Long before she hobnobbed with megastars like Nick Lachey and Britney Spears, Lori Majewski was simply a Hudson County teenager with a ton of hopes and dreams.
In fact, Majewski, the current managing editor of the highly popular Teen People magazine, began her meteoric rise in journalism with a fanatical devotion to the 1980s pop band Duran Duran.
“Ever since I was 12 years old, I wanted to be a celebrity journalist,” Majewski, who lives in Weehawken, said in a recent telephone interview. “I was on a mission to meet Duran Duran, and I wanted to know what I could do to accomplish that. I decided that the best way to meet them was to become a journalist.”
So when Majewski entered Weehawken High School in the early 1980s, she quickly signed up to become part of the school newspaper, Indian Ink, and latched on to the newspaper’s faculty advisor, Anthony Colasurdo, currently the principal at Webster School.
“He was definitely one of the first people to inspire and motivate me,” Majewski said of Colasurdo. “He really was a mentor and saw to it that I did as much writing as possible.”
Start locally
In fact, it was Colasurdo who helped Majewski secure her first professional job – writing for none other than the Weehawken Reporter in 1988, while Majewski was still in high school.
“I wrote a bunch of articles for the Weehawken Reporter,” Majewski said. “I remember writing one about saving the band at Weehawken High School. There were plans to eliminate the band to save money and I wrote the story about it.”
Thanks partly to the coverage, the band survived – and still does.
After she graduated from Weehawken High School, former Weehawken Mayor Stanley Iacono phoned the late Jersey Journal political columnist Peter Weiss to see if there was a job at the paper for Majewski. Sure enough, Majewski was hired.
“I was covering all the meetings in town,” Majewski said. “It was a great experience for me, but I never lost sight of what I really wanted to do, which was writing for a magazine.”
The enterprising Majewski also produced what she called a “fan-zine,” a 500-member subscription newsletter with articles and items about – you guessed it – Duran Duran.
“I was still a big fan,” Majewski admitted.
New moon on Monday
While attending Fordham University, Majewski signed on with that school’s newspaper, the Fordham Observer, and eventually became the paper’s arts editor.
“Now I was getting the interviews with celebrities,” Majewski said. “I was an intrepid reporter, asking Bruce Springsteen about politics, interviewing Natalie Merchant with 10,000 Maniacs, taking pictures. I got Ivana Trump one time at a book signing. I was all over the place.”
And while in college, Majewski finally realized her first dream.
“I did my first interview with Duran Duran, and they were great,” Majewski said.
Interned at Spin
Majewski got her big break when she did an internship at Spin Magazine in 1994 and then moved on to US Weekly, where she remained for three years.
She then moved on to help start Teen People magazine, which was an offshoot of the extremely popular People, one of the largest selling magazines in the world.
The administration at Time/Life wanted to publish a magazine similar to People, but more focused on teen issues and interests.
“It was geared towards the age 14-to-17 market, with most of the buyers being females,” Majewski said. “I was excited to be a part of the new magazine.”
Majewski was the entertainment director for the new magazine and got to see budding stars like ‘N Sync (with Lachey), Spears and Christina Aguilera long before they became teen sensations.
“I knew those people when,” Majewski said. “I still get the biggest kick out of seeing the stars before they were stars. They all came to us and sang for us to see if we would write about them.”
Teen themes
For some reason, Majewski felt like she was always meant to be working for and with teenagers.
“I was always drawn back to working with teenagers,” Majewski said. “After 9/11, I felt like that was something I had to do. I was just in the city that morning and came home to Weehawken to have this front row seat, watching it all unfold. I knew that there was this whole new teen generation, kids 17, 18, who would be wondering about going to war. It was something I had to do.”
Majewski was the deputy editor, and in September of 2005, she became the managing editor of Teen People.
“Everything I’ve done in my life, it’s led to this,” said Majewski, who lives in Weehawken with her husband, Simon Cardwell, a jewelry designer who made the jewelry for the ABC reality show, “The Bachelor.”
“This is my dream job,” said Majewski, who is now 35. “I’m now running the magazine I helped to start.”
Sensitive issues
Over the years, Majewski said that Teen People has tackled real issues, like the Columbine tragedy and teen suicide.
“We re-printed a note of a teen who killed himself,” Majewski said. “It was very moving. We take teen issues to heart, addressing them as young adults, not just older kids. It’s not a magazine about proms and lipsticks and celebrities. We feel like we’re doing something important, addressing issues that are relevant to teens.”
Majewski said that her magazine is currently addressing the issue of Internet predators and the invasions taking place on the website Myspace.com.
“We had two teens help police to bust a predator,” Majewski said. “They helped the police to set up a sting and make an arrest.”
For its excellent work, Teen People received the ASME (American Society of Magazine Editors) Award for general excellence, never before presented to a teen magazine.
And there are the celebrities, people like Lachey, whom she considers friends.
“Of course, they’re a major part of what we do as well,” Majewski said.
Majewski is such a natural around celebrities and young celebrities auditioning for her that she almost became a judge on “American Idol.”
“I was the runner-up for Paula Abdul’s seat,” Majewski said. “I love kids and I love making dreams come true. Anything can happen if you work hard enough.”
30 is the new 13
So is it hard trying to keep up with teen issues while in your mid-30s?
“I definitely have this young thing about me,” Majewski said. “It’s very hard to keep your finger on the pulse of things that interest people half your age. But I love working with the teens. We have had more than 14,000 teen contributors, so that means a lot.”
Majewski also likes to include those close to home. For example, Teen People covered the North Bergen High School prom last week and once featured Weehawken High School in its pages.
“I think the most important thing is to never forget where you came from,” Majewski said. “I love Weehawken. I grew up there. My parents live a few blocks from me. It’s so convenient because I never learned to drive. The people who influenced me the most are still here and I love going back to talk to the kids. People always ask me when I’m moving to the city [New York] and I tell them I don’t have to. I’m never leaving.”
But does Majewski still have the deep devotion to Duran Duran?
“Absolutely,” she said. “They’ve become friends of mine. I’ve seen them in concert more times than I can count. I guess it all began in Weehawken with Duran Duran.”