Vanity Fair articles from May 2003

Vanity Fair archives from May 2003

Runaway bachelor.(Hugh Grant)(Interview)(Cover Story)
May 1, 2003... Except for doing press for his latest movie, Love Actually, Hugh Grant is taking a break to rethink his life: the filmmaking grind, the tabloids' hostility, the lack (at 42) of one wedding and a family. DAVID KAMP gets beneath the charmingly...

Baghdad's cruel princes.(Saddam Hussein's sons Qusay and Uday (Odai) Hussein)
May 1, 2003... Saddam Hussein's elder sons terrorized Iraq. Uday, 38, a sadistic megalomaniac, survived his father's wrath and an assassination attempt. Qusay, 37, a ruthless schemer, brutalized his way to the top. With new intelligence from recent defectors,...

Shattered dynasty.(legal wrangling between Jay Pritzker's family members over inheritance)
May 1, 2003... Jay Pritzker quietly built a $15 billion empire of more than 200 companies, including Hyatt Hotels Corp., and a network of 1,000 family trusts. But one of the patriarch's final deals before his 1999 death, designed to bind his heirs closer,...

Rosenquist's big picture.(retrospective exhibit on James Rosenquist's art at the Guggenheim Museum, and interview with the artist)
May 1, 2003... With his heart and ambition on his sleeve, James Rosenquist hit New York City in 1955, got a job painting billboards in Times Square, and soon plunged into a ferment of talent-Lichtenstein, Warhol, Oldenburg, et al.-that became the Pop-art...

The botoxed and the boldfaced.(Irena Medavoy's suit against Allergan and Dr. Arnold Klein)
May 1, 2003... Much of Hollywood is in thrall to Botox's wrinkle-banishing magic, and others get injected for headaches. But Irena Medavoy, wife of a powerful producer, is suing Dr. Arnold Klein-dermatologist to stars including Michael Jackson and Elizabeth...

La vita Agnelli.(Giani Agnelli, honorary chairman of Fiat)(Biography)
May 1, 2003... When Gianni Agnelli died in January at 81, the honorary chairman of Fiat was revered in Italy for his industrial might and famous everywhere for his unparalleled style. But beyond the dazzling women-Pamela Churchill, Anita Ekberg, Jacqueline...

Prime-time blood.(Robert Blake's murder trial)(Dominick Dunne's Diary)(Column)
May 1, 2003... In an edgy, strangely quiet New York, the author is fixated on a case that initially left him cold: the Robert Blake murder, which if it goes to trial could rival the O.J. spectacular - with Simpson himself hoping to provide TV commentary I...

The widow on the hill.(second wife Donna charged with the death of husband Hamilton Somerville, Jr.)
May 1, 2003... When Hamilton Somerville Jr., owner of the 345-acre hilltop estate known as Mt. Athos, died suspiciously in late 2001, the eyes of Orange County, Virginia, turned to his pretty second wife, Donna, once the hospice nurse for his late first wife....

Playing in the Bush leagues.(George W. Bush and the Iraq War)(Editor's Letter)(Editorial)
May 1, 2003... This was a particularly difficult issue to slip between the covers and put to bed. Magazines get printed in sections, or "forms," as they call them at the plant, and are then bound together once all the forms are completed. The form with this...

> HOT TRACKS.
May 1, 2003... Byline: Lisa Robinson si non oscillas noli tintinnare. ["If you don't swing, don't ring."] -Sign outside the Playboy Mansion. Good news for those fed up with neo-soul stars who sing in the key of L and meander hopelessly...

Abandon All Hype.(Yeah Yeah Yeahs release recording )(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Edward Helmore This month's arrival of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' first full-length record, Fever to Tell, has been preceded by a yearlong ritual of press hype, two EPs, a bidding war, and tales of onstage abandon by the band's...

Golden Eero; was eero saarinen the real master of 20th-century design.
May 1, 2003... Byline: Matt Tyrnauer Philip Johnson once noted that each of the buildings of modernist Eero Saarinen, a contemporary of his, represented "violently different attitudes." And it's true: one would be hard-pressed to tell that Black...

Double Trouble.(Fashion designers)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Brenda Cullerton The department-store buyers who showed up unannounced one morning at the Chinatown home of Proenza Schouler (the most promising new team in fashion) were hardly the first to beat a path to the battered metal...

Magic Kingdom.(fragrance from Alexander McQueen)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Byline: David Colman What, in God's name, is that smell? That-in case you like it, or in case you don't-would be Alexander McQueen's first fragrance, Kingdom, due out this month. And as far as McQueen is concerned, he doesn't care...

