Vanity Fair | The New York Observer

Time Inc.'s Squires Assembles Team of Rivals to Harness Digital Media

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:31:18 -0500

Some of the magazine industry’s biggest names are on the verge of forming a new company that would allow them to take the digital future into their own hands.

The company would make up one of the biggest alliances among rival publishers ever formed in print media, with Time Inc., Condé Nast and Hearst all expected to join, houses that together publish more than 50 magazines, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Time,...

Graydon Carter, Master of Jokes/Job Offers

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:02:18 -0400

This is third-hand, so it probably requires a grain of salt. But: a Conde Nast editor tells a source tells Mediaite that Graydon Carter is offering laid-off Vanity Fair staffers jobs at his Monkey Bar.

That's one way, I guess, to cultivate an elite-media-insider ambiance.

This follows the trip to Bermuda that kept him out of office for VF...

The Si Way

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:58:39 -0400

Just eight years after Si Newhouse spent tens of millions to move Condé Nast into 4 Times Square, he was ready to move out.

In the first week of October 2007, Mr. Newhouse signed a deal with the real estate developer Douglas Durst to build a new tower for his company over a platform on the West Side rail yards at the southeast corner of 33rd Street and 11th Avenue. The...

Graydon Carter Won't Be Meeting With McKinsey; Fran Lebowitz: 'If I Needed Advice, I'd Ask Myself!'

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:50:47 -0400

Graydon Carter hosted a book party last night at Monkey Bar, his little restaurant on 54th Street, to celebrate the publication of Lebron James' memoir.

The Observer caught up with Mr. Carter at the party, and it turns out that David Remnick of The New Yorker isn't the only editor at Condé Nast who won't have to meet with the McKinsey consultants currently trawling the hallways of 4 Times Square.

We asked Mr. Carter if...

Dominick Dunne Dies of Bladder Cancer: Onetime Hollywood Striver Reinvented Himself as High-Society, True-Crime Chronicler

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:01:58 -0400

Writer and high-society fixture Dominick Dunne died on Wednesday. Aug. 26 in his home in Manhattan, it was announced by Griffin Dunne, one of his two sons. He was 83 years old.

The news was reported by fellow Park Avenue chronicler David Patrick Columbia and then confirmed on the Website of Vanity Fair, where Mr. Dunne was a contributor.

Mr. Dunne disclosed last year that he was battling bladder cancer and would undergo stem cell treatment....

The Gilded Age of Conde Nast Is Over

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:56:14 -0400

Three weeks after McKinsey & Company slipped its foot into the door of the emerald tower, Condé Nast staffers continue to ask what fresh hell they find themselves in.

“I saw Graydon in the cafeteria this week!” said one business-side insider, last Friday. “In all my years here, I’ve never seen him in my life there. He was behind me in the line at checkout with his little swipe card. He was milling around...

Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar Gisele Bundchen Covers Strike Out at the Newsstand

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:59:36 -0400

Gisele, it turns out, doesn’t sell.

Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar each put Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen on covers this year, and both promptly had their worst-selling issues off the newsstand in 2009.

The May Vanity Fair, which featured a bare-bodied Gisele standing sideways with a come-hither look, sold only 280,000 single sale copies, the lowest total for the magazine in nearly two years, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Rapid Report. Harper’s Bazaar’s April issue,...

David Margolick Joins 'Newsweek'

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:27:00 -0400

David Margolick, the ex-New York Times star and Vanity Fair contributor who found himself without a job after Portfolio folded, has a new home: Newsweek.

Mr. Margolick has signed a contract to write four to five stories a year for the newly re-imagined newsweekly, said Jon Meacham, the editor.

"He’s a master of the kind of journalism we do need to do more of: deeply reported, narrative pieces that you can really settle into...

How Does It End? Meryl Gordon Wrote the Book on Brooke Astor

Tue, 26 May 2009 19:54:36 -0400

Wherever Meryl Gordon sets her Baltimore Orioles seat cushion in Judge A. Kirke Bartley Jr.’s courtroom often becomes the center of an orbiting cast of reporters.

