Notes

Introduction  Perfect Bound

1. “Bosses wear Prada”: At the time, Anna Wintour did not have oversight over The New Yorker; a union organizer said Anna’s home was chosen as a protest site because she served as a “proxy” for Condé Nast. Katie Robertson and Rachel Abrams, “New Yorker Employees Stage Protest Outside Anna Wintour’s Townhouse,” New York Times, June 8, 2021.
2. a space-age cafeteria: Herbert Muschamp, “Tray Chic,” New York Times, April 23, 2000.
3. “We are the top-end”: Richard Pérez-Peña, “Can Si Newhouse Keep Condé Nast’s Gloss Going?” New York Times, July 20, 2008.
4. “hurtful or intolerant”: Sara Nathan, “Anna Wintour Admits to ‘Hurtful and Intolerant’ Behavior at Vogue,” New York Post, June 9, 2020.
5. “past its prime”: Katherine Rosman and Brooks Barnes, “It Was the Hottest Oscar Night Party. What Happened?” New York Times, February 21, 2019.
6. “I miss the black-and-whiteness”: Michael M. Grynbaum, “Graydon Carter to End 25-Year Run as Vanity Fair’s Editor,” New York Times, September 7, 2017.

Chapter 1  Class, Not Mass

1. the country’s leading publications: Nast’s revamp of Collier’s Weekly is discussed in Caroline Seebohm, The Man Who Was Vogue: The Life and Times of Condé Nast (New York: Viking, 1982), 29–31; Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines vol. iv (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1957), 453–56.
2. When Nast met Clarisse Coudert: Susan Ronald, Condé Nast: The Man and His Empire (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2019), 53–57.
3. once forgot to send: Edna Woolman Chase and Ilka Chase, Always in Vogue (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954), 43–44.
4. “Don’t be so violently”: “The Press: Fifty Years on the Crest,” Time, November 1, 1954.
5. “ ‘Vogue says’ ”: Walter G. Robinson, “The First Thirty Years,” Vogue, January 1, 1923.
6. “wealthiest and most”: Condé Nast, “Class Publications,” The Merchants and Manufacturers Journal, June 1913.
7. “He didn’t want a big circulation”: Chase and Chase, Always in Vogue, 66.
8. “It is the avowed mission”: Seebohm, The Man Who Was Vogue, 77.
9. In 1910: Seebohm, The Man Who Was Vogue, 72.
10. By 1926: Chase and Chase, Always in Vogue, 67.
11. Boston Brahmin: For a biographical précis of Crowninshield, see Geoffrey T. Hellman, “Profiles: Last of the Species,” New Yorker, September 19 and September 26, 1942; and Helen Lawrenson, “The First of the Beautiful People,” Esquire, March 1973.
12. “The House Beautiful”: Dorothy Parker, “The Theatre,” New Yorker, March 21, 1931.
13. palatial Park Avenue penthouse: Christopher Gray, “Streetscapes/1040 Park Avenue, at 86th Street,” New York Times, November 5, 2000.
14. “Everybody who was invited”: Diana Vreeland, “Vreeland Remembers (Sort Of),” Vanity Fair, April 1984.
15. “Probably why I became obsessed”: Lauren Santo Domingo, comment on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6847969814644838400.
16. ninety-three dollars a share to two dollars: Ronald, Condé Nast: The Man and His Empire, 235.
17. “Does the young woman in Fort Smith”: “Condé Nast,” New York Herald Tribune, September 21, 1942.
18. “got most of their ideas”: “The Press: Condé Nast,” Time, September 28, 1942.
19. “A 5-3, kinky-haired”: “Eye on Vogue,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 5, 1960.
20. “not-too-successful salesman”: Collie Small, “Little Publisher, Big Empire,” Collier’s, August 4, 1951.
21. declined to respond: Jean R. Hailey, “Publishing Tycoon Samuel I. Newhouse Dies at Age 84,” Washington Post, August 29, 1979.
22. “It was a toy for Mitzi”: “Eyes on Vogue,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 5, 1960.
23. Solomon Neuhaus was born: For the most thorough accounts of Sam Newhouse’s upbringing, see Richard H. Meeker, Newspaperman: S. I. Newhouse and the Business of News (New Haven, CT: Ticknor & Fields, 1983); and S. I. Newhouse, as related to and written by David Jacobs, A Memo for the Children (New York: privately printed, 1980).
24. appeared on the cover of Time: “The Newspaper Collector,” Time, July 27, 1962.
25. tried to bolster: Meeker, Newspaperman, 162.
26. “I was small, young and poor”: S. I. Newhouse, A Memo for the Children, 130.
27. “I can’t hire you!”: S. I. Newhouse, A Memo for the Children, 16.
28. Mitzi was the first woman: Meeker, Newspaperman, 40.
29. “the other fellow”: S. I. Newhouse, A Memo for the Children, 33.
30. married at the Commodore: Carol Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of a Media Merchant (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998), 22–23.
31. bent into the shape: Meeker, Newspaperman, 57.
32. a thirteen-room duplex apartment: “Reports of Activity in Metropolitan Real Estate Market,” New York Times, May 25, 1940, 31.
33. 730 Park Avenue: Details from Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse, 24–27; Meeker, Newspaperman, 123–24; “730 Park Avenue, Plan of Apartment B,” Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York Real Estate Brochure Collection, https://dlc.library.columbia.edu/nyre/cul:zw3r2281xm.
34. one of the few Park Avenue addresses: Michael Gross, 740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building (New York: Broadway Books, 2005), 57–58.
35. a sprawling estate: Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse, 26.
36. “They’d never sell”: Meeker, Newspaperman, 239. According to Meeker, Sam said this to Wesley Clark, a longtime dean of the School of Journalism at Syracuse University.
37. Newsweek was available: “Magazine for Sale,” Time, January 27, 1961; John A. Lent, Newhouse, Newspapers, Nuisances: Highlights in the Growth of a Communications Empire (New York: Exposition Press, 1966), 144–45.
38. “ever-eager”: Katharine Graham, Personal History (New York: Knopf, 1997), 187, 348.
39. dismissed Sam: A. J. Liebling, The Press (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975), 5.
40. “journalist chiffonier”: Liebling, The Press, 36.
41. “My god”: Jane Franke, interview by author.
42. “wanted a Park Avenue life”: Pamela Mensch, interview by author.
43. “I got the idea that”: Calvin Trillin, interview by author.
44. “shrimp”: “Samuel I. Newhouse, Publisher, Dies at 84,” New York Times, August 30, 1979.

