Art Cooper will celebrate his 20th anniversary at the Gentlemen's Quarterly helm in 2003, and gave this quote to WNBC-TV'sToday in New York: "In 20 years, I've experienced thousands of problems. They're usually never the same ones twice."
But one déja vu is Cooper's job status, which was questioned in October 1992 after wife Amy Levin Cooper was dismissed by Condé Nast chairman S.I. Newhouse, Jr. (boss of both), as Mademoiselle editor-in-chief. Back then, Cooper denied the "Art's next to go!" allegations to min, and he was proved right.
Now, they have sprung up again over GQ losing newsstand share to the Maxim/Stuff/ FHM "laddie" ilk, and the written-about "rift" between Cooper and GQ vp/publisher (since January 2002) Ron Galotti. But Cooper and Galotti were quite convivial at GQ's 45th-anniversary party on September 4, and, in speaking to min on September 19, when WNBC called to acknowledge Cooper's tv appearance.
"What's forgotten in all this," says Cooper, "is that my friendship with Ron dates back to when I came here in 1983, because he was publisher of Mademoiselle [through 1986], which Amy edited. I was a big advocate of Ron returning to CN [after Talk's folding], because much like [predecessors] Richard Beckman [now CN chief marketing officer] and Tom Florio [now Vogue vp/publisher], he's the strong publisher that we need." Says Galotti: "This is just the latest example of [journalists] taking something that's good and wanting to continue to poke holes in it." Cooper says that August's Vin Diesel cover was +13% on the newsstand, and he predicts that sales from September's Heidi Klum anniversary issue will be just as strong. November's "Men of the Year" will be feted October 16 at the Manhattan Center, with Dennis Miller hosting. NBC will telecast highlights in a December prime-time special.