Les Line, Legendary Audubon Editor, Dies
05/24/2010
Common blue violet. Photo by Les Line.
In the spring of 1971, in the wake the first Earth Day, I became absorbed in an issue of a magazine that my mother had recently subscribed to. I was barely 10 years old, but I enjoyed the lucid prose by Robert H. Boyle and, oh, those pictures. Audubon magazine had devoted an entire issue to the Hudson River, from its pristine source in the Adirondacks to its filthy end in New York Harbor. In the shocking photos, pollution turned crystal-clear waters into ungodly, rainbow hues.
The genius behind this issue was one of the fathers of environmental journalism and one of the most important magazine editors who ever lived, Les Line. Les passed away yesterday, just a few days before Audubon goes to press. As Audubon’s editor from 1966 to 1991, he created the signature blend of explanatory journalism and vibrant photography that defines the magazine till this day. Les earned more recognition in the national magazine awards, our industry’s top honor, than any other Audubon editor. The magazine has received six nominations since he left, but the last win was Les’s, in 1981 (the prize sits on the shelf above my desk).
Les’s unerring eye for writing talent survives through two of our most consistently superb contributors, Frank Graham Jr. and Ted Williams (see their words on Les, below). He was a gifted wordsmith in his own right. “You know, as great as an editor as Les was, he may even be a better writer,” Ted once told me. For the past nine years the staff marveled at Les’s tiny masterpieces of eloquence and succinctness on our last page, “One Picture.” One of his final features, on bobolinks (“Buying Time,” November-December 2009), was vintage Les. “My attention is focused on a close-by male in smart, skunklike breeding plumage, offset by a prominent straw-colored nape. The handsomest bird in the neighborhood by far, he’s clinging for the moment to a wobbly dock weed, lord of a small piece of this flowing meadow of grasses and forbs.” One of the pleasures of editing this magazine was an annual pilgrimage with managing editor Jerry Goodbody to Les’s house in rural upstate New York. Another was calling him to hear old Audubon war stories. During our last phone conversation I asked him about the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 in light of today’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He recalled, with the most excitement I’ve heard from him in some time, phoning a favorite contributor and ordering him to get on the first plane to Alaska and write his heart out.
The upcoming issue and all the subsequent ones are for you, Les.
| Les Line, editor of the magazine Audubon for a quarter century (1966-1991) and a leader in the great surge in nature photography at the time, died of heart failure on May 23 in Sharon, Connecticut. He was seventy-four years old and lived in Amenia, New York.
Appointed by the National Audubon Society to edit its magazine in the fall of 1966, Line took over a small but attractive publication designed chiefly for the society’s membership, which then numbered only a little over 35,000 member/subscribers. Engaging top writers and photographers in the fields of nature and conservation and aiming at a national audience, he put together what The New York Times described as “the most beautiful magazine in the world.”
Membership rose to 60,000 by 1968 and eventually soared to 500,000. Audubon won a National Magazine Award for Excellence in Reporting in 1975 and Line himself earned a Gold Medal of the Rhode Island School of Design in 1976. Other honors followed for both the magazine and its editor, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the North American Nature Photography Association. A picture in Audubon became a kind of certification of a nature photographer’s skills.
He was born Leslie Dale Line in Sparta, Michigan, on June 24, 1935. An interest in the natural world blossomed early, and by high school he was writing a weekly outdoors column called “A Line from Les” for his hometown newspaper. His professional life began at the Midland (Michigan) Daily News, where he served as outdoors editor and chief photographer during the 1960s.
Meanwhile, Line perfected his skills in bird watching and nature photography. Active as a conservationist, he became a director of the Michigan Audubon Society and edited its newsletter. His photograph of a Kirtland’s warbler appeared on a cover of Audubon and brought him to the attention of senior staff members at National Audubon in New York. They hired him as an assistant editor for the magazine in 1965 and appointed him editor the next year.