Ms. Gordon, 58, author of the 2008 tome Mrs. Astor Regrets, is a one-stop reference on virtually every facet of the case against Anthony Marshall, son of the late socialite and philanthropist Brooke Astor, who now stands accused of looting his mother’s fortune.

In the high-profile trial—witnesses included Henry Kissinger,...

The Goo Goo Thing

Thu, 14 May 2009 12:17:25 -0400

Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood
By Michael Lewis
Norton, 190 pages, $23.95

Here are some things I’ve learned since becoming a father:

—The Queens Zoo is a wholesome and inexpensive place to take two boys, ages 1 and 3, on weekends. Also: It is fine for boys that age to ride the merry-go-round outside the zoo even if the operators run it overly fast and even if their horses are the up-and-down kind,...

Weekend of a Thousand Stars

Mon, 11 May 2009 10:00:23 -0400

On the morning of Sunday, May 10, Pat Buchanan sauntered across K Street. The political pundit was wearing a blazer and a blood red tie. It was the day after the White House Correspondents Association dinner, and the weather in the nation's capital was beautiful, bright and breezy.

Mr. Buchanan was zeroing in on John McLaughlin's annual Sunday brunch. The place you traditionally go after the weekend of frenzied socializing to see and be...

Hitch Ditches Correspondents Bash, Partiers Proceed to Pierre's Place

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:09:44 -0400

On May 9, when celebrities and reporters come stumbling out of the Hilton Washington following this year’s hotly anticipated White House Correspondents Dinner, there’s one party they can scratch off the list: Christopher Hitchens’ house party.

Mr. Hitchens, who has played host for Vanity Fair’s intimate after-party on and off for years, is pulling out this time around.

A spokeswoman for Vanity Fair said the magazine has decided to make its annual soiree...

Inside Baseball: Mark Bowden's Shot Heard 'Round The World (Wide Web)

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:08:00 -0400

On Monday, the editors of Vanity Fair posted Mark Bowden's May 2009 write-around on Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. on the Web. The story, which was Mr. Bowden's first for the magazine, made quite an impression on the small—and ever-shrinking—community of media reporters and pundits who obsess about The New York Times, not to mention the bloggers, tumblrers and twittererers who do whatever it is they do ("aggregate"? "reblog"? "tweet"? help us out with the correct...

No More Mean Girls? Gossip Girl's Dreama Walker Is Coy About Whether She'll Be Back Next Season

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:32:15 -0400

When the 22-year-old actress Dreama Walker strolled into the Stephen Weiss Studio in the West Village on Thursday, March 12, for the opening of a photo exhibit called “The Character Project,” the Daily Transom wasn't quite sure it was the girl who plays the sharp-tongued—but adorable!—Hazel on Gossip Girl. (Frankly, we've never understood why the producers didn't just use the actors' real names on the show. Dreama, Leighton, and Blake are as precious...

Bernie Madoff Pleads Guilty; Heads Off to Prison

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:04:33 -0400

As you probably already know, Bernard Madoff is heading to jail.

The New York Times' Diana B. Henriques and Jack Healy report that Mr. Madoff pleaded guilty to Judge Denny Chin this morning at United States District Court in Manhattan. Taking "breaking news" to new heights, The Wall Street Journal and its News Corp. sister channel, Fox Business, is streaming live video from outside the courthouse. The New York Daily News—whose owner, Mort Zuckerman lost...

My Night At The Oscars

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:16:07 -0500

On Friday night, Feb. 20, in Los Angeles, Mark, a friendly expert in the art of mixology, tore up a few more bits of oregano at Cecconi’s, a sprawling Italian bistro that sits atop the hallowed Melrose Avenue dirt that was home to longtime industry staple Morton’s. The restaurant, which is owned by the folks who operate SoHo House in New York, was playing host to the Oscar crowd. Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman and...

Reversal of Fortune: Vanity Fair Employees Brown Bag It

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:00:20 -0500

By now, Condé Nast's belt-tightening is well known, but with the recent shuttering of Domino and widespread concern of a so-called "Domino effect" at the magazine company, just how bad are things over at 4 Times Square?

Pretty bad, apparently. According to a shocking report on Vanity Fair's Web site by Jessica Flint and Elizabeth Hurlbut, Vanity Fair employees are being forced to brown bag it.

