Clay S. Felker, 82; Influential Editor of New York Magazine

"My philosophy is that you have faith in the writer's point of view," Mr. Felker told The Post. "You pick the writers you believe in and give them their freedom. As opposed to most editors who want to mold the writers into what they want, make them a tool of the editors."

As an early champion of women in journalism, Mr. Felker helped Steinem's fledgling Ms. Magazine get off the ground when he included a 40-page preview issue in an edition of New York.

Yet, for all his success in defining an era, Mr. Felker was just as often derided for what could be called his feats of Clay. He once published a nude photo of Viva, an actress associated with Andy Warhol, and critics found some articles to be adolescent or needlessly provocative.

The journalism review More complained that New York magazine was little more than "a weekly diet of superficiality at best and deception at worst, reality distorted for the sake of titillation."

Breslin parted with Mr. Felker in the early 1970s, saying the magazine "caused me to become gagged with perfume and disheartened by character collapse."

As the circulation and reputation of his flagship magazine grew, Mr. Felker sought to expand his journalistic empire in the mid-1970s by buying the Village Voice and by launching New West, a West Coast version of New York.

But his lavish spending on limousines, office space and personal chefs drew criticism from his board of directors, who rejected his demand that they buy him a house in the Hamptons. Mr. Felker invited Rupert Murdoch, then newly arrived in the United States as owner of the New York Post, to invest in New York magazine.

Instead, Murdoch made a hostile bid for the three publications that Mr. Felker controlled. With backing from then-Washington Post Co. Chairman Katharine Graham, Mr. Felker proposed a series of counteroffers, but he was outmaneuvered by Murdoch and ousted in January 1977.

Feeling betrayed by Murdoch, Mr. Felker said, "Rupert Murdoch and I disagree on the meaning of friendship, of human values and the meaning of journalism."

Most of the New York staff walked out in solidarity, but Mr. Felker seemed to have lost more than just his magazine. He would spend the rest of his life trying to regain his magic touch, though seldom with the same success.

"His ambition was too large," a New York staffer told The Post in 1993. "Why wasn't he satisfied with New York magazine? He wanted to be Citizen Hearst, and he lost his dream."

Clay Schuette Felker was born Oct. 2, 1925, in St. Louis, where his father was managing editor of the Sporting News. Mr. Felker printed his first newspaper, the Greeley Street News, when he was 8 and sold it in his hometown of Webster Groves, Mo.