Chapter 2  Mitzi’s Boy

1. “An interesting city apartment”: Enid Nemy, “When the Bachelor Goes Home,” New York Times, April 6, 1966.
2. “Go home”: This exchange was described by Jane Franke and Deborah Hart Strober, interviews by author.
3. “I’m going in now!”: Arnold Scaasi, Women I Have Dressed (and Undressed!) (New York: Scribner, 2004), 89–90.
4. “seemed very young”: Scaasi, Women I Have Dressed, 87–88.
5. Sam’s idea of quality time: S. I. Newhouse, A Memo for the Children (New York: privately printed, 1980), 35.
6. entertained thoughts of suicide: Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse, 35–36, 44; Thomas Maier, Newhouse: All the Glitter, Power, and Glory of America’s Richest Media Empire and the Secretive Man Behind It (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 28–29.
7. a left-wing pro-labor newspaper: Sam’s objection to his son reading a left-wing newspaper is also notable because he later described his Russian immigrant father, Meyer, as a socialist who sought “some kind of collective salvation.” Sam drew a contrast with his own belief in “individual responsibility and the potentials of the free marketplace.” S. I. Newhouse, A Memo for the Children, 6–7.
8. In letters to Lowenstein: Si’s correspondence from 1944 can be found in the Allard K. Lowenstein Papers #4340, Box 192, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
9. “Love, Si”: Box 1, Folder 14, Lowenstein Papers.
10. “Fantastic”: Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines (New York: Penguin Press, 2025), 345.
11. Harvard… Cornell… “Si Mason”: Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse, 37–38, 46, 51.
12. “I didn’t feel”: Franke, interview by author. Details of Si’s first marriage and divorce are primarily based on Franke’s account. Franke’s quotes are taken from interviews with the author.
13. By the end of 1950: “Miss Jane Franke Becomes Fiancee,” New York Times, December 14, 1950.
14. an ivory-bound Bible: “Jane Franke Bride of Publisher’s Son,” New York Times, March 12, 1951.
15. hired a divorce lawyer: Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse, 73.
16. “I have to finish”: Deborah Hart Strober, interview by author.
17. “If I asked”: Deborah Hart Strober, interview by author.
18. eleven dollars’ worth of shaving cream: Daniel Machalaba, “Newhouse Chain Stays with Founder’s Ways, and with His Heirs,” Wall Street Journal, February 12, 1982.
19. “When you grow up”: Pamela Mensch, interview by author.
20. Mitzi employed a personal assistant: Pamela Mensch, interview by author.
21. masthead: “American Vogue,” Vogue, October 15, 1964.

Chapter 3  The Silver Fox

1. quashed an effort: The Harry Winston anecdote was recounted in an interview with Carol Phillips, found in the Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins research materials on Alexander Liberman, 1927–1999, box 14, folder 55, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC (hereafter “Liberman Archives”).
2. “the most meaningful”: Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins, Alex: The Life of Alexander Liberman (New York: Knopf, 1993), 6.
3. “those thousands of female Walter Mittys”: Gay Talese, “Vogueland,” Esquire, July 1961.
4. he was born: The description of Alexander Liberman’s biography and his early relationship with Si Newhouse is based on interviews with their associates and on the detailed accounts found in Francine du Plessix Gray, Them: A Memoir of Parents (New York: Penguin Press, 2005); Kazanjian and Tomkins, Alex; Charles Churchward, It’s Modern: The Eye and Visual Influence of Alexander Liberman (New York, Rizzoli, 2013); and Alexander Liberman, Then: Photographs 1925–1995 (New York: Random House, 1995).
5. fateful doodle: An account of Liberman’s breakthrough illustration is found in “Art Lover,” New Yorker, November 26, 1960, 44.
6. conveyed “some sense of Americana”: Kazanjian and Tomkins, Alex, 160.
7. “When I took layouts”: Lucy Sisman and Véronique Vienne, Alex Liberman: Ways of Thinking About Design (New York: Lucy Sisman, 2013). I am grateful to Lucy Sisman for providing a copy of this invaluable book, a collection of firsthand accounts of Alex’s time at Condé Nast.
8. “power and publicity”: du Plessix Gray, Them, 476.
9. he evicted his stepdaughter: du Plessix Gray, Them, 416.
10. “If Si Newhouse knows”: Barbara Rose, interview, box 14, folder 60, Liberman Archives.
11. “little heebs”: Catherine di Montezemolo, interview, box 14, folder 21, Liberman Archives.
12. “associate, friend, brother”: Kazanjian and Tomkins, Alex, 5–6.
13. “He didn’t really move”: Grace Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 220.
14. Krazy Kat: Tina Brown, The Vanity Fair Diaries, 1983–1992 (New York: Henry Holt, 2017), 253.
15. “Si couldn’t resist”: Babs Simpson, interview, box 14, folder 60, Liberman Archives.
16. “weenie boyness”: Carol Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of a Media Merchant (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998), 178.
17. “very at ease”: Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse, 173.
18. “a certain dignity”: Kazanjian and Tomkins, Alex, 277.
19. “We were part of a crusade”: Alexander Liberman, interview, box 14, Liberman Archives.
20. “Did you make Si happy”: Tatiana’s nightly query was recalled by another source as “Did you please Si today?” In their biography of Liberman, Kazanjian and Tomkins reported the phrase as “Did you see Si today?” Alex, 343.
21. tin tycoon: “Party Week Is Ending in Portugal,” New York Times, September 7, 1968.
22. a cocktail party: Kazanjian and Tomkins, Alex, 277–79.
23. Sam reminded him: Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse, 186.
24. flying together: Carol J. Loomis, “The Biggest Private Fortune,” Fortune, August 17, 1987.
25. Sam overruled: S. I. Newhouse, A Memo for the Children (New York: privately printed, 1980), 105–6.
26. By 1988: Geraldine Fabrikant, “Si Newhouse Tests His Magazine Magic,” New York Times, September 25, 1988.