Coming only a week after...

The Beast That Roared (for a While!)

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:19:12 -0500

One week after Tina Brown launched the Daily Beast back in October, Michael Wolff, the Vanity Fair columnist and the founder of Newser, gave a typically tart assessment of his new competitor.

“She’s not a news aggregator, although that is her pretense for doing something Web-like,” he said to The Observer at the time. “In fact, she’s just an old magazine hack.”

He was right, partly: In the 110 days...

So Much for 'Change': Vanity Fair Reuses 2007 Obama Cover for March 2009 Issue

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:17:31 -0500

Barack Obama is on the cover of the new Vanity Fair as part of the magazine's photo portfolio of his team and supporters taken by Annie Leibovitz. (Not to be confused with The New York Times Magazine's photo portfolio by Nadav Kander from earlier this month.)

If President Obama's sideways position and stern expression look a little familiar, they should: It's the same photo that ran on the cover in July 2007...

Atlantic Publisher David Bradley Fêtes 'Beloved' Gwen Ifill on Inauguration Eve

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:17:30 -0500

On the evening of Monday, January 19th, the publisher David Bradley, stood in the opulent living room of his Georgian mansion off of Embassy Row in Washington D.C., across the road from the Naval Observatory, and spoke of existential angst.

"All of us have those middle of the night sentiments of, ‘Does any of what I’m doing matter?'” said the publisher of The Atlantic and The National Journal. "'Will anyone ever remember? How...

Times' Nocera Blasts Anna, Graydon and Remnick for Being 'Sanguine' about Magazines Future; Remnick Says, 'We're Not'

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:32:56 -0500

At today's Newhouse panel at the Plaza, moderator Ken Auletta asked all three Condé Nast editors on the dais—Vogue's Anna Wintour, Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter, The New Yorker's David Remnick—how they felt about the future of magazines. Would the crisis that's currently afflicting the newspaper industry take its toll on magazines?

As they've said before, these editors think everything will be just fine!

"I think we’ve been in difficult times before and...

Anna Wintour Says She Has 'No Plans' to Leave Vogue; What Would It Take? 'The Day I Get Too Angry'

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:20:53 -0500

"I have no plans to leave American Vogue now or in the foreseeable future," said Vogue editor Anna Wintour as she was walking out of the Plaza this morning.

Ms. Wintour was at the Plaza today along with New Yorker editor David Remnick and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter to participate in a panel discussion sponsored by the Newhouse School of Communication and The New Yorker.

Rumors have been circulating for weeks that Ms. Wintour...

Must Disappear TV: Criss Angel Developing 'Workplace' Magic Comedy for NBC

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:23:05 -0500

Last week, Vanity Fair's Matt Pressman interviewed Lee Eisenberg, a writer for NBC's The Office for the magazine's Culture and Celebrity blog.

Here's a snippet:

How did you [and writing partner Gene Stupinsky] end up writing for The Office?

Lee Eisenberg: Gene and I sold a pilot called Lonnie and Gordo, and [The Office executive producer] Greg Daniels got his hands on that.

What was that show about?

It was about two co-dependent...

Vanity Fair: Legendary Illustrator David Levine Losing Sight

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:44:13 -0400

In the November issue of Vanity Fair, David Margolick profiles the artist David Levine, whose pen and pencil work has been a cornerstone of The New York Review of Books for decades. Mr. Levine, who's 82 years old, has begun to lose his sight from macular degeneration and, as Mr. Margolick reports, his role at the Review has been greatly diminished.

Writes Mr. Margolick:

Levine believes the Review has fired him. In fact, for...

Graydon's Big Get: Raids Portfolio for Michael Lewis

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:34:31 -0400

About a month ago, Vanity Fair deputy editor Doug Stumpf took Michael Lewis out to dinner at his boss Graydon Carter’s Waverly Inn. Mr. Stumpf brought along fellow Vanity Fair editor Punch Hutton and contributing editor Bethany McLean to help split the $55 truffled macaroni-and-cheese plates for the table.

Mr. Lewis, who has been (and still is, at press time) on contract with The New York Times Magazine and Portfolio, had been...

