RIP, Charles Laufer, Founder of Tiger Beat

The New York Times reports:

Charles Laufer, who as a high school teacher in 1955 despaired that his students had nothing entertaining to read and responded with magazines aimed at teenage girls desperate to know much, much more about the lives of their favorite cute stars, died April 5 in Northridge, Calif. He was 87.

Mr. Laufer’s best-known magazine was Tiger Beat, published monthly. With its spinoff publications and its competitors, of which the most popular was 16 Magazine, Tiger Beat had it all covered — or at least what mattered most to girls from about 8 to 14. The Beach Boys’ loves! Jan and Dean’s comeback! The private lives of the Beatles!

Exclamation points, sometimes as many as 50 a page, added emphasis. Pix, as pictures were known, were glossy, glamorous and frequently poster-size. Fax, as facts were known, often included “101 things you never knew about (fill in star’s name)”: he uses a blue toothbrush!

Titles were catchy, oddly innocent by later standards: “Shaun: A Junk Food Junkie?,” “Leif’s Sad Childhood,” “Bobby’s Favorite Type of Girls” and “Marie: Fighting With Donny?”

Mr. Lauder told The Los Angeles Times in 1974 that the newsstand price of Tiger Beat, then 75 cents, was the same as the price of a hot-fudge sundae, and that the magazine probably provided the same dollop of entertainment. He was even clearer in describing his mission in a 1979 interview with Parade magazine: “Let’s face it, we’re in the little girl business.”

Well, not entirely. Thanks for all the, uh, material, Mr. Laufer.