Gloria Stavers (1926-1983) was the editor in chief of 16 magazine. Her personality gave this teen celebrity magazine its stamp for many years.
Stavers is credited with being one of the first women rock and roll journalists, but male editors, detractors and those who scoffed at teen or celebrity magazines sometimes called her "Mother Superior Of the Inferior".
Very little is known of Stavers`s childhood and adolescence. She was born Gloria Gurganus in Wilmington, North Carolina. She had married and divorced young, and had moved to New York to pursue a modeling career. For a time she was involved socially with the "jet set" and was rumored to be involved romantically with baseball player Mickey Mantle. Health issues forced Stavers to give up modeling.

Stavers got her start at 16 Magazine in 1957 as a subscriptions clerk. She was initially paid 50 cents an hour. Stavers developed many of her ideas as to how the magazine should be run by reading the fan letters from preteenaged girls writing to various celebrities in care of the magazine. As she read those letters, she remembered how she felt as a pre-teenager, and what she most cared about at that age.

Stavers did not have any prior experience in journalism, nor did she possess a university degree, but she rose quickly through the ranks. She was promoted to the position of editor in chief, where she had unprecedented access to many of the top recording acts of the day. Although 16 Magazine had a staff of reporters on both coasts, Stavers wrote most of the magazine`s feature articles herself. She also served as the magazine`s chief photographer, and shot numerous photographs of stars such as Paul Revere and the Raiders, Peter Noone of Hermans Hermits, and Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors.
Stavers was known for being singleminded regarding the image of "her" magazine. Her main priority was giving her teenage female reader base what it wanted, and what they wanted, according to Stavers, was the feeling of being "close" to their favorite stars. Stavers would receive more than 300 letters per day addressed to her from teenagers. She read every letter and took their words to heart, and then tried to use the magazine to address the concerns that were often written off as "silly" by adults.

As an editor, she eschewed serious or controversial subject matter for 16 Magazine interviews. Rather than asking a celebrity about social issues, she preferred to discuss more personal and lightly intimate topics such a celebrity`s favorite color or meal or to ask him who his idea of whom a "dream date" would be. Her style of interviewing was referred to as the "Forty intimate questions." Her first interview using that format was with the Canadian pop singer Paul Anka.

Stavers, in her writings, attempted to make the celebrity appear approachable and "attainable" for her young readers. In short, the celebrity was a "surrogate boyfriend" for the reader. If the artist was married, in a long term relationship or was not heterosexual in orientation, that fact was never mentioned in the magazine.

In her editorial content, Stavers seldom if ever wrote critical or unflattering prose regarding any celebrity. She preferred to focus on the positive qualities of the "faves." She ignored those celebrities and musical acts whom she felt would not capture her readers interest, or those who failed to capture her personal interest. If the "fave" appeared to have fallen out of f