Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is an American magazine of culture, fashion, and politics published by
Condé Nast Publications.
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Bali Beauty - One of the last issues of Condé Nast's Vanity Fair before it was absorbed by Vogue |
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.
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The American actress Demi Moore appeared on this famous Vanity Fair cover in August, 1991. |
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 thicket of trendy advertisements which make finding even the magazine's table of contents a formidable task. 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."
[ The vanity, the vanity The Guardian, February 2, 2005 ]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.
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.
[ SAJA Vanity Fair article, 9 June, 2000 ]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.
[ Polanski takes appeal to Lords BBC News (online), 17 November, 2004 ] 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".
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Lindsay Lohan on the 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?"
[ How I spent my summer vacation in London being sued by Roman Polanskiâ€"and what I learned about "solicitors," pub food, and the British chattering class, by Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair, 19 September, 2005 ]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".
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."
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Vanity Fair homepage
