Show chronicles publisher Luce's vision

Henry Luce founded Time, Life, Fortune and Sports Illustrated magazines.
By FRAZIER MOORE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Henry Luce is a hugely influential yet largely forgotten figure from the American Century -- the name he himself coined for the 1900s.
Fresh out of Yale, Luce masterminded Time magazine in 1923 to recap the week's news with brash, people-oriented flourish. Just a few years later, he invented the first picture magazine, Life. Then, to celebrate business, he created Fortune magazine, which somehow prospered despite its birth during the Great Depression. And in the 1950s he went 4-for-4 with Sports Illustrated.
More than a media mogul, Luce did more than chronicle events; through his publications, he "fashioned a vision of America and the world that reached nearly 25 percent of Americans," according to a new "American Masters" profile, "A Vision of Empire: Henry Luce and Time Life's America."
To discover, or be reminded of, Life magazine's innovative power in its heyday is sufficient reason for watching this documentary, which airs at 9 tonight on PBS. Life introduced the photo-weekly form, then, for several decades, reigned largely unrivaled in defining the nation for its citizens.
How things have changed
Today, Life magazine is dead. Time scrambles to identify a role in a cable-news world. Fortune is a quick-read shadow of the elegant monthly Luce founded. The company's crown jewel is People, a magazine begun several years after Luce's death.
Meanwhile, Luce's company is just a chunk of a media conglomerate that, not long ago, betrayed its legacy by chasing Internet dreams in a disastrous marriage with AOL.
Watching "A Vision of Empire," you may feel that Luce's American Century, gone just four years according to the calendar, was truly from another century.
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