While at Audubon, Line wrote or edited some 35 books on nature and wildlife conservation, among them several for children. Two of his most popular publications were A Countryman’s Woods and A Countryman’s Flowers, collections of essays written by his friend Hal Borland and illustrated with Line’s photographs. After retiring as an editor in 1990, he wrote articles for a variety of magazines, including Audubon and National Wildlife. His last-page feature, “One Picture,” appeared regularly in Audubon, and his final article, on hayfields, ran in its November-December issue. Line is survived by his wife Lois, of Amenia; his son Michael, of Laurel, Maryland; and his daughter Heather Gibbons, of Dobbs Ferry, New York. |
| Submitted Sunday, May 23, 2010, 5 p.m.:
It grieves me to report that my close friend, mentor and former editor, Les Line, died this morning (May 23, 2010). Les had been in failing health for two month. I spoke to him in his hospital bed only a week ago, and he sounded strong and determined to recover from what appeared to be severely broken ribs. Les was the longest-serving editor of Audubon magazine (and, for that matter, any magazine I know). I first began working with him in 1979, 13 years after he started. He left Audubon in 1991. Les was accurately credited by The New York Times with evolving Audubon into "the most beautiful magazine in the world." He was as a superb writer as an editor. After he left Audubon he wrote extensively for National Wildlife, National Geographic, and Audubon. Les grew up in Michigan where he was a newspaper reporter and photographer from the age of 12 with his own outdoor column ("A Line from Les") in his hometown weekly. He was active in Michigan Audubon Society affairs as newsletter editor and conservation chairman before joining the National Audubon Society staff in 1965. Les wrote, edited or photographed some 35 books on natural history and wildlife conservation. His honors include a doctorate in literature from Bucknell University; being named a fellow of the Rhode Island School of Design; the Jade of Chiefs Award from the Outdoor Writers Association of America; the Hal Borland Award; and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the North American Nature Photography Association. A good man who left the planet a better place than he found it, he will be badly missed. |
Comments
Les
There is no question, Les was a genius among editors, one of the best I worked with over my years. Not only did he order me to Alaska ASAP to report on the misfortune of the Exxon Valdez, but he sent me back a year later to write about the long term impacts of the spill. And sadly, the impacts of these spills are long term. Audubon is still a quality magazine and I look forward to your next issue and your coverage of the spill in the Gulf.
George Laycock
Les Line
July 21, 2010
David Seideman
Audubon magazine
Dear David,
Thank you for your fitting tribute to Les Line--and for having him in the magazine these past nine years.
I fell in love with Audubon magazine sometime around 1979-1980, while living in SE Oklahoma, escaping the heat and humidity and the tarantulas and other craziness of Talihina by reading. That was the time of "Bitter Harvest" installments by John Mitchell. I read the first one and in the following issue I read all the hate letters, half dropping subscriptions because of Mitchell's pro-hunting stance and the other half resigning because of his anti-hunting prose. I saw immediately that someone knew how to strike a nerve and offer balance in an impossible arena of debate. That's just one example of the treats that every issue offered me.
For years after that I enjoyed Line's solid stable of writers and the literary bent of this conservation magazine. I came to think of it as the modern conservationist's New Yorker of E.B. White's days there. That's what it was, and they were glory years, and they were Les's. Always good for us to have someone like him breaking trail, you know?
In 1981 I moved back North (thank God) to NH to work for NH Audubon's loon recovery program. The Loon Preservation Committee's volunteer Chairman was Rawson Wood (still alive today at nearly 102), then a National Audubon Society Board member. He told me of the struggles with Les Line--between Les and the Board, I guess--and the extravagant efforts the Board went to in order to weaken Les's magazine's independence.
Today I observe a balanced effort under your leadership. Your magazine appears to continue its high-ground preferences in literary and photographic quality, while listening to the field offices--at least in Alaska--regarding important issues.
I have also, just in these past weeks, come to reflect on a story I'd read in those Oklahoma years about a backcountry trek in Lake Clark National Park here in Alaska--George Laycock’s writing?--wherein the author was debunking the prevailing complaint that Wilderness designation benefited only the young and affluent. He wrote that his paycheck was likely less than a local wood-butcher's and that he could still follow the younger folks up to base camp (if his socks didn’t bunch up) but was old enough to be willing and satisfied to stay there, keeping the fires going, while the young and hale climbed the peaks. It was still fun out yonder, and you didn't have to be rich or young to enjoy it.
Now I find myself in the same position (at 57) on my arctic treks, and it's still fun to keep the fires going, even if I do not range so far as before.
I think that the magazine is Les's and your fire, and the wilder Alaskan backcountry and sending signals from it is Laycock's and mine.
Let's keep those fires burning.
Thanks again for your lines about Les, the reminiscence about him by Frank Graham, and for allowing me to appear in those pages among such heroes once in a while.
Jeff
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Jeff Fair
Palmer, Alaska
Les LIne At Rest
I met Les Line in Wyoming in 1980, when I was driving a supply truck for the nature photography workshop he attended as the guest star critic of the participants' work. Though that bumpy ride from the Jackson Hole airport to the ranch in Dubois left him green and queasy, he did not hold it against me forever. Eventually I landed my first Audubon article assignment--even though I was a woman. Les was an artistic force, combining exquisite genius with the camera lens with his remarkable field agility, given his size. Every time I see a bluebird I think of how it is not blue at all, nor does any feather belonging to a bird's contain that pigment. I gained this from one of Les's casual lessons on refraction, alchemy of light that Audubon Magazine captured in countless images. Thousands see the natural world differently because of how he showed it to us.