Chapter 4  Si Finds His Self

1. “In the late 1970s”: Graydon Carter, interview by author.
2. “Your boss wants”: “Asides: The New Woman,” Wall Street Journal, January 10, 1979.
3. belly dancing: Rochelle Udell, Adventures of the Baker’s Daughter (self-published memoir fragments), https://adventuresofthebakersdaughter.com/expectations-none.
4. 80 percent of whom worked: N. R. Kleinfield, “Self: A Surprising Success” New York Times, August 17, 1981.
5. “When I got married”: Nancy Yoshihara, “Women’s Magazine Dilemma: Who Are They For?” Los Angeles Times, December 23, 1979.
6. “You Too Can”: Paul London, “You Too Can Fly over the Middle-Income Bracket,” Self, January 1979, 114.
7. “The Handbook”: Ellen McCracken, Decoding Women’s Magazines: From Mademoiselle to Ms. (London: Macmillan, 1993), 154–55.
8. “Magazines used to teach”: Milton Moskowitz, “Urge to Merge Is Back in Style,” Insiders’ Chronicle, November 3, 1977.
9. Circulation nearly doubled: Circulation data from Philip H. Dougherty, “Condé Nast Celebrates Success of Bride’s,” New York Times, June 12, 1979, and N. R. Kleinfield, “Self: A Surprising Success,” New York Times, August 17, 1981.
10. Si was so eager: Geraldine Fabrikant, “Si Newhouse Tests His Magazine Magic,” New York Times, September 25, 1988.
11. printing different versions: “Magazine Notes from All Over,” New York, October 10, 1983.
12. Emily Post: “Tea Party,” New Yorker, April 3, 1948.
13. “Somebody paid $3,500 for this”: Advertisement, Vanity Fair, September 1929.
14. “When I was a kid”: Jonathan Becker, interview with Jim Windolf.
15. “This is only entertainment”: Amy Fine Collins, “The Cult of Diana,” Vanity Fair, November 1993.
16. “No, Richard”: Richard Locke, interview with Jim Windolf. Locke, who died in 2023, rarely discussed his brief tenure at Vanity Fair. The transcript of this interview is among his only extant comments on the matter; subsequent quotes from Locke are taken from it, unless otherwise noted. I also draw from an autobiographical statement that Locke wrote in 2004 about his life and career, provided by his wife, Wendy Nicholson.
17. “We live in a world”: Craig Unger, “Can Vanity Fair Live Again?” New York, April 26, 1982.
18. “The idea of publishing”: Elizabeth Pochoda, interview with Jim Windolf.
19. “This is what they’d done”: Tina Brown, The Vanity Fair Diaries, 1983–1992 (New York: Henry Holt, 2017), 20.
20. three hundred copies: Bruce Cook, “Vanity Fair’s Chaotic Comeback,” Washington Journalism Review, September 1983.
21. “the twelve pages”: Henry Fairlie, “The Vanity of ‘Vanity Fair,’ ” New Republic, March 21, 1983.
22. “incredibly bad”: Jane Perlez, “Vanity Fair Sparks Sharp Reaction,” New York Times, March 30, 1983.
23. “We never believed”: Perlez, “Vanity Fair Sparks Sharp Reaction.”
24. “This is a disaster”: Fabrikant, “Si Newhouse Tests His Magazine Magic.”
25. “It is Richard’s”: Perlez, “Vanity Fair Sparks Sharp Reaction.” Alex’s involvement in selecting the Glaser cover is described by Lloyd Ziff in an interview with Jim Windolf.
26. “it reminds you of”: A version of Capote’s submission to Vanity Fair later appeared in Esquire magazine. Truman Capote, “Indelible Exits and Entrances,” Esquire, March 1983.
27. “I hope nobody”: Tom Zito, “Skeletons and Keys: Looking for Capote,” Washington Post, March 13, 1983. Wayne Lawson described the negative reaction to Capote’s column in an interview with Jim Windolf.
28. “You need to schmooze”: Lloyd Ziff, interview with Jim Windolf.
29. “From the beginning”: “Ex ‘Vanity Fair’ Editor: Jazzy Layout Wins,” USA Today, April 28, 1983.
30. Leo Lerman: Lerman’s diaries offer an invaluable account of Condé Nast’s early years. See Stephen Pascal, ed., The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman (New York: Knopf, 2007). This account of Lerman also draws from Stephen Pascal, “Obituary: Leo Lerman,” Independent, August 28, 1994; Holly Brubach, “Leo Lerman; A Movable Salon,” New York Times, January 1, 1995; William Grimes, “Leo Lerman, 80, Editor at Condé Nast Magazines,” New York Times, August 23, 1994; Curt Suplee, “Vanity Fair Editor Fired,” Washington Post, April 27, 1983.
31. “I’m in a very purple mood”: James Wolcott, interview with Jim Windolf.

Chapter 5  British Invader

1. “The construction workers”: Tina Brown, Loose Talk (London: Joseph, 1979), 179.
2. “Watch out New York”: Tina Brown, Happy Yellow, Bush Theatre archives, London.
3. “a rising young barrister”: Tina Brown, Life as a Party (London: Andre Deutsch, 1983), 25.
4. “How do I”: Tina Brown, The Vanity Fair Diaries, 1983–1992 (New York: Henry Holt, 2017), 27.
5. “I’ve never taken”: Alexander Liberman, interview, Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins research materials on Alexander Liberman, 1927–1999, box 14, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC.
6. “It wasn’t so much”: Brown, Vanity Fair Diaries, 32.
7. “minor-league Kennedys”: Enid Nemy, “Dominick Dunne, Chronicler of Crime, Dies at 83,” New York Times, August 29, 2009.
8. “But the timing”: Brown, Vanity Fair Diaries, 45–46.
9. “If you have the wrong”: Patrick McCarthy, “Eye,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 12, 1983.
10. calling him “evil”: Stephen Pascal, ed., The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman (New York: Knopf, 2007), 405.
11. “remarkably young”: Graydon Carter, ed., Vanity Fair 100 Years (New York: Abrams, 2013), 234.
12. topic of conversation: John Duka, “Notes on Fashion,” New York Times, January 10, 1984.
13. “I want to share”: Charles Leerhsen, “A New Editor for Vanity Fair,” Newsweek, January 16, 1984.
14. “No one”: Stephen Schiff, interview by author.
15. “all the ladies”: Brown, Vanity Fair Diaries, 99.
16. “police reporter”: Eddie Hayes, Mouthpiece (New York: Broadway Books, 2005), 128.
17. “Who are all those”: “Here Come the Yuppies!” Time, January 9, 1984.
18. doubled in size: Geraldine Fabrikant, “Wooing the Wealthy Reader,” New York Times, October 14, 1987.
19. “It’s almost as though”: Peter W. Kaplan, “Why the Rich Rule the TV Roost,” New York Times, April 7, 1985.
20. “It was the first time”: Fran Lebowitz, interview by author.
21. a net worth: Philip H. Dougherty, “Advertising,” New York Times, April 2, 1986.
22. “Please, please”: Judy Bachrach, Tina and Harry Come to America (New York: The Free Press, 2001), 135.
23. “pussy-whipped”: Tina Brown, “The Mouse That Roared,” Vanity Fair, October 1985.
24. “I don’t even know”: Jo Thomas, “At Home, the Royal Couple Provoke an Unremitting Demand for Gossip,” New York Times, November 9, 1985.
25. “Go to nature”: Gail Sheehy, “The Hidden Hart,” Vanity Fair, July 1984.
26. troubled Mondale’s aides: Bernard Weinraub, “Ideas for His Speech Led Mondale to Ms. Ferraro,” New York Times, July 15, 1984.
27. “terribly inaccurate”: “Hart Denies Using Spiritual Adviser,” New York Times, July 4, 1984.
28. “The story you mention”: Gary Hart, interview by author.
29. ad revenue: Alex S. Jones, “An Intensely Private Family Empire,” New York Times, March 9, 1985.
30. “I love this song”: Brown, Vanity Fair Diaries, 131.
31. “Fred-and-Gingered”: William F. Buckley, Jr., “The Way They Are,” Vanity Fair, June 1985.
32. “Can you believe this?!”: Stephen Schiff, interview by author.
33. “You have to occasionally”: “Blond Ambition,” 60 Minutes, CBS News, October 21, 1990.
34. “With Vanity Fair”: Tina Brown, “Editor’s Letter,” Vanity Fair, September 1985.
35. “hierarchy of hotness”: John Seabrook, Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing, The Marketing of Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 2001), 28.
36. “I remember”: Michael Shnayerson, interview by author.
37. “Image replaced”: “The 1989 Hall of Fame: Media Decade,” Vanity Fair, December 1989.
38. “Why are you reading”: John Motavalli, “Tina Talks,” Inside Media, June 24–July 14, 1992.
39. “For me”: Pamela Mensch, interview by author.
40. tripled between: Albert Scardino, “Big Spender at Vanity Fair Raises the Ante for Writers,” New York Times, April 17, 1989.
41. “There are good things”: “N.Y. Times Magazine: Changes and Signs of Strain,” New York Observer, February 26, 1990.
42. two dollars a word: Scardino, “Big Spender at Vanity Fair.”
43. “I could send”: Michael Shnayerson, interview by author.
44. “As I see it”: “Flattery Will Get You Ten Pages… Maybe,” Spy, August 1990.
45. advertisers: Daniel Lazare, “Evans-Brown Team—Or Is It Brown-Evans?” New York Observer, May 7, 1990.
46. “Eddie Murphy”: Stephen Schiff, interview by author. Tina Brown told me that she reassigned Schiff because film reviews were often out-of-date by the time the monthly magazine reached newsstands.
47. “Actors shouldn’t be”: Motavalli, “Tina Talks.”
48. 60 percent: Lazare, “Evans-Brown Team.”
49. nine out of twelve: Geoffrey Stokes, “Queen Tina,” Spy, May 1992.
50. “Tina almost created”: Elizabeth Kolbert, “How Tina Brown Moves Magazines,” New York Times Magazine, December 5, 1993.
51. “One’s job isn’t”: Tina Brown, Happy Yellow, Bush Theatre archives, London.
52. he raised her salary: Brown, Vanity Fair Diaries, 331, 334.

