Gordon Fawcett; Built Publishing Empire

Gordon Wesley Fawcett, who built a publishing empire of paperback books and crime and romance magazines with his three brothers, died last weekend at his home here.

He was 81 and died Jan. 16 of heart failure.

In the mid-1920s, Fawcett and his brothers peddled their father’s sometimes off-color World War I tales around their hometown of Minneapolis.

Their father had mimeographed the material he obtained in Army camps, and the under-the-counter enterprise quickly became Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang. It reached a circulation of 425,000 copies by the mid-1920s.

The success of that venture led the Fawcett brothers into the world of slick magazines, including Daring Detective, Motion Picture, Women’s Day, True and True Confessions, which reached a monthly circulation of almost 2 million.

After World War II, Fawcett Publications was among the first publishers in the emerging paperback market.

The brothers agreed that age would determine the pecking order of their empire. Gordon Fawcett, the next to youngest of the four brothers, was secretary-treasurer. One of the brothers, Roscoe, is among his survivors.

In 1977, CBS bought the company for $50 million.