Hats off to Les. Is there a memorial fund?
My father worked with Audubon from 1969-86. He knew and respected Les Line. I met Mr. Line a couple times over the years, once at a nature photography workshop at which he guest lectured in the early 1980s. He espoused Audubon magazines's trademark wrap-around cover photo, which practically required that the subject of the photo be well off-center. He also spoke of one photo--a moose in a swamp--which was so awesome that even though it was shot on-center, they used a new computer technology to move the moose off center, so that it could be a cover photo. My intro to "photoshop" as a verb. Definitely a man with a vision. As a footnote, Peter Berle fired a lot of GREATS in the organization. Berle was a mole sent in by the industrialists to bring down Audubon. He was a former DuPont VIP, and he unloaded some wonderful talent at Audubon. The fact that Line was fired by Berle testifies to the fact that Line was GREAT! If anyone knows of a memorial fund, please advise. Otherwise, the best we can all do is to do our thing with the passion that Les brought to his life's work.
I worked for and with Les
I worked for and with Les Line for 20 years—first as a freelance writer/field editor, then for 12 years as executive editor. Les was every writer’s dream: flexible to a fault, receptive of others’ ideas and perspectives, and unflinchingly supportive. But that same flexibility could both nourish and discombobulate his staff. As I often said to his face, Les was the best and the worst boss I’d had. (I’ve had worse since.)
In addition to our mutual passion for the printed word, and for the natural environment and its conservation, Les and I also shared a fire in the belly for music, jazz in particular. Some of our best “editorial conferences” took place away from the demands of the office, on rides to and from Tower Records.
Les was an intuitive, genius editor. He turned a sleepy house organ into the environmental journal of record as well as an incredibly beautiful magazine. (The pictures were so good and the design so serene, they sometimes disguised Audubon’s stature as a writers’ magazine of the first order.) Les’s editorial boldness could sometimes seem capricious or whimsical. Yes, he made mistakes, including a few big ones. But he always batted well above .500, a Hall of Fame stat for sure.
One of Les’s finest moments as editor was when he decided, close to closing deadline, to tear the issue apart to cover the eruption of the Mount St. Helens volcano. It seemed utterly capricious to the staff, a pointless knee-jerk reversion to Les’s ambulance-chasing days as a newspaper photographer. The ensuing chaos made everyone miserable, including the printer. But when the magazine appeared in print, the Mount St. Helens pieces were clearly the keystone, the linchpin, to an issue that still had that trademark serenity, even though the issue’s production was anything but serene. Not so incidentally, some of the material actually “scooped” the newsweeklies and other media.
Les Line was a big man with even bigger ideas and a fondness for shaking things up. He changed the face, the whole landscape, of conservation and environmental publishing. We shall, I think, never see his likes again, but the world is a better, cleaner, prettier place for his having passed through it.
Les Line gave me my first
Les Line gave me my first break and the repeated assignments that launched me on a lifetime of freelancing—for better or worse. It was not just a one-time thing but continual support and confidence in me. And he feared no one.
While doing a piece on nature television, I scaled the fence at the Kitt's Peak Observatory and hid in the bushes to spy on the Marlin Perkins Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom crew! I watched them set up shots—the program would have viewers believe everything was natural—and took pictures for evidence. “Give it a grape,” said one of the crew while trying to coax a coati into action. After a while, I popped up and told the crew what I was doing. They went ballistic.
Don Meier, the producer, went to influential people associated with National Audubon to kill the report. He showed up at Les’s office—with me there—to make his demands. Les looked at him, then told me, “Write down everything he says.” It just made the article better. Meier huffed and puffed and threatened to blow down houses but Les was unflappable. Talk about backing your reporters! I can still picture him listening to Meier’s pleas with the devil in his eye.
Les also got me into a long-term relationship with Chanticleer Press by having me co-author a couple of coffee table books with him. It made me feel pretty great to have my name listed with his.
He was iconic.
Remembering Les Line
I only wrote half a dozen pieces for Les over a 15-year period, so I can't claim to have known him well. The Times says he could be hard to get along with, and for sure Les could be one rude SOB, but I wouldn’t know much about that and it wasn't important anyway. What was—is—important about Les is that he insisted that Audubon should tell the truth about all manner of crimes against nature. Indeed, he took great joy in the work, and if he thought you could contribute to the cause he would give you free rein and generous support, and cover your back.
