Vanity Fair is an American magazine of culture, fashion, and politics published by Condé Nast Publications.
Condé Nast's Vanity Fair
Condé Nast began his empire by purchasing the men's fashion magazine Dress
in 1913. He is said to have paid $3,000 for the right to use the title "Vanity Fair" in the United
States, but it is unknown whether the right was granted by an earlier
English publication or some other source.
Condé Nast renamed the magazine Dress and Vanity Fair and published four issues in 1913. After a short period of
inactivity it was relaunched in 1914 as Vanity Fair.
The magazine achieved great popularity under editor Frank Crowninshield. In
1919 Robert Benchley was tapped to become managing editor.
He joined Dorothy Parker, who had come to the magazine from Vogue, and was the
staff drama critic. Benchley hired future playwright Robert E. Sherwood, who had
recently returned from World War I. The trio were among the original members of the
Algonquin Round Table, which met at the Algonquin Hotel, on the same West 44th Street block as Condé Nast's offices.
Crowninshield attracted the best writers of the era. Aldous Huxley, T.S. Eliot, Ferenc Molnár, Gertrude
Stein, and Djuna Barnes all appeared in a single issue, July 1923.[1]
Starting in 1925 Vanity Fair competed with The New
Yorker as the American establishment's top culture chronicle. It contained writing by Thomas Wolfe, T.S. Eliot and P.G.
Wodehouse, theatre criticisms by Dorothy Parker, and photographs by Edward
Steichen; Claire Boothe Luce was its editor for some time.
In 1915 it published more pages of advertisements than any other U.S. magazine.[2] It continued to thrive into the twenties. However, it became a casualty of the Great Depression, and in 1936 Vanity Fair was folded into
Vogue and ceased publication.
Modern revival
The magazine was revived in its current form in the 1980s by Condé Nast Publications, under the
ownership of Si Newhouse, and under editors Tina Brown (1984–1992) and E. Graydon Carter (since 1992). Regular columnists include
Sebastian Junger, Michael Wolff, Christopher
Hitchens, Dominick Dunne, and Maureen Orth.
Famous contributing photographers for the magazine include Bruce Weber,
Annie Leibovitz, Mario Testino and the late
Herb Ritts, all who have provided the magazine with a string of lavish covers and full-page
portraits of current celebrities. Amongst the most famous of these was the August
1991 cover featuring a naked, pregnant Demi Moore, an image
that to this day still holds a permanent spot in pop culture.
In addition to its controversial photography, the magazine is also known for its high quality articles. In 1996, journalist Marie Brenner wrote an exposé on the tobacco industry entitled "The Man Who Knew Too
Much". The article was later adapted into a movie The Insider
(1999), which starred Al Pacino and Russell Crowe. Most famously, after more than thirty years of mystery, an article in the May 2005 edition revealed the identity of Deep Throat (W. Mark Felt), the source for The Washington Post
articles on Watergate, which led to the 1974 resignation
of U.S. President Richard Nixon.
The magazine also includes candid interviews from celebrities: from Teri Hatcher admitting
to being abused as a child to Jennifer Aniston's first interview after her divorce from
Brad Pitt. Anderson Cooper talked about his feelings
about his brother's death publicly in the magazine while Martha Stewart gave an exclusive
to the magazine right after her release from prison.
In August 2006, Vanity Fair sent photographer Annie Leibovitz to the Telluride,
Colorado home of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes for
its October 2006 issue. The photo shoot was of the couple and their daughter, Suri Cruise, who had previously been "hidden",
without pictures released to the public, causing many to start to deny her existence.
In keeping with the influence of Hollywood and pop culture on the magazine, Vanity Fair hosts a high-profile, exclusive
Academy Awards after-party at the restaurant Morton's. In addition, its annual Hollywood
issue usually consists of pictorials of that year's respective Academy Award nominees. Previous Hollywood issue covers have
included group images of Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole
Kidman, and Catherine Deneuve together and Owen
Wilson, Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, and
Jack Black together.
The magazine was the subject of Toby Young's book, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, about his search for success, from
1995, in New York working for Graydon Carter's Vanity
Fair. The book has been optioned for a movie, with Jeff Bridges slated to play
Carter.
In February 2007, the first German issue of Vanity Fair was published, adding to other international editions of
Vanity Fair, which include the United Kingdom and Italy.
