Vanity Fair's July 2007 Africa issue, guest-edited by Bono, was Graydon Carter's best-selling issue last year. Why so successful? Our money's on the twenty different covers Annie Leibovitz shot for the issue, letting customers scoop up at least a few of the covers to display on their Design Within Reach coffee tables. [min]
As if there exists an alternative argument to be made, Britain's Guardian wonders aloud whether Vanity Fair, prone to give covers only to celebrities carrying untold sob stories, is merely a glossier downmarket celeb rag that's actually on par with the Us Weeklys of the world.
Even Graydon Carter's brand extensions – the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, the Waverly Inn – are brash excuses to traffic in celebrity.
VF's entrée into the National Portrait Gallery is the newspeg here; the walls are adorned with the magazine's celebrity portraits, with much owed to Annie Leibovitz's constantaly resigned contract. CONTINUED »
WAVERLY INN'S NEW GATEKEEPER Start phoning David Foxley to make your reservations. The New York Observer feature writer is Graydon Carter's new assistant. [P6]
Every day the WGA and the producers are like, “No, we’re getting close. Keep watching TV. We’ll have new programming soon.” And every day nothing happens, except American Idol is more inexplicably popular than ever.
And with the Academy Awards only a few weeks away, things need to get settled if People wants to run its standard 40 pages of Oscar Glamour spread. Writers are threatening to picket, and you know actors. They’ll do coke in public, but crossing a picket line will ruin their reputation.
But now it doesn’t matter if the Oscars go on, because its raison d'être has been abandoned. In sympathy with the striking writers, Vanity Fair has canceled its party.
“There will be something sort of liberating about ordering Chinese food and watching the Oscars in bed,” Graydon Carter said.
Well put. Now stars really will be like us. Except we prefer pizza.
At last, the end result of what we'll simply call "a stab at multimedia content": It's Vanity Fair's holiday card, popping up in the unprepared mailboxes of Vanity friendlies across town, starring Graydon Carter as Santa Claus. And Bono as … a leather daddy elf. Naturally, Annie Leibovitz is responsible for this.
“Say it, don’t spray it” has long been our philosophy when it comes to spitting while talking and celebrity profiles.
Janine Gibson at The Guardian seems to agree in her piece on Graydon Carter. With comments like "[Vanity Fair] is like running the Metropolitan Opera in a way," we're beginning to think that in between all the self-rationalizations, Toby Young might have had a point. Our favorite quotes after the jump. CONTINUED »
Graydon Carter can really hook it up.
The Vanity Fair editor has set up his old Spy magazine friend, Kurt Anderson, with a one-year, two article contract. And for 10,000 words surrounded by Louis Vuitton and Burberry ads, Anderson will get a payday in the mid-five figures.
And suddenly, all of our friends in journalism seem useless.
Vanity Fare, Seeking Correction: Hugely hyped “celeb-centric” Waverly Inn earned a not-too-shabby score of 18 for food. But give Zagat a big fat ‘F’ for spell-checking. Or lack thereof. Don’t know who “Grayson Carter” is, but if media titan Graydon Carter were publishing this guide, then heads would roll in the copy-editing department.
Good luck getting a reservation now, Zagat.
Note to strip club aficionado/sometimes editor Col Allan: It's never a particularly good thing when the best compliment Graydon Carter can bestow upon you is that you can "drink just about anybody I know, with the exception of Christopher Hitchens, under many tables." [NYMag]
If only because Jeff Bridges is playing him. And, apparently, Bridges is a "sex symbol." [P6]
• When asked to clarify his feelings on Dow Jones, Ron Burkle winked and said, "Yeah, you know I'd like to get a piece of that," before reaching up for a high-five.
• Ivanka Trump has zero interest in joining morning trainwreck otherwise known as The View.
• Impossibly, the Conrad Black jury claims they're utterly incapable of unanimously reaching a (guilty) verdict.
• Michael Moore "live-chats" with HuffPo about healthcare, politics and, of course, how much he hates Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
• Amy Jacobson 'devastated' over termination. "I thought they would suspend me and then support me," she tells the Chicago Sun-Times.
• Reputed rivalry between Tina Brown and Graydon Carter gets exponentially more heated boring.
• Busted! Chicago reporter Amy Jacobson fingered for showing up at a friend of a friend's poolside BBQ wearing a "swimming top."
• Dan Patrick is leaving SportsCenter! Related: MediaWeek capitalizes on opportunity to use outdated colloquialisms "scuttlebut" and "scotched."
• Graydon Carter may have inadvertently made a big mistake in choosing Shia Laboeuf over that far more lucrative dead horse.
• Katie Couric is a not a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She's simply a woman who likes to bitch and moan about her $60 million contract.
You know what's (almost) as embarrassing as finding out you're this-close from edging out Richard Nixon in the category of "Worst Presidents Ever?" Finding out you almost lost the Vanity Fair cover to a dead animal.