Chapter 6  Enter Anna

1. “Two first ladies”: John Koblin, “Michelle Obama Joins in a Salute to Anna Wintour,” New York Times, May 5, 2014. See also Marc Karimzadeh, “First Lady Helps Open Wintour Costume Center,” Women’s Wear Daily, May 6, 2014.
2. The woman who would preside: For details of Anna’s upbringing and early career, I am indebted to a pair of thorough biographies: Jerry Oppenheimer, Front Row: Anna Wintour: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue’s Editor in Chief (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005); and Amy Odell, Anna: The Biography (New York: Gallery Books, 2022).
3. a too-short miniskirt: Georgina Howell, “Two of a Type,” Sunday Times (London), July 13, 1986.
4. “I was the one”: Alice Steinbach, “Always in Vogue,” Baltimore Sun, May 20, 1990.
5. “I was told”: Sam Reed, “Anna Wintour Calls Being Fired as a Stylist a ‘Character-Building’ Moment,” Hollywood Reporter, October 26, 2017.
6. The London tabloids: Oppenheimer, Front Row, 118.
7. fashion editor of Viva: Details from Oppenheimer, Front Row, 116–50; Odell, Anna, 56–65.
8. Odeon: Keith McNally, interview by author; Frank DiGiacomo, “Live, from Tribeca!” Vanity Fair, November 2005.
9. her own clothes rack: “Between the Lines,” New York, July 6–13, 1981.
10. daily Windexing: Oppenheimer, Front Row, 176–77.
11. “She just wanted to know”: Fran Lebowitz, interview by author.
12. Lauren apologized: Edward Kosner, It’s News to Me: The Making and Unmaking of an Editor (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2008), 215–16.
13. up-and-coming designers: “Fashion,” New York, September 21, 1981.
14. Andie MacDowell: Anna Wintour, “In the Heat of the Night,” New York, July 6–13, 1981; Oppenheimer, Front Row, 184–85.
15. “Yours”: “Anna Wintour on Leaving London for New York,” Guardian (London), May 19, 1997.
16. “I want to”: Anna Wintour, interview, Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins research materials on Alexander Liberman, 1927–1999, box 15, folder 9, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC (hereafter “Liberman Archives”).
17. “democratic snobbery”: Mary McCarthy, “Up the Ladder from Charm to Vogue,” Reporter, July 18 and August 1, 1950.
18. “un-shined shoes”: Amanda Mackenzie Stuart, Empress of Fashion: A Life of Diana Vreeland (New York, Harper, 2012), 220.
19. “I have known”: Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins, Alex: The Life of Alexander Liberman (New York: Knopf, 1993), 285.
20. “Famous last gifts”: Lucy Sisman and Véronique Vienne, Alex Liberman: Ways of Thinking About Design (New York: Lucy Sisman, 2013).
21. “We’re going to lose”: Grace Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 153.
22. “to go middle-class”: Martha Sherrill Dailey, “Grace Mirabella, The Vagaries of Vogue,” Washington Post, July 25, 1988. Warhol’s line about the firing has been quoted widely, including by Mirabella herself, but it does not appear in his published diaries.
23. “There was a lot of cashmere”: William Norwich, interview by author.
24. “I’m overloaded”: Alexander Liberman, interview, box 3, folder 12, Liberman Archives.
25. short skirt: Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins, Alex: The Life of Alexander Liberman (New York: Knopf, 1993), 310.
26. “It’s maddening”: Amy Gross, interview by author. See also Grace Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, 214–16.
27. long lunch: Liz Tilberis, No Time To Die (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998), 136.
28. “What is this?”: Lucy Sisman, interview by author.
29. She considered work trips: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, 3, 177–78.
30. Si chartered a jet: Christopher S. Wren, “Cairo Gala Draws a Glittering Crowd,” New York Times, September 28, 1979; Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, 180.
31. never dream of it: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, 222.
32. losing ground to Elle: Joan Kron, “Style Setter,” Wall Street Journal, January 30, 1986.
33. she was put off: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, 173, 191–203. The book also includes Mirabella’s account of her firing.
34. “My god”: Alexander Liberman, interview, box 12, Liberman Archives.
35. “After it was on”: Anna Wintour discusses her experience in the wake of Mirabella’s firing in an interview found in box 15, folder 9, Liberman Archives.
36. “I am very much”: Liz Smith, “Wintour of Discontent at Condé Nast,” New York Daily News, August 1, 1988.
37. “very unstylish”: Woody Hochswender, “Changes at Vogue,” New York Times, July 25, 1988.
38. “makes one feel”: Tina Brown, The Vanity Fair Diaries, 1983–1992 (New York: Henry Holt, 2017), 294–95.
39. “gained a little weight”: Anna Wintour, “Anna Wintour Shares Her Vogue Story,” Vogue website, August 14, 2012, https://www.vogue.com/article/anna-wintour-on-her-first-vogue-cover-plus-a-slideshow-of-her-favorite-images-in-vogue.
40. “I wanted the covers”: Kazanjian and Tomkins, Alex, 321.
41. from Babe Paley: Stephen Drucker, interview by author.
42. Avedon: Michael Gross, Focus: The Secret, Sexy, Sometimes Sordid World of Fashion Photographers (New York: Atria Books, 2016), 253; Odell, Anna, 136. Condé Nast agreed to buy out the final two years of Avedon’s contract: Philip Gefter, What Becomes a Legend Most: A Biography of Richard Avedon (New York: Harper, 2020), 506–7.
43. “You want to be”: Geraldine Fabrikant, “The Jury’s Out on the Hipper Vogue,” New York Times, April 30, 1989.
44. Tina had encouraged: Kevin Haynes, “Anna’s Big Year,” Women’s Wear Daily, November 10, 1989.
45. “the most important”: Amy M. Spindler, “The Winner Is… Fashion,” New York Times, October 27, 1996.
46. “simply offered to sift”: Degen Pener, “Notes,” New York Times, February 7, 1993.
47. refusal to be typecast: “Vogue’s Point of View,” Vogue, December 1993.
48. “I would like to be”: Carl Sferrazza Anthony, “Camera Girl: The Coming of Age of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy” (New York: Gallery Books, 2023), 124.
49. “was like accepting”: Stephen Birmingham, quoted in Anthony, “Camera Girl,” 128.
50. “My god”: Nicholas Haslam, Redeeming Features: A Memoir (London: Jonathan Cape, 2009), 174.
51. “a dark-haired, pretty woman”: “Mrs. Lyndon Baines Johnson,” Vogue, May 1, 1964.
52. China… Nancy Kissinger: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, 177; “Fashion: In China Now,” Vogue, August 1979.
53. “Although I don’t know”: Anna Wintour, “First Ladies,” Vogue, June 1997.
54. “To have one’s photo”: Robin Givhan, “Model Behavior,” Washington Post, November 15, 1998.
55. “pretend you’re photographing”: Today, NBC News, transcripts, November 19, 1998.
56. 700,000 copies: Lisa Lockwood, “Agony and Ecstasy,” Women’s Wear Daily, January 29, 1999.
57. “People have seen it”: Alex Kuczynski, “The First Lady Strikes a Pose for the Media Elite,” New York Times, December 7, 1998.
58. “Oh, I don’t need”: Gail Sheehy, Hillary’s Choice (London: Pocket Books, 2000), 421.

