Eduardo Sánchez Junco, 1943–2010

Hello! magazine was not the place to look for hard-hitting investigative journalism. Its founder, Eduardo Sánchez Junco, saw Hello!—and its 13 sister publications in 10 languages—as dealing only with “the froth of life.”

Sánchez Junco “was famed for the ease with which he navigated Europe’s loftiest aristocratic circles,” said The New York Times. He exploited his access to give his readers “sanitized glimpses into the lives of stars, socialites, and their ilk.” But it wasn’t simply Sánchez Junco’s polish that gave him entrée to their salons. He greased his way with cash, once reportedly paying $250,000 to profile Britain’s Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah Ferguson, “in their opulent digs.”

Born in 1943 in Palencia, Spain, Sánchez Junco took over the family publishing business, consisting solely of the Spanish-language Hola!, after his father’s death in 1984, said the London Guardian. Unfazed by criticisms of the magazine’s “empty-headed frivolity,” he took it international in 1988 with the launch of Hello! in Britain. Sánchez Junco quickly became a favorite of Princess Diana when he paid 1 million pounds for photographs of her sunbathing topless—and then destroyed them.

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A hands-on manager, Sánchez Junco kept a tight rein on the various editions of Hello!, editing the magazines at his kitchen table in Madrid, “with his mother at his elbow,” said the London Daily Telegraph. His son, Eduardo, has taken over the publisher’s duties and is expected to continue Hello!’s focus on “flawless celebrities” portrayed “amid luxurious surroundings.”