The true story of Bernarr Macfadden

By Fulton Oursler

Subjects: Biography, hagiography, MacFadden, publishers, 1920s, Roaring Twenties

Description: This is a puff-piece biography of body-builder-turned publisher MacFadden by his right-hand man, Fulton Oursler, senior editor of many of his publications. At the time, the millionaire MacFadden had political aspirations, which started with his Physical Culture magazine campaigns for health education and against censorship (brought on by reactions to the figure studies in his magazine). That magazine became the first in an empire, among them the genre-pioneer "True Story" and "Liberty." The classic crime-and-sex-filled tabloid "New York Evening Graphic" was also his, but Oursler still emphasizes MacFadden as health-obsessed idealist.