Chapter 7  A Man’s World

1. “I never posed for any picture”: Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 287–88.
2. In the 1970s: David Kamp, “It All Started Here,” GQ, October 2007. Kamp’s essay is a definitive account of GQ under Jack Haber.
3. $9.2 million: Martha M. Hamilton, “Inside the Newhouse Empire,” Washington Post, October 16, 1983.
4. “It wasn’t like today”: Eliot Kaplan, interview by author.
5. “You want the Marlboro”: Jack Kliger, interview by author.
6. Colacello: Tina Brown, The Vanity Fair Diaries, 1983–1992 (New York: Henry Holt, 2017), 48.
7. Arthur Cooper: Details of Cooper’s upbringing and career are derived from author interviews with numerous colleagues, including Robert Draper, Eliot Kaplan, Jack Kliger, Alan Richman, and Kate White; eulogies by Eliot Kaplan and Martin Beiser at Cooper’s memorial service in June 2003; and Tina Kelley, “Art Cooper, Who Transformed GQ Magazine, Is Dead at 65,” New York Times, June 10, 2003.
8. “We grew up in the middle”: Eliot Kaplan, interview by author.
9. “consisted mostly of 300-word”: Eliot Kaplan, eulogy, “Remembering Art Cooper,” June 18, 2003.
10. Ephron almost laughed: Kate White, interview by author.
11. William Hurt: This episode was recalled by Eliot Kaplan in his eulogy and by Kate White in an interview by author.
12. “What I wanted to do”: Nicole Beland, “So What Do You Do, Art Cooper?” Media Bistro, November 19, 2002, https://web.archive.org/web/20040623084542/ http://www.mediabistro.com/content/archives/02/11/19/.
13. Marilyn vos Savant: David Remnick, “America’s Smartest Man… and Woman,” GQ, September 1986.
14. “Who is this person?”: Eliot Kaplan, interview by author.
15. “For men, it had some fantasy”: Jack Kliger, interview by author.
16. “The American Male Opinion Index”: A press release with the survey results is available on LexisNexis. PR Newswire, March 23, 1988.
17. “It helped make it okay”: Gary Van Dis, interview by author.
18. “Now with women”: Nancy Yoshihara, “Men’s Magazine Gets a Facelift,” Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1980.
19. circulation: Gigi Mahon, The Last Days of The New Yorker (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), 298.
20. “Men, it seems, read”: Deirdre Carmody, “In Magazines, It’s a Man’s World Once Again,” New York Times, March 26, 1990.
21. “the first one in his family”: Bernice Kanner, “Peacock Alley,” New York, September 26, 1983.
22. Gerald Murphy: “The Riviera Story,” GQ, April 1986.
23. Phillips Academy: Paul Hochman, “The Natty Professor,” GQ, October 1994.
24. “For $300 apiece”: Peter Mayle, “Expensive Habits,” GQ, June 1989.
25. “Very GQ”: Jack Kliger described the meeting with Alex Liberman in an interview with the author.
26. “turned those initials”: Quintanilla, “Fashion as One Piece of the Puzzle.”
27. from 1986 to 1996: Robin Pogrebin, “Has Esquire Gone Out of Style?” New York Times, July 1, 1996.
28. “crawl across the desert”: Eliot Kaplan, eulogy, “Remembering Art Cooper,” June 18, 2003.
29. “I’ll buy this”: Lorne Manly, “Off the Record,” New York Observer, August 25–September 1, 1997.
30. The awards were handed out: Jeff Gremillion, “Live From N.Y., It’s ‘GQ,’ ” Mediaweek, October 28, 1996.
31. $1 million: Joanne Lipman, “Glitzkrieg,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 1996.
32. “It’s very nice”: Arthur Cooper, “The Heidi Chronicles,” GQ, September 2002.
33. Art paid models: Lorne Manly, “The New Esquire Man Pops His GQ Mentor,” New York Observer, January 12, 1998.
34. “What’s your favorite part of sex?”: Adrienne Miller described her time at GQ in her memoir, In the Land of Men (New York: Ecco, 2020), 112.
35. Niccolini pled guilty: Matt Stevens et al., “Julian Niccolini, Face of the Four Seasons Restaurant, Is Forced to Resign,” New York Times, December 17, 2018.
36. “It was such”: Adrienne Miller, interview by author.
37. “I never had any intention”: Alan Richman’s comments are from an interview with the author, unless otherwise noted.
38. Art dispatched him to Monte Carlo: Alan Richman, “Too Much Is Never Enough,” GQ, May 1999.
39. “That moment at the Milan”: Robert Draper, interview by author.
40. “Breasts for Guests”: Tom Sietsema, “Guy Food,” GQ, August 2001.
41. Art got roped into: David Carr, “MediaTalk,” New York Times, February 17, 2003; Michael Gross, “The Manly Art of War,” New York Daily News, February 23, 2003.
42. “We were making fun”: Greg Gutfeld, interview by author.
43. “He was so lost”: Kate White, interview by author.
44. “I’m fine. I overdid it a bit”: Alex von Bidder, interview by author. Additional details from David Zinczenko, interview by author.
45. “It’s as if it was scripted”: Keith J. Kelly, “GQ Editor Art Cooper Dead at 65,” New York Post, June 10, 2003.
46. “GQ is an aspirational”: Carl Swanson, “The Rise of Maxim Magazine,” New York Observer, February 1, 1999.