Dominick Dunne Hospitalized While Covering O.J. Simpson Trial

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:36:42 -0400

One day after he was profiled in The New York Times 'Style' section by Steve Friess, Vanity Fair's celebrity crime writer Dominick Dunne has been hospitalized, according to the Associated Press.

AP is reporting that Mr. Dunne, age 82, "has been taken to a Las Vegas hospital after he says he was stricken by pain while watching testimony in the O.J. Simpson armed robbery-kidnapping trial."

In Sunday's article, Mr. Dunne told The...

Socialite Annie Churchill Gave Up Drinking for Fashion Week

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:06:46 -0400

Fashion Week is almost over. Our feet and our backs are suffering from tall shoes and shwag-stuffed purses. Our face feels puffy from all the makeup and late night parties. And we're pretty much ready to collapse and settle in with 10 episodes of Mad Men tomorrow.

But it seems we're not the only casualties.

At last night's Vanity Fair gathering at the Lambertson Truex boutique uptown in honor of...

Miley Cyrus Loves (Suggestively Shaped) Candy

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:38:08 -0400

Remember way back in April when everyone went flying into a tizzy over those Vanity Fair photos of little ol’ Miley Cyrus hugging a bed sheet to her naked, 15-year-old chest? Consider this a minor addendum to that controversy. Disney—the same globo-corp that complained Annie Leibovitz had manipulated their star into those provocative poses—now gives us “Concert Candy,” a product tailor-made to elicit dirty thoughts in the minds of helpless sweet-tooths. The little gummy...

Where Did That Bloomberg to Buy New York Times Rumor Come From?

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 08:01:47 -0400

How do rumors get started? They get started, apparently, by journalists who seek to connect with powerful sources, according to Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff, who shares an excerpt from his upcoming Rupert Murdoch biography in the October issue of the magazine.

In Tuesdays with Rupert, Mr. Wolff writes:

[Mr. Murdoch] may be among the biggest gossips in New York. In the months of interviewing him, I found that the most reliable way to hold...

At DNC Vanity Fair Party, Chevy Chase Gets McCain's VP Choice Wrong; Ashley Judd and Jamie Foxx Boogie Down

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:26:04 -0400

DENVER—"There's my girl!" Chevy Chase bellowed as Madeline Albright walked into the backroom of the Vanity Fair-Google party on Thursday, August 28. The towering comedian, who was clad in a blazer, T-shirt and jeans, bent down to embrace his old friend. They discussed plans to get together—Mr. Chase promising an e-mail from "his people"—mugged for the cameras, and agreed that Barack Obama had nailed his speech. "If we're seen together, you're...

Vanity Fair Does 15 CPW: Starbucks, The Horror!

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:20:15 -0400

We wonder if the staff of 15 Central Park West knows that New York City's swankiest new building will eventually have retail tenants like Best Buy and West Elm. Based on their reaction to a Starbucks cardboard coffee cup, we presume they may be in for a surprise.

Vanity Fair penetrated 15 Central Park West's limestone facade for its September issue, and architecture critic Paul Goldberger had no shortage of praise for the Robert A.M....

Morning Memo: Arden Wohl's American Graffiti; Ashley Dupre's Waverly Debut; Ed Westwick Gets a Fashion Line

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:54:25 -0400

Police in the Hamptons tell Page Six that headband-wearing socialite Arden Wohl was arrested on Saturday night in East Hampton for writing "Ralphy Lip-Shits" (and here we are filling in a few letters the Post rendered tastefully in dashes!) in red lipstick on the facade of Ralph Lauren's store there. But she showed American spirit for taking several miniature American flags that were part of the store's holiday decoration scheme. For which the police...

Thicker Mastheads: Vanity Fair Adds Vanessa Grigoriadis and Joe Hagan

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:16:25 -0400

Vanity Fair has added New York contributors Vanessa Grigoriadis and (Observer-alumnus) Joe Hagan as contributing editors to its fantastically sizeable masthead, WWD's Irin Carmon reports this morning.

She also writes that it is expected that they will continue as New York contributing editors as well....

Gina Gershon Responds to Vanity Fair: Journalists Are "So Scary"

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:28:38 -0400

This morning Gina Gershon went on Live with Regis and Kelly—except that today it was "Live with Mario Lopez and Kelly"—to promote her Broadway play, Boeing Boeing.

