Vanity Fair articles from August 2007

Vanity Fair archives from August 2007

Jess Weixler.(Brief biography)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Krista Smith AGE: 26. PROVENANCE: Louisville, Kentucky, followed by Manhattan's Juilliard School, "where my accent was completely beaten out of me." THE SWEETHEART OF SUNDANCE... on account of her Jury Prize-winning performance in...

The REAL America.(Events in the South)(Calendar)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Jamie Malanowski "For every Southern boy fourteen years old," wrote William Faulkner in Intruder in the Dust, "not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in...

Landing in Hollywood; What drew Shia LaBeouf to acting, at age 10, was a hatred of school and a yen for designer sneakers.
August 1, 2007... Byline: Michael Hogan The giant letters on the hills in this part of town don't spell hollywood; they spell think blue, the slogan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. "I grew up running around these hills," says Shia LaBeouf, squinting from under...

The History Boys; In the twilight of his presidency, George W. Bush and his inner circle have been feeding the press with historical parallels: he is Harry Truman-unpopular, besieged, yet ultimately to be vindicated-while Iraq under Saddam was Europe held by Hitler.
August 1, 2007... Byline: David Halberstam We are a long way from the glory days of Mission Accomplished, when the Iraq war was over before it was over-indeed before it really began-and the president could dress up like a fighter pilot and land on an...

Christopher Wheeldon's Leap Year.(launching Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Laura Jacobs American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet so dominate classical dance in New York City they're tantamount to the two-party system in politics: the idea of a third company seems at best unsupportable and at...

"Something Happened At Anne's!"; With rare perfectionism and the deepest of pocketbooks, Anne Bass, socialite ex-wife of Texas billionaire Sid Bass, carved out an exquisite 1,000-acre domain in South Kent, Connecticut.
August 1, 2007... Byline: Michael Shnayerson It was a perfect night for a home invasion. By nine p.m. on Sunday, April l5, the surprise nor'easter of 2007 had brought high winds and flooding to much of New England. Fire and police departments in western...

A Transatlantic Affair.(American actors doing British roles)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Ned Zeman Thanks to her role in Stardust, a swords-and-fairies fantasy due out this month, Claire Danes now embodies a second Hollywood trend. The first came in the late 1990s, when, like Jodie Foster before her and Natalie Portman...

Sly Stone's Higher Power; Sly Stone vanished into rumor in the 1980s, remembered only by the great songs ("I Want to Take You Higher," "Dance to the Music") he left behind.(Interview)
August 1, 2007... Byline: David Kamp Will Sly show up? I sure hope so. I have an appointment with him. I've flown across the country and quadruple-checked to make sure that we're still on. To cynics and music-industry veterans, this very premise is...

Expats In Wonderland; Whether hosting a Paris bash for Stravinsky's latest ballet, visiting the Cole Porters in Venice, or summering with Picasso on the Riviera, Gerald and Sara Murphy brought their incandescent American energy, passion for art, and substantial fortunes to the playgrounds of 1920s Europe.
August 1, 2007... Byline: John Richardson The epitome of glamorous expatriate life in Paris and on the Riviera in the 1920s, Gerald and Sara Murphy have been exceptionally fortunate in their chroniclers. Calvin Tomkins, who rescued them from virtual...

Gone Like The Wind; None of them had ever seen a horse like Barbaro: the speed of a rocket, the spirit of a champion in his eyes.(Gretchen Jackson)(Dean Richardson)(Michael Matz)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Buzz Bissinger It was a cardinal rule of horse racing for any owner, and Gretchen Jackson, straightforward and no-nonsense, with a voice of silky gravel, knew it as well as anyone: Never fall in love with a horse. She and...

Cannes.
August 1, 2007... What Vanity Fair celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival at the Hotel du Cap. When May 19, 2007. Who Paul Allen, Arki Busson, Roberto Cavalli, Charles Finch, Gael Garcia Bernal, Zac Goldsmith,...