GRAYDON Carter doesn't believe in flogging a dead horse. The Vanity Fair editor-in-chief said neigh to the idea of putting Barbaro on the August cover. Instead, "Transformers" star Shia Labeouf got the nod. Sources say Barbaro - the 2006 Kentucky Derby winner who captured hearts after he shattered a hind leg in the Preakness and struggled for months to survive - actually market-tested higher than Labeouf. But Carter vetoed the equine cover. So Shia is featured, saving the actor from being beaten by a dead horse. A VF spokeswoman said, "We don't comment on covers."
We can't decide whether our favorite part is the gratuitous punning (Photo finish! Beaten by a dead horse!) or the fact that Barbaro actually market-tested higher than Labeouf.
Either way, we're glad the Transformers star ultimately triumphed over Barbaro—even if he did only win by a nose.
• It's official, you need to be on hallucinogens to appreciate the food at the Waverly Inn.
• Jerry Seinfeld discovers the best way to market his family-friendly bee movie: make unfunny jokes about bees raping each other.
• Jodie Foster has lots of love from the lesbians, despite the fact that she still refused to admit she's one of them.
• Damon Wayans to stop reliving his In Living Color glory days? Unfortunately, "homie don't play that."
• You wouldn't believe how many different ways there are of spoiling your pooch. Unfortunately for Rover, you can't afford any of them.
With hotel heiress/born-again Christian/prison inmate Paris Hilton serving out the remainder of her sentence behind bars, the country is presently divided as to whether or not justice has truly been served. Some Hilton supporters are sympathetic toward her plight, petitioning government officials for her early release while still others oppose reducing her sentence on principle, arguing that any perceived show of favoritism would compromise the standards of the American legal system.*
And then, of course, there's Graydon Carter, who apparently will not be attending Paris' post-slammer celebration.
Feeling tired, bored or lackadaisical this morning? Why not make a new friend?
Sure, certain parts of "Graydon's" profile are amateurish and rather immature (i.e. "My name is Graydon Carter and I used to be really good-looking") but we couldn't help but be amused by the entry for Body Type ("More to love!")* and the fact that overrated insomniac Dave Attell is the only person to have posted a comment.
We only hope if we "friend" him it'll translate into a table at the Waverly and the most expensive mac & cheese we've ever had, a sit-down with Bono and an Ultimate Fighting death-match with Christopher Hitchens.
Or, you know, a reduced subscription rate to Vanity Fair.
*So true!
Have you heard the news? Graydon Carter is getting the Hollywood treatment, and the actor slated to portray the Vanity Fair chieftain, Bono-hugging, elitist restaurant opening editor-in-chief is none other than Jeff Bridges.
Vanity Fair editor in chief Graydon Carter's love of Hollywood is about to undergo a new test: Jeff Bridges will play Carter, renamed Clayton Harding, in the film adaptation of onetime Vanity Fair contributor Toby Young's book, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People." The book depicted Young himself as status-obsessed and wildly inept, even as it skewered the New York media and celebrity scenes.
Ah, we can picture it now.
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Sick and tired about reading about Graydon Carter's uber-exlusive media hotspot? Then you may want to cancel those subscriptions to Vogue and GQ, stop buying Bon Appetit and Gourmet and quit flipping through that months-old issue of Details in your dermatologist's waiting room.
Oh, and while you're at it, steer clear of WWD's Memo Pad. Because, as we've now seen on several occasions, the buck does not stop there.
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Remember about a month ago when the stock market dropped wildly for no apparent reason (Ka-DOW!) and everyone started blaming the hat-headed Matt Drudge? Yeah, turns out that theory was completely ridiculous. It was all Vanity Fair's fault!
Whenever Vanity Fair breaks a record for ad pages, the stock market crashes immediately afterward, according to a highly scientific study by "Short Takes." Consider: VF's March 2007 Hollywood edition ("Our Biggest Issue Ever!") clocked in at 500 pages. During the week of Feb 26, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average collapsed, from 12,647 to 12,114.
And there you have it. Blame Graydon. Because you want to. And because he's the next Anna Wintour in training, but he's been manipulating the stock market like his name was Jim Cramer.
Here's a picture of Anna Wintour and Graydon Carter. And since everyone know photographic evidence never lies, we're going to safely assume that they're B.F.F.
Observe how Wintour, on her best behavior, smiles sweetly at the camera, while restraining herself from glowering at Carter's outdated cardigan sweater! Note how Graydon, as always, looks like a kindly, rosy-cheeked gent with some distant relation to Santa Claus.
Only now, Radar's reporting that they're not so buddy-buddy after all. In fact, they're actually more like rival magazine editors in chief, trying to outdo one another with their upcoming, overhyped Conde Nast pet projects! According to a well-placed (and, obviously anonymous) insider, Wintour's "Fashion Rocks" will have some tough competition in the form of Carter's new outsert, "Movie Rocks."
But is Carter, like Wintour, only in it for the money? That's so not his modus operandi! Observes Radar:
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Editorial Director
