Malcolm Forbes
Businessman, publisher, politician
Born: Aug. 19, 1919, in Englewood, New Jersey
Died: Feb. 24, 1990, in Far Hills, New Jersey
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2008: Enterprise
Malcolm Forbes, it can truly be said, lived life to the fullest. From his base as the leader of Forbes, a magazine founded by his immigrant father, Forbes built a multimillion-dollar empire of business and real-estate holdings, and a lifestyle generally referred to as “flamboyant.” Never one to shy from the public eye, he twice sought the governorship of New Jersey, failing both times.
Born Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, he was the son of Adelaide Stevenson and Scottish immigrant Bertie Charles Forbes, a financial journalist who founded Forbes magazine in 1917. The younger Forbes graduated from the Lawrenceville School in 1937 and went on to Princeton University, where he studied politics and economics.
Forbes started his career as publisher of two weekly newspapers in Ohio, then enlisted in the Army in 1942. He served in Europe as staff sergeant in a machine-gun unit, suffering a severe leg wound and receiving a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.
After the war, Forbes married and, with his wife, bought Timberfield, an estate in Far Hills. Entering local politics, he was elected to the borough council in Bernardsville in 1949 and served in the New Jersey State Senate from 1951-58. He sought the state governorship twice, losing in the Republican primary in 1953 and as the Republican candidate in the statewide election in 1957.
Three years after his father’s death in 1954, Forbes became publisher and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine. He took over full control of the company in 1964, after the death of his brother Bruce. The magazine grew steadily, and Forbes diversified his holdings and his business interests, building his personal fortune. At his death, Forbes held the titles of chairman and editor-in-chief of the magazine.
But Forbes was not only distinguished by his wealth and business acumen. He was an ardent collector, with an array of treasures from Harley-Davidson motorcycles to Faberge eggs. An avid sportsman, he was known for his pursuits of yachting, motorcycling, and above all, hot-air ballooning. In 1973, he became the first person to fly coast-to-coast across the United States in a hot-air balloon. He set numerous other records for ballooning, and, according to The New York Times, made the first hot-air balloon flight over Beijing.
Forbes also was renowned for hobnobbing with celebrities, including his good friend Elizabeth Taylor. The actress was among the 1,000 guests Forbes flew to his 70th-birthday bash in Tangiers, Morocco. The gathering reportedly cost Forbes more than $2 million. Alongside such excesses, Forbes also was considered a model philanthropist.
He was, “a man of exuberance [and] adventure,” his son Steve said at Forbes’s induction into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. “To him, the happiest people on earth were those who combined work and leisure.”
And no one did that better than Malcolm Forbes.