Jule Campbell, 96, dies; Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Architect

Whether objectification or celebration, the annual rite she created brought in millions for the magazine and helped usher in the era of supermodels.

Jule Campbell, the mastermind of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit number, the annual cheesecake anthem - or the wholesome celebration of the female beauty and athleticism, depending on your perspective - who broke publication records and helped usher in the supermodel era, died Nov. 19 in Flemington, N.J. She was 96.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">His granddaughter, Hannah Campbell, said the cause was complications from pneumonia.

The "sunshine issue ", as André Laguerre, the crumpled editor and cigar-eater of Sports Illustrated at the time, would dub, was invented to fill the editorial vacuum of the beginning of winter (the first Super Bo wl was not played until 1967). For an issue that appeared the penultimate week of January 1964, Mr. Laguerre did so with a travelogue about diving in the Caribbean, illustrated with a cover photo of a model named Babette March dressed in a modest white two-piece suit. But he was unimpressed with the appearance of the packaging, which readers seemed to barely notice.

This fall, he summoned Ms. Campbell to his desk. She was a hardworking fashion journalist at the time who had arrived at Glamor's magazine a few years earlier and whom he held in high regard. He asked her, "Would you like to go to a nice place and put a pretty girl on the cover?" The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine,” “After the entire process of what came to be known as the SI Swimsuit Question was debated and deconstructed by feminists, sociologists, subscribers, and fans sports, Laguerre's rhetorical question is always the same. perfect demystification of the whole process.”

It was the dawn of the Twiggy era, but Mrs. Campbell went in search of another guy of model. "I went to California," she told Mr. MacCambridge, "because I thought we should use more natural women."

She picked an 18-year-old named Sue Peterson, blonde and baby-faced, and took her to Baja California. The first cover of Mrs. Campbell, in late January 1965, featured a startlingly young Mrs. Peterson in a geometric black one-piece; inside the magazine, among other images, was Ms Peterson reclining in a nude bodysuit and white fishnet jumpsuit. "popped a joint" and bombarded the magazine with letters - warm huzzahs accompanied by scathing opprobrium.

With that first salvo, Ms. Campbell had set the formula for what would become a publishing giant and franchise in its own right: beach photographs of beautiful scantily clad young women in swimsuits. (Mrs. Campbell would become a connoisseur of the remote beaches of the world.)

Most importantly, Mrs. Campbell would let readers know their names. Paulina Porizkova, Elle MacPherson, Cheryl Tiegs, Kathy Ireland and Christie Brinkley, among many others, say this simple act has both humanized them and made them famous.

ImageMs. Campbell with her assistant, Julie Stern, in 1994, the swimsuit number's 30th year. In 2013, the issue was estimated to have earned the magazine $1 billion in revenue. Credit... Manny Millan/Sports Illustrated, via Getty Images

"Modeling isn't the kind of job where you step on a stage and people cheer" , said Ms. Brinkley said in an interview, recalling those early years. “I was unaware of my budding notoriety. But all of a sudden it was like "Yo Christie, I love you girl!" Jule knew what she wanted and what the audience wanted. Still, she walked a fine line. She always kept it cl...