Chapter 8  The Ballad of Donald and Si

1. “cuff links”: E. Graydon Carter, “Donald Trump Gets What He Wants,” GQ, May 1984.
2. “This Trump fellow”: Peter Osnos, interview by author.
3. “was very definitely”: Jane Mayer, “Trump’s Boswell Speaks,” New Yorker, July 25, 2016.
4. two great decisions: Laura Landro and Laurie P. Cohen, “Get Ready World: Donald Trump Wants a Best Seller,” Wall Street Journal, November 30, 1987.
5. ski vacation: Peter L. W. Osnos, An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen (New York: Platform, 2021), 241.
6. “I just don’t know”: Pamela Mensch, interview by author.
7. Cohn started his comeback: Thomas Maier, Newhouse: All the Glitter, Power, and Glory of America’s Richest Media Empire and the Secretive Man Behind It (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 95–97.
8. “He reached into his drawer”: Nicholas von Hoffman, Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn (New York: Doubleday, 1988), 327.
9. paid Cohn a retainer: von Hoffman, Citizen Cohn, 327–28.
10. Si sat vigil: Margot Hornblower, “Si Newhouse, the Talk of The New Yorker,” Washington Post, May 6, 1985.
11. Studio 54: There are numerous accounts of Si and Trump’s mutual attendance at Cohn’s Studio 54 parties. See for example Wayne Barrett, “The Birthday Boy: Roy Cohn is 52 at 54,” Village Voice, March 5, 1979, https://www.villagevoice.com/the-birthday-boy-roy-cohn-is-52-at-54/.
12. “I didn’t see how we could”: Cohn’s memoir was eventually issued by a different publishing house. Thomas Maier, Newhouse, 193–94.
13. “There’s no question”: Peter Osnos, interview by author.
14. Trump was upset: Tom Mathews, “High Gloss News,” Newsweek, May 1, 1989.
15. “If I had these”: Marie Brenner, “After the Gold Rush,” Vanity Fair, September 1990.
16. “We buried the hatchet”: Jim Windolf, “Off the Record,” New York Observer, May 10, 1993.
17. “I sort of admire him”: Howard Kurtz, “Spy Magazine to Fold,” Washington Post, February 18, 1994.
18. “too tacky”: Amy Odell, Anna: The Biography (New York: Gallery Books, 2022), 145.
19. “coming out of her nightmare”: Vicki Woods, “The Real Ivana,” Vogue, May 1990.
20. 750,000 copies: Amy Odell, Anna, 145.
21. hundreds of copies: Ben Kesslen and James Messerschmidt, “Trashed!” New York Post, August 24, 2022.
22. “Ivana was thrilled”: Alice Steinbach, “Always in Vogue,” Baltimore Sun, May 20, 1990.
23. “I should turn”: Alexander Liberman, interview transcript, Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins research materials on Alexander Liberman, 1927–1999, box 14, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC.
24. “She is a true beauty”: Sally Singer, “How to Marry a Billionaire,” Vogue, February 2005.
25. “good-natured”: “Letter from the Editor,” Vogue, February 2005.
26. “It was a bit disconcerting”: “Ivanka’s Trump Card,” Good Morning America, ABC News, transcript, October 13, 2009.
27. “You never got”: Juli Weiner, “A Future President’s Letter to Vanity Fair,” Vanity Fair website, April 11, 2011, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/04/donald-trump-letter-201104.
28. “Every C-SPAN Shot”: Juli Weiner, “Every C-Span Shot of Donald Trump Looking 116 About Seth Meyers’s Donald Trump Jokes,” Vanity Fair website, May 1, 2011, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/05/every-c-span-shot-of-donald-trump-looking-angry-about-seth-meyerss-donald-trump-jokes.
29. “This is the only”: Michael M. Grynbaum, “Graydon Carter to End 25-Year Run as Vanity Fair’s Editor,” New York Times, September 8, 2017.
30. “Truth Hurts”: Cover, Vogue, November 2021.
31. her voice quavered: Amy Odell, Anna, 3.
32. overheard by a British tabloid: Alan Selby, “Vogue Editor Anna Wintour Apologizes after Rant Against Donald Trump,” Daily Mirror, December 10, 2016.
33. “It just shows that”: Hope Hicks, interview by author. Hicks’s quotes are from this interview unless otherwise noted.
34. “There’s a meeting”: Graydon Carter, interview by author.
35. “I can’t even believe”: Graydon Carter, interview by author. Trump’s meeting at 1 World Trade Center was described to me by numerous participants.
36. Anna appeared on the late-night show: Lisa Respers France, “Anna Wintour Names Who She Would Axe from Met Gala,” CNN website, October 26, 2017.
37. “They’re biased”: Kelsey Ables, “Melania Trump Calls Vogue ‘Biased’ for Not Putting Her on the Cover,” Washington Post, May 14, 2022. Amy Odell discusses the abandoned Vogue shoot in Anna, 4.
38. subscriptions to Vanity Fair had soared: Benjamin Mullin, “Vanity Fair’s Subscriptions Soar After Troll-y Trump Tweet,” Poynter website, December 16, 2016, https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2016/vanity-fairs-subscriptions-soar-after-troll-y-trump-tweet/.

Chapter 9  Philistine at the Gate

1. “It didn’t last long enough”: Thomas Maier, Newhouse: All the Glitter, Power, and Glory of America’s Richest Media Empire and the Secretive Man Behind It (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 272.
2. Circulation had barely budged: Eric N. Berg, “Newhouse Makes Offer for The New Yorker,” New York Times, February 13, 1985.
3. investing in… Elle: Gigi Mahon, The Last Days of The New Yorker (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), 146-147.
4. Jasper Johns: Carol Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of a Media Merchant (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998), 294, 296.
5. Now Si was aggressively: Mahon, Last Days, 234–35; Maier, Newhouse, 276–79; Pamela G. Hollie, “Newhouse to Acquire 17% of The New Yorker,” New York Times, November 14, 1984. See also Gigi Mahon’s book-length account of the acquisition.
6. “He wanted to buy it”: Thomas Maier, Newhouse, 278.
7. “The decision to buy”: Pamela Mensch, interview by author.
8. “a deliberate affront”: Douglas C. McGill, “Editor Says Staff Did Not Give ‘Our Approval,’ ” New York Times, March 9, 1985.
9. for the past fourteen years: Margot Hornblower, “New Face at The New Yorker,” Washington Post, September 18, 1985.
10. “We don’t want anyone”: Michael Gross, “Tina’s Turn,” New York, July 20, 1992.
11. “we have never published”: “Notes and Comment,” New Yorker, April 22, 1985.
12. “I’ve never seen Si”: Margot Hornblower, “Si Newhouse, the Talk of The New Yorker,” Washington Post, May 6, 1985.
13. “You mean you don’t want”: Gigi Mahon, Last Days, 290.
14. Eustace Tilley’s head: Hornblower, “Si Newhouse, the Talk of The New Yorker.”
15. “Si has got himself”: Stephen Pascal, ed., The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman (New York: Knopf, 2007), 536.
16. “was so careful about”: Calvin Trillin, interview by author.
17. “The New Yorker people”: Jonathan Alter, interview by author.
18. “very much the ravenous”: Lillian Ross, private notes, April 25, 1985. Courtesy of the Lillian Ross estate.
19. “like he was an alien”: John Koblin, “Magazine Honchos Remember Steve Florio,” New York Observer, January 2, 2008.
20. “who takes the prisoner”: Lillian Ross, private notes, April 25, 1985. Courtesy of the Lillian Ross estate.
21. “We’ll tell you whether”: Geraldine Fabrikant, “Cash vs. Cachet at New Yorker,” New York Times, June 2, 1986.
22. “I just blew it out of here”: Mark N. Vamos, “Change at The New Yorker is the Talk of the Town,” Business Week, March 10, 1986.
23. market survey: Christopher Hitchens, “American Notes,” Times Literary Supplement, March 7, 1986.
24. Shawn once insisted: Louis Menand, “A Friend Writes,” New Republic, February 26, 1990.
25. One spot featured: “Driver,” television advertisement, 1986, posted by 80sCommercialVault, “Best Commercials of 1986,” YouTube, September 2, 2019, https://youtu.be/rrTbiZFtscA?feature=shared&t=3634.
26. “energized by”: Philip H. Dougherty, “Advertising,” New York Times, September 25, 1985.
27. “The New Yorker reader”: Mark N. Vamos, “Change at The New Yorker is the Talk of the Town,” Business Week, March 10, 1986.
28. “Mr. Newhouse, would you”: Robert Gottlieb, Avid Reader: A Life (New York: Picador, 2016), 196.
29. “The ultra-forceful Newhouse”: Gottlieb, Avid Reader, 196.
30. The letter: Gottlieb, Avid Reader, 199–200; see also an account by Lillian Ross, Here but Not Here: A Love Story (New York: Random House, 1998), 208, 214–20.
31. “This did not speak well”: Gottlieb, Avid Reader, 200.
32. an unpleasant exit: Ross, Here but Not Here, 217, 221.
33. a feature-length screenplay: Info, screenplay, first revision of original draft. Courtesy of the Lillian Ross estate. The title page, which lists Lorne Michaels as a producer, credits Ross alone as having written the story and screenplay. Ross acknowledges in her memoir that Shawn was her uncredited coauthor: “Bill threw himself into the work with his old energy, concentration, and enthusiasm and was enjoying himself enormously.” Ross, Here but Not Here, 229.
34. “He wasn’t interested”: Calvin Trillin, interview by author.
35. he kept a toaster: John McPhee, “Editors & Publisher,” New Yorker, July 2, 2012.
36. “could never understand”: Tina Brown, The Vanity Fair Diaries, 1983–1992 (New York: Henry Holt, 2017), 268.
37. watching the drama: Brown, The Vanity Fair Diaries, 238.
38. “It confirmed my”: Gottlieb, Avid Reader, 201.
39. “I never worked”: Robert Gottlieb, interview by author.
40. “merely a magazine”: Hendrik Hertzberg, “Journals of Opinion,” Gannett Center Journal, Spring 1989.