Controversy
Controversial pictorials
Some of the pictorials in Vanity Fair have garnered criticism. The April 1999 issue featured an image of actor
Mike Myers dressed as a Hindu deity for a photo spread
by David LaChapelle: after criticism, both the photographer and the magazine
apologized.[3]
Another issue whose cover image courted controversy was the March 2006 Tom Ford's Hollywood Special Edition: the cover,
shot by Annie Leibovitz, featured Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson both nude; accompanied by a fully-clothed Tom
Ford, standing in for Rachel McAdams who had backed out when she learned of the
requirements of the shoot. A feature in The Guardian about the 2005 Hollywood Edition said "I feel soiled gazing at this photograph, and it's not just jealousy. It reminded me of
Caravaggio's famous chicken in the National Gallery; it's
just as pornographic. Leibovitz's cover is simply a casting couch, a homage to the blowjob values of 1950s Hollywood."[4]
In addition, the December, 2006 issue (Vanity Fair's first "Art Issue") drew controversy with its photo of Brad Pitt wearing
nothing but a pair of white boxers. Although Pitt had signed a release for the image, which was taken in September 2005, he
claims he did not expect it to emerge on the magazine cover more than a year later. Vanity Fair has said that it obtained the
rights for the image, as part of a collection, and that it had issued a letter to Pitt informing him, prior to the
publication.
Polanski libel case
In 2005, Vanity Fair was found liable in a lawsuit brought in the UK by film director Roman Polanski, who claimed the magazine had
libelled him in an article published in 2002, accusing him of
boorish behavior and child molestation following the murder of his wife Sharon Tate in
1969. A 2002 article in the magazine written by A. E.
Hotchner recounted a claim by Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's, that Polański had made sexual advances towards a young model as he was travelling to
Sharon Tate's funeral, claiming that he could make her "the next Sharon Tate". The court permitted Polański to testify via a
video link, after he expressed fears that he might be extradited were he to enter the United Kingdom.[5] The trial started on July 18, 2005, and Polański
made English legal history as the first claimant to give evidence by video link. During the trial, which included the testimonies
of Mia Farrow and others, it was proved that the alleged scene at the famous New York
restaurant Elaine's could not possibly have taken place on the date given, because Polański only
dined at this restaurant three weeks later. Also, the Norwegian then-model disputed the accounts that he had claimed to be able
to make her "the next Sharon Tate".
Lindsay Lohan on the January 2006 cover of
Vanity Fair
Polański was awarded £50,000 damages by the High Court in London. The case was
notable because Polanski was living in France as a fugitive from U.S. justice, and never appeared in the London court for fear he
would be extradited to the U.S. and Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, responded, "I find it amazing that a man who
lives in France can sue a magazine that is published in America in a British courtroom," while Samantha Geimer commented, "Surely
a man like this hasn't got a reputation to tarnish?"[6]
Lindsay Lohan interview
In January 2006, Vanity Fair published a cover feature and an interview with
Lindsay Lohan in which she admitted using drugs "a little", although she denied ever using
cocaine, describing it as a "sore subject". The article said she had recovered from "bulimic episodes", and that her 2005 hospitalization was for "a swollen liver and kidney
infection".[7] Lohan later said she was "appalled"
that her words were "misused and misconstrued" for the article; the magazine however replied that "Every word [was recorded] on
tape. Vanity Fair stands by the story."[8]
References
- ^ About Town, by Ben Yagoda,
Scribner, 2000, p. 37.
- ^ About Town, by Ben Yagoda, Scribner, 2000, pp. 36.
- ^ SAJA Vanity Fair article, 9 June, 2000
- ^ The vanity, the
vanity The Guardian, February 2, 2005
- ^ Polanski takes appeal to Lords BBC News (online), 17
November, 2004
- ^ How I
spent my summer vacation in London being sued by Roman Polanski — and what I learned about "solicitors," pub food, and the
British chattering class, by Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair, 19 September, 2005
- ^ news.yahoo.com. Reuters: Lindsay Lohan Admits Drug Use, Bulimia Battle. Retrieved
on 4 January 2006.
- ^ Lindsay
Lohan says she's 'appalled' by 'Vanity Fair' article. USA Today Article. Retrieved on 9 July 2006.
External links
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