VANITY FAIR NOMINATES SENATOR ROBERT C. BYRD.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Dee Dee Myers Because he regretted supporting the notorious Gulf of Tonkin resolution during the Vietnam War and vowed never again to give a president unchecked power to wage war. because the senator stuck to his principles, and...

Gehry Goes Country.(Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Matt Tyrnauer Unlike his Guggenheim Bilbao, set on the banks of an industrial river, or Walt Disney Concert Hall, now under construction near L.A.'s Bunker Hill, Frank Gehry's Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts-which...

Elizabeth Banks.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Krista Smith age and occupation: 27, actor. provenance: Pittsfield, Massachusetts. duck and cover: Unlike the rest of us, she was fully prepared for life under the threat of terrorism: "Pittsfield's a General Electric ...

Neal Pollack on the Campaign Trail.
May 1, 2003... They crowded into that cavern of a hall in warren county, Iowa, the thick-necked union stevedores bumping up against the gurus staring into their little, twinkling BlackBerrys, the cameramen slouching, yawning-this was another paycheck for...

The Jong and the restless.(Erica Jong )(Interview)
May 1, 2003... Byline: George Wayne With the amorous adventures of her heroine Isadora Wing, Erica Jong introduced the phrase "zipless fuck" into the pop-culture lexicon in 1973 in her novel Fear of Flying, which has sold more than 12 million copies....

VF Camera.(America's Cup)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Scott Qummer Despite the fact that the best-known Swiss sailors to date have been the shipwrecked family Robinson, Alinghi, backed by Geneva biotech magnate Ernesto Bertarelli, blew through the Louis Vuitton Cup-including the...

Dance Menagerie.(Carnival of the Animals)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Laura Jacobs Truth, beauty, transcendent love, eternal order: these are the verities of classical dance. Still, if you can make a ballet the kids will see a second time (not to mention year after year, like The Nutcracker)-Eureka!...

37 Ways of Looking at a Hampton.(Houses at Sagaponac)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Alastair Gordon Only in the Hamptons could a subdivision become a cause celebre. If carried to completion, the Houses at Sagaponac will be the biggest thing since the Case Study houses introduced martini modernism to California in...

Willie Nelson; On more than 200 albums over six decades, Willie Nelson's voice has become an American archetype, while the singer's peccadilloes have only burnished his legend.(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 1, 2003... What is your idea of perfect happiness? How I feel right now. What is your greatest fear? Fear. Which historical figure do you most identify with? Billy the Kid. Which living person do you most admire? Ray...

STILL IN THE PICTURE.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2003... I was fascinated by David Friend's excellent article on the reclusive photojournalism legend Henri Cartier-Bresson ["Cartier-Bresson's Decisive Moment," March]. For those of us who are members of the profession, his life and the photographs in...

Teenage Wasteland.(Better Luck Tomorrow)(Manic)(Movie Review)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Bruce Handy It's amazing how, nearly 50 years on, Rebel Without a Cause is still doing service as a template for troubled-teenager movies. Take Better Luck Tomorrow and Manic, two new films that feature sensitive, misunderstood...

COMING ATTRACTIONS.(X2)(Movie Review)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Walter Kirn Trailer of the month: X2. Directed by: Bryan Singer. Starring: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. Coming to a theater near you: May 2. The dope:...

Little Italy.(Respiro )(Movie Review)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Bruce Handy The first few reels play like a neo-realist remake: dirty Italian streets, dark-skinned Italian urchins, mangy dogs, Valeria Golino, as the requisite free-spirited sexpot, wandering around town in a flimsy housedress...

HOT TYPE.
May 1, 2003... Byline: Elissa Schappell The present not scary enough for you? The fearless Margaret Atwood goes back to the future of The Handmaid's Tale in Oryx and Crake (Doubleday), but the world has been decimated by genetic engineering. The...

Shining Light.(The Light of Day)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Henry Alford English author Graham Swift's novels, including his best-known ones, Waterland and Last Orders, often feature the gradual unpeeling of a central mystery. His new book, The Light of Day, follows suit-it chronicles...

The Art of Healing.(Jon Sarkin)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Byline: Kevin Sessums Like a rapper's clarion call cutting through a D.J.'s sample-happy turntable, artist Jon Sarkin's clear-eyed vision peers back at you from the multi-syllabic jumble of his collage-addled canvases. Sarkin's stunning...