Chapter 10  Eustace Tina

1. “fever is sweeping”: George Christy, “The Great Life,” Hollywood Reporter, March 4, 1988.
2. “was a strategic”: Michael Gross, “Social Life in a Blender,” New York, February 2, 1998.
3. “news and literature combined”: Tina Brown, The Vanity Fair Diaries, 1983-1992 (New York: Henry Holt, 2017), 322–23. See also James L. W. West, William Styron: A Life (New York: Random House, 1998), 451–55.
4. “the diabolical discomfort”: William Styron, “Darkness Visible,” Vanity Fair, December 1989.
5. “Out of a great deal”: Laurel Graeber, “Out of His System,” New York Times, August 19, 1990.
6. nearly twenty-one thousand: Philip M. Boffey, “Reagan Urges Wide AIDS Testing but Does Not Call for Compulsion,” New York Times, June 1, 1987.
7. “It was bringing”: Michael Shnayerson, interview by author.
8. Demi Moore: Annie Leibovitz, Annie Leibovitz at Work (London: Jonathan Cape, 2008), 90–93; Demi Moore, Inside Out (New York: HarperLuxe, 2019), 160–70; Tina Brown, Vanity Fair Diaries, 399–400; Demi Moore, interview, The Howard Stern Show, October 9, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2458510061135434.
9. “I don’t think so”: Lucy Sisman, interview by author.
10. “Why not?”: Tina Brown, Vanity Fair Diaries, 400.
11. “I guess they want”: Charles Lewis, “Vanity Bare,” Ottawa Citizen, July 23, 1991.
12. “sickening, cheap sensationalism”: Mark Muro, “Moore’s Pregnant Pose: Is It Hip or Hype?” Boston Globe, July 12, 1991.
13. “the ultimate yuppie madonna”: Roberta Smith, “Through Annie Leibovitz’s Lens, a Celebration of the Celebrated,” New York Times, July 25, 1991.
14. “Isn’t it ironic”: “Breaking Pregnancy Taboos,” PrimeTime Live, ABC News, July 18, 1991.
15. “a young Arabian racehorse”: Nancy Collins, “Demi’s Big Moment,” Vanity Fair, August 1991.
16. “A piece on a collection”: Lou Chapman, “At The New Yorker, the Newhouse Era Brings a New Look,” New York Observer, April 24, 1989.
17. “doesn’t do celebrities”: Michael M. Thomas, “Forbes Will Be Missed; Few Mourn Drexel,” New York Observer, March 5, 1990.
18. “run pictures”: N. R. Kleinfield, “Rumors Outpace Changes Under New Yorker’s Editor,” New York Times, December 7, 1988.
19. still in the red: Tina Brown, in The Vanity Fair Diaries (406), wrote that Si estimated the losses at that point as $19 million a year. Robert Gottlieb, in his memoir, pegged it at $2 million.
20. “a piece that had”: Robert Gottlieb, Avid Reader: A Life (New York: Picador, 2016), 222.
21. “but he didn’t like”: Renata Adler, Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 238. See also Gottlieb, Avid Reader, 231–33.
22. “I’m good at putting”: Michael Gross, “Tina’s Turn,” New York, July 20, 1992.
23. roughly $350,000: The exact dollar figure has been estimated as somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000 annually. Gottlieb said in 2020 that the payout was adjusted upward every three years or so to reflect inflation. See Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse, 354; and Ben Smith, “Condé Nast Is Facing an Era’s End,” New York Times, April 26, 2020.
24. “I’m the happiest”: Jim Windolf, “Tina Brown’s Debut,” New York Observer, September 14, 1992.
25. “Did you make up”: Michael Gross, “Tina’s Turn.”
26. redeemed a check: Julius Lowenthal, “Every Man Has His Price,” Spy, July 1990.
27. “his famous aversions”: “Naked City,” Spy, December 1990.
28. “Those Nasty Men”: James Ledbetter, “Long-Fingered Spy Owners Seek Deep-Pocketed Buyer,” New York Observer, March 19, 1990.
29. “We were friends”: Graydon Carter, interview by author.
30. “to stave off poverty”: “Spy Man Taking Newhouse Gold,” New York, September 19, 1988.
31. “I figured it was”: Graydon Carter, interview by author.
32. “dwarf billionaire”… “socialite–war criminal”: “Little Men,” Spy, June 1987.
33. “so I would have known”: Graydon Carter, interview by author.
34. “I’ve got two things”: Graydon Carter, interview by author.
35. “It’s one of the”: Tina Brown, interview by author.
36. “I talked about both”: Jennifer Senior, “Graydon Rides the Wave,” New York, December 11, 2000.