Predictably, she used the opportunity to once again share some thoughts about Vanity Fair's recent article that made allegations about the actress and Bill Clinton.

Ms. Gershon told the hosts,

"It is such a crazy, outrageous lie that has nothing to do with me... Journalists,...

Media World Decides Whether or Not to 'Become a Fan' of Mayhill Folwer

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:57:58 -0400

James Rainey at the L.A. Times—the embattled L.A. Times!—scored the first interview with 61-year-old Mayhill Fowler, that dogged citizen journalist of the Huffington Post.

No, wait! She's not a journalist! And she doesn't want her sources—like Bill Clinton who told her on Monday that Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum was a scumbag—to know that either.

"Of course he had no idea I was a journalist," Fowler said by phone from her Oakland, Calif., home, recalling her...

Graydon on Bill's Blowup: 'Saddening ... Characteristic'

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:29:18 -0400

On the afternoon of June 2, Wolf Blitzer was talking to Vanity Fair national editor Todd Purdum about his 9,647-word piece about Bill Clinton.

“Some people who work for him now say that he seems to be angry all the time, angry when he gets up in the morning and angry when he goes to bed at night,” Mr. Purdum was saying.

At about...

David Granger on Clinton Remarks: It Wasn't Me

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:51:41 -0400

During Bill Clinton's spectacular meltdown yesterday--calling Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum a scumbag, sleazy and slimy--he also decided to drag just about everyone into the melee. He said:

"The editor of Esquire-- he sent us an email yesterday and said it was the single sleaziest piece of journalism he'd seen in decades. He said it made him want to go take a shower and he was embarrassed to be a journalist when he read...

Vanity Fair: Gossip Girl Is For Real

Thu, 22 May 2008 16:15:35 -0400

In yet another attempt to find a new and creative way to cover the over-exposed show Gossip Girl, Vanity Fair sat down with three--real!--Upper East Side high school girls they call A, M and T. The girls talk about going to Butter--"Butter is ok; I’m not really into it"--drinking cosmos, and how many people they know that went to rehab a la Serena van der Woodsen. Here are a few of our favorite answers:...

How Green Is His Valley? At Vanity Fair's Enviro-Bash, Brokaw Brags of Bison

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:05:14 -0400

On Monday, April 28, in the subterranean auditorium of the New York Public Library, Vanity Fair hosted a cocktail hour and convocation of experts grandly titled “Redesigning the World: A Green Way to the Future.” And environmentally concerned New Yorkers Mary Richardson Kennedy (wife of Robert Kennedy Jr.), NBC Universal’s Ben Silverman, and public-relations consultant Ken Sunshine (whose clients include green freaks Leonardo DiCaprio and Laurie David) were all there to partake in the...

Vanity Fair Aims for Daily 'Original Reporting' on Politics

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:41:00 -0400

As big magazines dip their toes a little deeper into the Internet, Vanity Fair plans to write more about politics!

An editorial associate, Christopher Bateman, has been assigned the task of writing about it on their daily blog and introduced himself to the fraternity of webby political writers with an e-mail today. He explained the purpose of the blog: "What we're aiming to do on VF Daily is really produce some original reporting that...

Solidarity! Vanity Fair Cancels Oscar Party

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:51:43 -0500

Vanity Fair just announced that they are planning to cancel their annual Oscars after-party.

Here's the entire announcement, as posted on VF Daily this afternoon:

After much consideration, and in support of the writers and everyone else affected by this strike, we have decided that this is not the appropriate year to hold our annual Oscar party. We want to congratulate all of this year’s nominees and we look forward to hosting our 15th Oscar party...

David Margolick Leaves Vanity Fair for Portfolio

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:28:19 -0500

David Margolick is leaving Vanity Fair for Portfolio, Media Mob has learned. Margolick, who most recently wrote a profile of Eliot Spitzer, has been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair since 1996 and covered culture and politics there. He made his big bones in a long stint at The New York Times (for which he covered the O.J. Simpson trial).

Margolick will become a contributing editor at Portfolio and he is expected to start...