Ray Charles Cave, 91, former managing editor of Time magazine and reporter and editor with Sports Illustrated magazine, died at his Boothbay home on Aug. 17, 2020.

Cave, a native of Tacoma, Washington, was born May 27, 1929 to Agnes Hansen Roberts and Ray Roberts. Ray Roberts died from injuries sustained in a car accident Aug. 6, 1933. Agnes married second lieutenant John W. Cave in 1934 who adopted Ray and legally changing his name to Ray Cave.

The Cave family lived a military life, moving to a new base every two years. Ray was home schooled before attending a private boys school. He entered St. John’s College in Maryland at age 15. He received a B.A. from St. John’s in 1949 and served in the U.S. Army in Japan and Korea during the Korean War.

From 1952 to 1959, Cave worked at the Baltimore Evening Sun, starting as a police reporter and rising to the post of assistant city editor. While at the newspaper, he was a special correspondent for Sports Illustrated.

He married Katherine (Kay) Margaret Mumford on Oct. 10, 1950. They had two children, Jon Robert Cave, born in 1954, and Catherine Christine Cave, born in 1958. The family moved from Maryland to Stamford, Connecticut in 1959.

After Kay and Ray separated in 1976 and divorced in 1980 (Kay died in October 2015), Ray met Patricia Ryan when they both worked at Sports Illustrated and the family split time between Manhattan, Pennsylvania and Maine. Ray and Pat were married on March 21, 1997. Pat, who died in 2013, went on to become the managing editor of People and Life magazines.

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Cave is survived by his son, Jon; his half brothers, Jon and Christopher Cave; and a granddaughter, Madeleine Royal Cave.

After arriving at Time, Inc. in 1959 as a Sports Illustrated writer, covering basketball and golf, he rose to senior editor, assistant managing editor, and, in 1974, to executive editor.

“I don’t think you can overstate how important Ray Cave was in the evolution of Sports Illustrated becoming what it was by the early 1970s — one of the best-written, best-edited magazines in America,” Michael MacCambridge, the author of “The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine” (1997), said in an interview.

He joined Time magazine in 1976 as an assistant managing editor. After becoming managing editor of Time, Cave made major changes in the visual presentation of Time. He increased the number of color editorial pages from two per issue to more than 40, and stressed the use of color news photos. He introduced several new departments, including American Scene, Computers, Video, Design, Food and Notes sections. Under his direction, Time also produced distinguished one-subject issues on the Soviet Union, Japan, The New Immigrants, and the acclaimed special project Children of War. Among many awards the magazine received during Cave’s tenure, Time won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 1985. ADWEEK named him its “Hottest Editor of the Year” in 1983. During his years as managing editor at Time, Cave had exclusive interviews with Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Reagan and multiple heads of state. He was featured in the January 1985 edition of Vanity Fair magazine.

Cave was named editorial director of Time, Inc. in 1987. In this position – the second highest editorial management post in the company --- he functioned as principal deputy to the editor-in-chief. He resigned in November 1988 when an appropriate continuing role could not be agreed upon.

In 1994, he became an adjunct professor at Columbia University School of Journalism in New York City. He was on the Board of Visitors and Governors at St. John’s College, chairman of its capital campaign from 1990 to 1996 and became chairman of the board in 1997.

He was honored with The Briton Hadden Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2016 Henry R. Luce Award ceremonies.

When he was still able to travel, Ray spent time fly fishing for salmon in Canada, Scotland and Norway.

Locally, he and Pat were very involved with Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. They funded the Wendy Klemperer deer sculpture on the CMBG driveway and have a bench near the little elves forest display. Ray and Pat were summer visitors to the Boothbay region beginning in the 1970s. They bought a home in Boothbay in 1980 then moved here permanently in a home they had built in the early 1990s.

After his death, Ray was remembered by New York Times writer Richard Sandomir at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/21/business/media/ray-cave-dead.html and by essayist Roger Rosenblatt at  https://airmail.news/issues/2020-8-22/a-writers-editor  

Donations in Ray’s memory may be sent to the Boothbay Region Community Resource Council, P.O. Box 43, Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538.

A private family service will be held.