ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 7, 1996 TAG: 9603070049
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SERIES: Election '96
SOURCE: ANGIE CANNON AND STEVEN THOMMA KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
``DON'T TRY TO BE WHAT YOU'RE NOT, or you'll send yourself to an early grave," Malcolm Forbes once told his son Steve, who now seeks the presidency.
At a grand memorial service six years ago at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan, some 1,400 people paid tribute to Malcolm Forbes Sr., the legendary magazine publisher who flew hot-air balloons, collected expensive Faberge eggs, zipped around on a motorcycle and escorted Liz Taylor.
Each of Forbes' five children gave a eulogy, including his firstborn - Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr., a reserved, awkward man who spoke affectionately about his famous father, while also proclaiming his independence from him.
His father's most memorable advice, the son recounted, was: ``Don't try to be what you're not, or you'll send yourself to an early grave.''
Now, as the 48-year-old multimillionaire political novice is making a run for the presidency, some are wondering if he is heeding his father's advice.
Some associates say Forbes' political campaign, underwritten so far with about $18 million of his own $450 million fortune, is his attempt to step out from his father's shadow or perhaps a chance to achieve something his father only dreamed about. ``It's the Holy Grail, the gold at the end of the rainbow,'' his father once said of the presidency.
Steve Forbes has told reporters he isn't using his presidential campaign to make a name for himself separate from his father.
Instead, he says he saw a void in the Republican field when former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp decided not to run. Compared with his dour Republican rivals, Forbes has an optimistic message that features a flat tax, a return to the gold standard and supply-side economics.
When he first announced in September, Forbes' bid was considered a rich man's fantasy. Then, over the weeks, largely because of extensive television advertising, he became a threat to front-runner Bob Dole.
Through it all, the question that sticks to Forbes is this: Does a man who has followed so closely his father's path, who has inherited everything, have the mettle to be president of the United States?
In many ways, son has followed father almost step-for-step: Both attended prep school, then Princeton, began a college magazine, married a socially prominent woman, had five children and ran Forbes, the business magazine.
But there are big differences between them. Flamboyant and outgoing, Malcolm was more interested in fame to promote his magazine and sell more advertising. Bright and cerebral, Steve is more interested in economic ideas, even winning awards for his accurate predictions of economic indicators.
Malcolm was an ebullient, fun-loving, naturally warm person. Steve is not. ``Nerd'' is the word his friends use most to describe him, as well as ``down-to-earth,'' ``decent'' and ``self-deprecating.''
``In a roomful of strangers, Steve would not be going around shaking hands,'' said Kip Weeks, a prep school and college classmate. ``His father was the opposite. He would attack a roomful of strangers.''
And yet, oddly, here is Steve Forbes: shaking hands; signing autographs; beaming with that goofy grin; lobbing attacks at his political rivals; answering questions from the media wolf pack; appearing to truly enjoy it all, albeit woodenly, on the campaign trail.
Forbes wasn't accepted to Lawrenceville, his father's more prestigious prep school, and went to the lesser-known Brooks School in North Andover, Mass., where he spent five years and graduated in 1966.
``He was a bespectacled geek - still is,'' said a high school classmate and photographer, Jacques Sturgis. ``But he was the first guy to have wire-rim glasses and to turn me on to Bob Dylan.''
At Brooks, Forbes was a leader in the Investment Club, (he had begun compiling a stock portfolio at age 12) and the Young Republicans, as well as an editor on the literary magazine, the yearbook and the school newspaper. He excelled in the debating society, winning the best speaker award in 1966.
On his dresser, Forbes had a mirror that was a reproduction of a Time magazine cover: ``Every day, he would look in the mirror and see himself on the cover of Time,'' Sturgis recalled.
Forbes' Princeton years were at the height of America's social tumult, with the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, the drug culture. Forbes editorialized thusly about student protests in the college business magazine he founded: ``We found it a refreshing sight to see the cops, their clubs a-swingin', disrupt a band of willful ruffians disrupting an entire university.''
After graduating from Princeton in 1970, Steve Forbes came to Forbes magazine with never a thought of gaining seasoning elsewhere first. He worked first on the editorial side of the business magazine, which was known for feisty investigative stories and later for more off-the-wall stories.
``Steve behaved like any other writer,'' said Steve Quickel, a former 15-year Forbes staff member who had been senior editor. ``He sat in a cubicle. He came to regular story meetings and could reel off 10 or 12 good ideas. He knew what a `Forbes' story was. His stories came in competently written; some were sparkling. He could have hacked it on his own.''
After a few years, Forbes moved to the magazine's business side, gradually assuming more responsibility. By the late 1980s, he was deputy editor-in-chief and wrote a column pushing his conservative economic ideas. It was apparent that he eventually would take control of the magazine and the media company of Forbes Inc., which he did in 1990 when his father died.
Sheldon Zalzanick, the former Forbes managing editor, said being the son of a powerful father was hard.
``People keep looking for something,'' he said. ``I just have always been admiring at how gracefully Steve handled it as the son of the owner.''
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Steve Forbes\Publisher - president? color. KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENT PROFILEby CNB