New York.
August 1, 2007... What Friends and family gather for Bob Colacello's 60th-birthday party, hosted by Samantha and Aby Rosen, Ian Schrager, and the late Claudia Cohen at the Gramercy Park Hotel. When May 9, 2007. Who Ross Bleckner, Mica Ertegun, Lourdes and Pepe...

Helen Gurley Brown; Just a small-town girl from Green Forest, Arkansas, Helen Gurley Brown became editor of Cosmopolitan and liberated women's magazines with her spunk and sexual brashness.(Interview)
August 1, 2007... What is your idea of perfect happiness? There is no such thing as perfect happiness. We know there are good times and bad times, sometimes predicated on what's happening in nature. We have no control over that as human beings, so I think we...

Best and Brightest.(on David Halberstam)(Obituary)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Graydon Carter What a terrible shame that the administration never lavished as much attention on significant matters of state-the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Katrina aftermath, and on and on-as it did on the president's...

Hitchens's Londonistan.(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2007... The United States and England share sturdy democratic traditions, yet it is in the U.K. that we see rising Islamic militancy. Christopher Hitchens ["Londonistan Calling," June] correctly identifies the policy of nurturing individual cultures...

The Cultural Divide August.(events this month)(Calendar)
August 1, 2007... 01 Healing the Divide (Epitaph), recorded live, features musicians such as Tom Waits and composer Philip Glass and has readings by His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself. All proceeds benefit Healing the Divide's Tibetan Health Initiative. 13...

Hot Type.(New books to read)(Bibliography)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Elissa Schappell HURRAY FOR THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE Taking the underclass's side in America's class war, Joe Bageant goes Deer Hunting with Jesus (Crown), firing off reports on "white trashonomics," praise temples, and the...

Roman Holiday.(Ferragamo family's new boutique hotel)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Matt Tyrnauer The gateway to Italy's South, Rome sits on the edge of the First World. Considering it is an international capital, the seat of the Italian republic has, since the demise of la dolce vita, in the late 1960s, been...

GUIDED IN STYLE.(websites for the modern traveller)(Website list)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Victoria Mather Just when you thought guidebooks were so last century, so passed over and printed before this Internet-driven age, along comes a new generation of guides in groovy, sexy travel. No culture darlings, we all know...

ANOTHER TANGO IN PARIS.(motion picture 2 Days in Paris)(Movie review)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Bruce Handy The new movie 2 Days in Paris, starring Julie Delpy, is also written and directed by the French actress. This is her first feature as a director and her second as a writer. (Two years ago, she got an Oscar nomination...

Get in Line.(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Krista Smith Hollywood has always been a gaming town-what else are movie stars supposed to do during those long hours on a set or months at a remote location? Once upon a time it was chess, backgammon, and blackjack. More recently,...

Luxe Linens.
August 1, 2007... Byline: Punch Hutton Over the past decade, husband-and-wife team Sachin and Babi Ahluwalia have been sourcing and designing the beautiful beaded, embroidered, and rare fabrics used by couture houses such as Oscar de la Renta, Escada, and...

Mort the Knife.
August 1, 2007... Byline: James Wolcott May I commit an act of cultural blasphemy and abject philistinism? I never found Lenny Bruce that funny. He never set my attic ablaze. Yes, I'm aware, as are we all, that he was a Swiftian satirist, a renegade...

Legend with a Bullet.(Phil Spector's murder trial)
August 1, 2007... Byline: Dominick Dunne I've covered a lot of trials over the last 25 years, and I've come to realize that some of the best conversations take place in the men's room during breaks. The late Johnnie Cochran, O. J. Simpson's Dream Team...

Simpson Family Values; A cartoon family whacked America's funny bone in 1989, eventually becoming the longest-running sitcom ever.(Television program review)
August 1, 2007... Byline: John Ortved In January 1992, during a campaign stop at a gathering of the National Religious Broadcasters, George H. W. Bush made a commitment to strengthen traditional values, promising to help American families become "a lot more...