For many years, for writers and photographers who wanted to do aggressive, rigorous, critical, journalism in defense of the environment, Les was the man to see. Much of the stream of environmental journalism that has followed, right down to today—about energy and food and water; and climate change and clean air; about Katrina and BP; about our terrible destruction of the Earth and our political mendacity and our corporate lies—flows through Les Line and the pages of Audubon.
Remembering Les Line
“Among his many talents and qualities, Les Line was always interested in somewhat offbeat and unusual ideas that other editors might reject out-of-hand. He signed off on a feature that described the natural history and lusty mating habits of the Ariolimax dolichophallus—a large, slender yellow banana slug with a long penis—and the politics of its use as mascot for the basketball team at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
“He also supported the creation of a spoof on the growth of outdoor adventure sports, a seemingly authentic piece about the trend of creek hiking, which had its own rules, equipment, and rogue participants.
“What a dream place Les created for his staff and freelance writers!
“Whenever Les visited San Francisco, he often asked if he could have lunch with me—a real honor because I know he had many other contributors who lived in the Bay Area. We’d sit and talk about ideas and developments at Audubon and other publications. But to this day I often wondered why he’d call me.
“And now I kind of get it, since I always took him to a place near my office. At Belden Place and Bush Street is the legendary Sam’s Grill, which since the 1800s has served the best sourdough French bread and calamari steak (cooked doré style) that one could ever imagine. And so on his flights across the country—probably by the time he was crossing Nebraska—I suspect Les was imagining a lively conversation and savoring Sam’s tender AND tasty calamari steaks.”
Les Line, a friend
One of my fondest memories of Les was watching him get down on his kness with his camera to shoot one tiny wild flower. Our children were in play school together in Dobbs Ferry and we enjoyed many family meals together. Blessings on all those who knew him and loved him.
A great writer and mentor
Like the great "Dr. S." mentions above, I knew Les mainly through our jazz connections. While I was (and still am not) a great writer, Les still saw something in me that made him take me under his wing and cobble together some music reviews for the Compuserve Music/Arts forum, for which he was a moderator. While he disliked a lot of the "modern" styles of jazz, he still felt they deserved some kind of attention and tagged me to write about them.
It was always a pleasure to "talk" with him through email, and also speak with him on the telephone about life in general, usually with some small computer issue that was often the real reason he had called. As a Michigan resident myself, we often spoke about issues in the state (including Les's one hunting expedition with Ted Nugent), as well as his hometown of Sparta. He returned to Sparta many times over the years I bad known him, but it never failed that one or both of our itineraries ended up changing and our long-anticipated meeting never happened. Nonetheless, it was an honor having known him and having been a small part of his life.
REmembering Les Line
When I went on the NAS board I was a naive activist from the farthest NW corner who had never been to NYC. But I knew many of the thought leaders in Audubon hadn’t been to my part of the world (thinking “the west” was still Minnesota and the Missouri River).
Les Line was one of the first of the alpha people I met at the Audubon office who accepted my invitations to come to Washington State. He didn’t impress locals here favorably, nor was he favorably impressed -- our restaurants weren’t up to his standards, the sidewalks rolled up early evenings, and quality jazz was still a dream. But I found his irascibility par for the course of someone so powerful. I organized special field trips for him. His magazine item on the wildflowers of the Columbia Gorge helped us immensely in obtaining Scenic River designation. Keeping in touch with Les for years I was impressed that he could ALWAYS answer my questions.
My favorite memory: The board went to the Tejon Ranch to see Condor habitat and the greatly diminished number of the birds Audubon vowed to save. A small plane, carrying only two passengers, took whoever wanted to go out over the “feeding station” that John Borneman had set up to attract the Condors. I drew the straw to fly with Les Line. Judd Day took me aside and told me Les weighed more than two people and for me NOT to go up with him in that flimsy plane. When it was our turn I flew with Les – and we had a great time! It was a pleasure to be with him. May he be flying now with the ultimate birds and flowers!
Les Line
I had little idea of Les's true impact in this part of his world, knowing him more as a jazz aficionado/critic/writer/drummer (he was also crazy about model trains). But the generous mentoring, the inspiring, the humor, the delighted relish for life - these are qualities I recognize very well, and will miss very much.
Judith Schlesinger
Columnist, allaboutjazz.com
Les
Word inflation has reduced the value of “great” to dime-a-dozen status, but in the truest sense of the word, Les Line was a great person. His legacy was to turn Audubon magazine into the standard-bearer of the conservation movement. His years as editor (1966-1991) coincided with the rise and high water mark of environmentalism. But Les’s genius and greatness were in making nature and the environmental ethic felt deep in the hearts of countless individuals.
