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Generoso Pope Jr. | |
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| Born | Generoso Paul Pope Jr. January 13, 1927 |
| Died | October 2, 1988(1988-10-02) (aged 61) Manalapan, Florida, U.S. |
| Occupation | Newspaper publisher |
| Spouses |
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| Children | 4 |
| Parent | Generoso Pope |
Generoso Paul "Gene" Pope Jr. (1927–1988) was an Americanmedia mogul, best known for creatingThe National Enquirer as it is known today.[1]
Pope was born on January 13, 1927. His father,Generoso Pope, was aNew York political powerbroker and quarry magnate whose Italian-American newspaper interests included theCorriere d'America and the dailyIl Progresso Italo-Americano. Generoso Pope Sr. is said to have had ties to New York crime bossFrank Costello, and at the birth of his son asked Costello to be the godfather.[2]
Pope was educated at theHorace Mann School. He graduated from theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned at age 19 a bachelor's degree in general engineering in 1946.
Pope took over the daily operations of theIl Progresso Italo-Americano at the age of 21. He worked for theCIA's psychological warfare unit in 1950.[3][4]
Pope acquired theNew York Enquirer in 1952 for $75,000. TheEnquirer purchase was supposedly made, in part, with a loan from Costello. In 1954, Pope revamped the format from a broadsheet to atabloid, and renamed itThe National Enquirer. Pope worked tirelessly throughout the 1950s and 1960s to increase the circulation of theEnquirer. In the late 50s and through to 1967, it was known for its gory and unsettling headlines and stories such as "I Cut Out Her Heart and Stomped On It" (Sept. 8, 1963, the true story of the April 1963 mutilation murder of former Olympic SkierSonja McCaskie) & "Mom Boiled Her Baby And Ate Her" (1962). At this time the paper was sold on newsstands and in drugstores only — as the gory headlines would not have been allowed in family supermarkets, etc. Pope stated he got the idea for the format and these gory stories from seeing people congregate around auto accidents. After 1967, Pope tempered the use of gory headlines so the tabloid could be sold in more family-friendly environments such as at supermarket check-out lines, which Henry Dormann paved the way for by visiting with supermarket executives. This new sales strategy proved to be a huge boon for sales; single-copy sales of some issues (e.g. Elvis in his coffin) peaked above six million in the 1970s.
Pope moved theEnquirer from New York toLantana, Florida, in 1971. By the time of Pope's death, his GP Group, in addition toThe National Enquirer, includedWeekly World News and a magazine distributor, Distribution Services Inc. It was sold in 1989 by his heirs to the company that would becomeAmerican Media.
From 1971 to 1988 during the holiday season, Pope put up a large decoratedChristmas tree, which towered over the corporate headquarters of theNational Enquirer in Lantana and at times was considered the largest such tree in the world. This tradition was discontinued after Pope died in 1988.[5]
Pope married his first wife, Patricia McManus, in 1951. After the birth of their son, Generoso Pope III, she fell into a deep postpartum depression and was ultimately diagnosed as schizophrenic.[6] In 1961, Pope divorced McManus and married Edith Moore, a former model; when McManus heard the news, she committed suicide.[7] Pope and Moore had a daughter, Gina, and divorced in 1965. That same year, he married his third wife,Lois Berrodin, and had two children, Paul (b. 1967) and Lorraine (b. 1972);[8] he also adopted Lois' two daughters, Michele and Maria.[9]
Rumors ofMafia connections dogged him his whole life.[10] Pope lived in a self-designed beachfront home inManalapan, Florida.
Pope suffered a heart attack at the age of 61 at hisManalapan mansion and died en route to the hospital — in anambulance that he had donated to the town. He was interred at Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Cemetery inRoyal Palm Beach, Florida. His widow Lois remains a well-knownSouth Floridaphilanthropist, specializing inmedical research,humanitarian relief, and theperforming arts.[11]
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