Sunday, the man to whom Newsweek owes its ability to rise to the challenge of competing head-to-head with Time magazine, Osborn Elliott passed away at age 83. His family stated for Newsweek  that the cause of death had been some complications from cancer.

In 1955, „Oz,” as he was called, received a job offer as senior editor from Newsweek, a then mere imitator of Time magazine, the one for which Elliott was working at the time he got the aforementioned proposal.

Despite Newsweek’s little fame (if any at thet moment), he decided to take on the responsibility and remained editor of the weekly news magazine for no less than fifteen years, from 1961 to 1976.

He was also a deputy mayor of New York City and  the dean of Columbia University's graduate school of journalism, between 1979 and 1986. After his retirement, he accepted the university president’s request to further continue his teaching career as Columbia’s George T. Delacorte Professor of Journalism. As NY City’s deputy mayor, he refused to receive his salary in order to help Mayor Abraham D. Beame restructure the city's economic development agency. Consequently, he worked for a symbolic payment of a dollar a year.

Throughout his 21 years at Newsweek, he served as senior editor, president, chief executive and board chairman.

Osborn Elliott was among the first editors to be inducted to the American Society of Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame, also receiving the Frederick Douglass Award from the New York Urban League for his work in civil rights, Newsweek informed.