vanity fair

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 tipped 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.

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.

However, the magazine was not a commercial success; it reportedly made a profit in only one of its 22 years under Nast, and never sold more than 99,000 copies. 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. Under editors Tina Brown (1984-1992) and E. Graydon Carter (since 1992), Vanity Fair has enjoyed greater circulation, prestige and revenues, the latter attested by a plenitude of trendy advertisements. The magazine further boasts a number of prestigious columnists including Christopher Hitchens and James Wolcott.

Glamour photographers such as Annie Leibovitz, Mario Testino and the late Herb Ritts have provided the magazine with a string of lavish covers and full-page portraits of current celebrities and forgotten heroes. Amongst the most famous of these was the August 1991 cover featuring a naked, pregnant, Demi Moore, an image that is replicated to this day.

Since its revival, the magazine has made news as well as told it. It 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.

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. 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 cover of Vanity Fair's annual Hollywood issue, an issue that each year assembles some of the biggest female names in American cinema to feature on its cover has been criticised somewhat. 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 a simply a casting couch, a homage to the blowjob values of 1950s Hollywood." ^[1]

Another issue whose cover courted controversy was the March 2006 Tom Ford's Hollywood Special Edition: the cover, shot by Annie Leibovitz, featured a nude Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson; 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.

In keeping with this high-profile pre-Oscar event, the magazine also hosts an extremely exclusive Academy Awards after party.

On the cover of August 2006 issue of the magazine, pop star Britney Spears posed innude pictorials for the magazine. In one photo, she's wearing only a G-string and open fur coat, and in another she's completely nude covering her bare breasts with her hands. Her son, Sean, was also featured in the photospread.

Also in August 2006, Annie Leibovitz was the photographer of a photo shoot for the October 2006 issue at the Telluride, Colorado home of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. The shoot was of the couple and their daughter, Suri Cruise, who had previously been "hidden," without any pictures, causing many to start to deny her existence.

Controversy

Controversial pictorials

In addition to the sometimes controversial nature of some of Vanity Fair's covers, some of their other pictorials 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 apologised.^[2]

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.^[3] 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".

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?" ^[4]

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". ^[5] 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."^[6]

References

1. ^ The vanity, the vanity The Guardian, February 2, 2005
2. ^ SAJA Vanity Fair article, 9 June, 2000
3. ^ Polanski takes appeal to Lords BBC News (online), 17 November, 2004
4. ^ 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
5. ^ news.yahoo.com. Reuters: Lindsay Lohan Admits Drug Use, Bulimia Battle. Retrieved on 4 January 2006.
6. ^ Lindsay Lohan says she's 'appalled' by 'Vanity Fair' article. USA Today Article. Retrieved on 9 July 2006.

External links

• Vanity Fair homepage
• ISSN 0733-8899