The People founder who got the Zapruder tape
Richard Stolley 1928–2021
During his six decades with the Time Inc. media empire, Richard Stolley covered some of the most momentous stories of the postwar era. As a writer and editor at Life magazine, he reported on the civil rights movement and scored one of the great scoops by securing the rights to the Zapruder film of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. Stolley would change the nature of journalism itself as the founding editor of People magazine, which was spun off from a celebrity section in Time in 1974 and soon became the country’s most-read magazine. People spawned a new era in personality-driven journalism and, Stolley argued, provided a revelatory service to both celebrities and readers. Many famous people “have to figure out who they are by talking to another person,” Stolley said. “They can pay $120 to a psychiatrist or they can talk to a People reporter.”
Born in Pekin, Ill., Stolley “knew from an early age that he wanted to be a journalist,” said The New York Times. He landed a job at his local newspaper at age 15, and after studying journalism at Northwestern, he joined Life in 1953. He rose quickly through the ranks and was working as the Los Angeles bureau chief when JFK was shot. Stolley hopped a plane and landed in Dallas hours after the assassination, where he was tipped off about a businessman named “Zah-proo-der” who had caught the killing on an 8 mm camera. He found Abraham Zapruder in the phone book, arranged a 9 a.m. meeting—and arrived at Zapruder’s house at 8, said the New York Post. With dozens of other reporters banging on the door, Stolley bought the footage for $150,000. Life published 31 frames from the film, but not the frame that showed “the president’s head exploding in red.”
Selected to helm People, Stolley put actress Mia Farrow on the inaugural issue’s cover, said The Washington Post. Although he gave room inside the magazine to “ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” Stolley had a simple formula for choosing cover stars: “Pretty is better than ugly. Rich is better than poor.” And crucially, “Anything is better than politics.” He edited People for eight years and was often asked if the magazine would exhaust possible topics. Stolley had a stock answer: “I don’t think we’re ever going to run out of people.”