Like so many of my generation, I grew up on Audubon magazine, poring over the breathtaking photographs that sang every month from its cover and inside pages, finding a refuge for my own nascent love of birds and nature. In later years I came to appreciate the quality of writing as well as the art and photography. Under Les, Audubon was among the few magazines in wide circulation that gave space over to lengthy, totally engrossing, New Yorker-type pieces.
Twenty-five years ago this month, I answered an ad for a job at an “environmental organization” in New York City, and walked through the doors of the National Audubon Society to be greeted by a glass case showcasing issues of the flagship magazine—Les’s magazine. I took one look and knew I was where I belonged.
Over the years I got to know Les in many of his larger-than-life ways. He was renowned for his great appetites for food and jazz, as well as his uncompromising drive to excel as a nature writer, photographer, and editor. But Les never lost his gentle kind-heartedness and humility; byproducts, perhaps, of his rural Michigan upbringing and his contented rural life in Amenia. One day he invited me into his plush New York office; a beautiful, muscular gray tabby cat was curled up on his desk. The cat came from Les’s farm, and he became ours for many years.
That cat did not make the journey to Sharon when we became near-neighbors to Les and Lois a dozen years ago. (He had died a few months earlier.) But the day we moved up here, there was a one-line message from Les waiting for me, which I will never forget: “Welcome to God’s Country.”
The world was Les’s country, and he made it more memorable, more precious, and more beautiful for all of us.
--Fred Baumgarten--
Beautifully written piece,
Beautifully written piece, Fred. Damn! We should have had you writing for the magazine.
During my eight years as
During my eight years as Audubon’s Washington’s representative, I had many opportunities to interact with Les Line on matters related to our work with Congress. Some were substantive, others were less so. In what I think was the first year that Les produced a spectacular Audubon calendar, he decided that it would be a good idea to give a copy to all 535 members of the House and Senate and around Dec. 15 let me know that he was shipping them to me. As a one person office, there was no way I could handle those boxes much less get them delivered. Fortunately, those were the good old days, and I was able to get help from a friendly Senate staffer who arranged to have them delivered (at no charge) through the Senate post office to every office.
One of my most pleasant memories is a canoe trip to Four Hole Swamp with Les, his son and me, which Carlyle Blakeney, then our Southeastern Representative, arranged. Les was larger than life, literally and figuratively. Getting Les into a canoe was an amazing feat, but he managed. As we glided through the blackwater swamp, I was mesmerized by the snakes on top of cypress knees, while Les was busy spotting and photographing birds. Another highlight of that trip was the search for the perfect barbecue that followed our swamp adventure. We spent the next day erecting an Audubon sanctuary sign on a spit of barrier island that was nesting habitat for some birds I’ve long forgotten; that land subsequently washed away. But that’s the way it goes in our work—we have to keep fighting the same battles over and over again. Les knew that and kept up the good fight all his life.
Les Line- my rememberance
I was a young, green, 26-year-old Assistant Regional Representative for Audubon in the Western Region (CA, NV, OR and WA) when I met Les Line—who was intimidating in that he was larger than life, both literally and figuratively. Les was a world-class nature photographer in addition to being editor of Audubon magazine. He would come to California each summer to teach nature photography at a dude ranch in the Trinity Alps. I would pick him up in Sacramento, have dinner with him, and get him on his way north. It was a great experience, and we became friends and colleagues.
As Frank Graham Jr. and Ted Williams note, Les was the person who built Audubon’s reputation into what the New York Times called the “world’s most beautiful nature magazine,” and Audubon received the National Magazine award nominations to back up those claims. As editor, Les assigned Charlie Callison, Audubon’s executive vice president, to write a section for the publication called the “yellow pages,” which was the conservation issue, public policy, and advocacy portion of the magazine. Given that it appeared in a bimonthly publication in an era pre-dating email and the Internet, Callison’s section seemed like it was done in real time, as it was urgent, timely, and informative—and it complemented the wonderful in-depth articles and beautiful photographs in the rest of Audubon. Les didn’t shy away from controversy. I recall, I think, a five-part article on hunting and the role of the hunter in conservation by John Mitchell. Les did a 75th Anniversary issue of the magazine showcasing our history, our sanctuary system, and the birds we had protected that was a work of art and collector’s item—though really, all the issues of the magazine were worthy of collecting in slip cases, which we did…great stuff for a young conservationist to sponge up.
Glenn Olson
Donal O’Brien Chair in Bird Conservation and Public Policy