Gardner Cowles, Scion of Publishing Empire, Dies

Gardner A. (Mike) Cowles, founder of Look Magazine and a member of the Cowles publishing empire, died of heart failure today at 82.

Cowles had suffered numerous complications after abdominal surgery last October, according to his secretary.

He had no publishing interests at the time of his death, she said, but was president of the Cowles Charitable Trust, which made contributions to education, art, hospitals and other institutions.

Cowles was the son of banker Gardner Cowles Sr., owner of the Des Moines Register and Leader, which became the nucleus of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Co. The Register had been in the Cowles family until last week, when it was purchased by the Gannett Co. newspaper group.

The younger Cowles served as a chief executive officer at the Register, but his first love was the general interest picture magazine, Look, which he founded with his brother, John, in 1937.

The magazine folded in 1971. It made a brief comeback under different ownership in 1974 but lasted only a few months.

Cowles was an associate of Wendell L. Willkie, the Republican presidential candidate in 1940. Cowles helped form the strategy that won Willkie the party’s nomination, although Willkie was defeated that year by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Cowles then helped Willkie write the book “One World,” a best seller at the time.