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Robert K. Hoffman, 59; Co-Founder of National Lampoon Magazine

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From Times Staff and Wire Reports

Robert K. Hoffman, 59, who co-founded National Lampoon magazine while an undergraduate at Harvard University and became a successful businessman and art patron, died of leukemia Sunday at a Dallas hospital.

Hoffman and two fellow students started National Lampoon in 1969 and the next year he served as managing editor of the satirical publication that pushed the bounds of outrageous humor.

Hoffman, who was born in Oklahoma City and raised in Dallas, returned to Texas after earning a master’s of business administration at Harvard. He became a co-chairman of Coca-Cola Bottling Group’s Southwest division.

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He was chairman of the group that created the Dallas Plan, a 30-year blueprint for civic revitalization that was approved by the City Council in 1994.

After selling his interest in National Lampoon in the mid-1970s, Hoffman started collecting contemporary art; he amassed a collection that last year was valued at $150 million. He and his second wife, Marguerite, donated the 224-piece collection and a $20-million endowment to the Dallas Museum of Art.

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