the history of the magazine, also features several photos taken in Montauk by another East End resident, legendary Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss Jr.
Smith’s simple idea turned out to be the impetus for what has become the most sought after single issue of Sports Illustrated year after year. However, it is far from being his sole crowning achievement. His gift for imagination and creativity, along with a willingness and desire to push the envelope, led to many other intriguing insights into the world of sport.
In May 1962, Smith wrote and produced a massive piece, “Design for Sport,” for which he spent two years researching and examining sports equipment for “the new aesthetics.”
“We believed that sports equipment had to be well designed to work,” Smith said. “Things like a fencing mask, hockey masks, baseball mitts were a kind of art brut; the ball itself, no matter how it was designed, was a beautiful object.”
Smith and his team looked at more than 10,000 objects from all over the world before heading to the Museum of Modern Art to share their vision.
“We asked them if we would be the arbiters of whether or not an object was designed to perform well, would they be the arbiters of its aesthetic. They not only agreed, they got so excited about the project that it became a summer-long exhibition at the museum.”
Six of the final 110 items selected remain in the museum’s permanent design collection, while Smith maintains that it remains the piece of work he is most proud of.
“My design story said there had to be a practicality to the aesthetic; you didn’t want to take a sledgehammer to drive a thumbtack, otherwise you lost the idea of sport.”
Thanks to the genius of editors like Smith, the idea of sport continues to be explored and examined from all angles, with Sports Illustrated remaining the standard for such exploration. Smith acknowledges the fact that what this magazine has achieved and been able to sustain is indeed rare.
“Somebody once said something about the magazine that I really liked. They said it was the only magazine that a father and son could both enjoy, that brings them together—and I think that is a good point.”
Cailin Riley on Feb 15, 2010