Chapter 11  Lapses of Taste

1. “The rumors are true”: Michael Gross, “Tina’s Turn,” New York, July 20, 1992. Additional details from Thomas Maier, Newhouse: All the Glitter, Power, and Glory of America’s Richest Media Empire and the Secretive Man Behind It (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 307–8.
2. “underbelly of mediocre”: Tina Brown, podcast interview, Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!), February 2, 2024.
3. “It was ten years”: Tina Brown, Print Is Dead.
4. “It’s none of”: Lou Chapman, “At The New Yorker, the Newhouse Era Brings a New Look,” New York Observer, April 24, 1989.
5. archives: Jim Windolf, “Tina at Two,” New York Observer, October 3, 1994.
6. sexist barbs: Michael Gross, “Tina’s Turn,” New York, July 20, 1992.
7. “a great girl”: Lorne Manly, “Off the Record,” New York Observer, May 5, 1997.
8. “a tarty breathlessness”: “Annals of The New Yorker,” New York Times, July 9, 1998.
9. “A great American”: Ben Yagoda, About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made (New York: Scribner, 2000), 420.
10. a conspiracy afoot: Tina Brown, “Three Weddings and a Funeral,” in Victor S. Navasky and Evan Cornog, eds., The Art of Making Magazines (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 122.
11. William Shawn once balked: The Mel Brooks anecdote was recalled by Calvin Tomkins in an interview with Randy Kennedy in Ursula (Spring 2020); it also appears in Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse, 361. Kenneth Tynan’s profile of Brooks ran in The New Yorker, October 30, 1978.
12. “The important thing”: Elizabeth Kolbert, “How Tina Brown Moves Magazines,” New York Times, December 5, 1993.
13. fact-checking department: Peter Canby, “Fact-checking at The New Yorker,” in Victor S. Navasky and Evan Cornog, eds., The Art of Making Magazines (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 79–80.
14. “Joe Mitchell would”: “David Remnick: Media Prince,” TBD with Tina Brown, podcast, February 19, 2019.
15. Tina did try: Thomas Kunkel, Man in Profile: Joseph Mitchell of The New Yorker (New York: Random House, 2015), 319–20.
16. “the Terminator”: Elizabeth Kolbert, “How Tina Brown Moves Magazines,” New York Times, December 5, 1993.
17. “Tina wanted something”: Jeffrey Toobin, interview by author.
18. On his walk to work: Windolf, “Tina at Two.” In his own account of this episode, Chancellor said that he shelved the first draft of his tree article because it came out “rather boring.” Later, seeking to substitute two “Talk” items that were rejected by Tina, he showed the article to McGrath, “who agreed that it wasn’t quite right.” Alexander Chancellor, Some Times in America (London: Bloomsbury, 1999), 160–62.
19. Toobin called Alan Dershowitz: Jeffrey Toobin recounts his reporting for the Simpson article, and the frenzied media response, in The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 145–58.
20. “I want to welcome”: Nightline, ABC News, transcript, July 22, 1994.
21. “Once I decide”: Jeffrey Toobin, “An Incendiary Defense,” New Yorker, July 25, 1994.
22. “kiss[ing] the ass”: Joanne Weintraub, “Tina Brown’s New Yorker,” American Journalism Review, April 1995. Also see Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse, 360.
23. “the great high/low show”: Tina Brown, “Editor’s Letter,” Vanity Fair, September 1992.
24. “Don’t you get it?”: David Kuhn, interview by author.
25. “A porn shoot”: Susan Faludi, “The Money Shot,” New Yorker, October 30, 1995.
26. circulation was up: Jim Windolf, “Tina at Two.”
27. “gone too far”: Brown, Vanity Fair Diaries, 383.
28. “suck my dick”: John Lahr, “Dealing with Roseanne,” New Yorker, July 17, 1995.
29. “If the magazine were”: Associated Press, “ ‘New Yorker’ Not Big Enough,” Albany Times Union, September 9, 1995.
30. “slaves of the buzz”: Maureen Dowd, “Eustace Silly,” New York Times, September 3, 1995.
31. “Semicolons”: James Wolcott, “With Respect to Roseanne,” New Yorker, February 26 and March 4, 1996.
32. “I froze internally”: Daphne Merkin, interview by author.
33. “warmed-over prurience”: Terry Tang, “The Respite of Reticence Amid a Cyclone of Candor,” Seattle Times, March 1, 1996.
34. “SWM seeking”: “Quickly Quotable,” New York Times, February 12, 1998.
35. about $1 million annually: Yagoda, About Town, 423.
36. “The way Tina”: Calvin Trillin, interview with author.
37. “By the time”: Maurie Perl, interview by author.
38. “The questions journalists”: Elizabeth Kolbert, “How Tina Brown Moves Magazines,” New York Times, December 5, 1993.
39. “Questions were not”: Deirdre Carmody, “Tina Brown’s Progress at the New New Yorker,” New York Times, April 12, 1993.
40. “Too much then”: John Seabrook, Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing, The Marketing of Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 2001), 38.
41. “Galley five”: Jonathan Alter, “Ruminating with Calvin Trillin,” Old Goats with Jonathan Alter, December 18, 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20221218231228/.
42. “Is Housman hot?”: Anthony Lane, “Talk of the Town,” New Yorker, August 3, 1998.
43. “My goal”: Tina Brown, letter to Jim Windolf, September 23, 1994.
44. “Tina always said”: Hjärta Smärta and Ika Johannesson, Hall of Femmes: Ruth Ansel (Stockholm: Oyster Press, 2010), 43.
45. “Tina decided”: Stephen Schiff, interview with author.
46. nearly 870,000: Ben Yagoda, About Town, 424.

Chapter 12  Life as a Party

1. “you’ve got six hours”: Jon Kelly, interview by author.
2. “I could hardly”: Graydon Carter’s quotes in this chapter are from interviews with the author, unless otherwise noted.
3. “I thought”: Jennifer Senior, “Graydon Rides the Wave,” New York, December 11, 2000. Senior’s portrait is perhaps the definitive profile of Graydon Carter.
4. Self-invention: This description of Graydon Carter’s early years is based on author interviews with Graydon Carter and papers found in The Canadian Review Fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Calgary. I also draw from Senior’s profile and David Blum, “Who is E. Graydon Carter and How Did He Get Here?” New York, April 17, 1989.
5. “Carter had an understanding”: Larry Krotz, “Life Before Vanity Fair,” National Post, January 4, 2003.
6. “always fluctuated”: Graydon Carter, untitled article dated October 22, 1975, box 7, folder 6, The Canadian Review Fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Calgary.
7. He once showed up: Carl Swanson, “154 Minutes with Graydon Carter,” New York, October 11, 2013.
8. TV-Cable Week: Michael Gross, “Tina’s Turn,” New York, July 20, 1992.
9. “New York bristles”: David Blum, “Spying on ‘Spy,’ ” New York, April 17, 1989.
10. “now that Tina’s gone”: Linda Stasi, “Inside New York,” Newsday, July 20, 1992.
11. “resemble car salesmen”: “Miramax Brothers Court Headlines Like This One; Business Booms,” New York Observer, September 16, 1991.
12. mailing list: Thomas Maier, Newhouse: All the Glitter, Power, and Glory of America’s Richest Media Empire and the Secretive Man Behind It (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 335–36.
13. “out of the spotlight”: Deirdre Carmody, “Vanity Fair Is Doing Nicely, but Out of the Spotlight,” New York Times, January 25, 1993. Ad trends are taken from Geraldine Fabrikant, “Abrupt Departure at Vanity Fair,” New York Times, May 11, 1993.
14. “a little bit like”: Russell Miller, “The Spy Who Came into the Fold,” Sunday Times (London), October 11, 1992.
15. “if I’d had my choice”: Robert Gottlieb recounted this comment in “Remembering Si Newhouse,” Charlie Rose, PBS, October 23, 2017.
16. “primogeniture loser”: James Kaplan, “Mom Always Liked You Best,” Spy, June 1990.
17. “he extended to me”: Jim Windolf, “Quid Pro Quo Settles Graydon’s War on Liz,” New York Observer, March 27, 1995.
18. “the best argument”: “I Spy Feud Brewing: Liz Versus Magazine,” Newsday, November 27, 1989.
19. in Converse sneakers: “Society Grunge,” Vanity Fair, April 1993.
20. “the worst moment”: Jane Sarkin, interview by author.
21. “If it hadn’t been”: Michael M. Grynbaum, “Graydon Carter to End 25-Year Run as Vanity Fair’s Editor,” New York Times, September 7, 2017.
22. “Graydon’s been”: Merrie Morris, “Merrie-Go-Round,” Washington Times, May 3, 1993.
23. drew accusations of racism: “Color Blind?” Hollywood Reporter, March 27, 1995.
24. “I started to scream”: Claudia Eller, “A Tribute or a Demeaning Reflection?” Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1995.
25. “It’s not just”: Graydon Carter, “The Inside Story Behind the Vanity Fair Party,” Vanity Fair website, October 10, 2006, https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2006/10/oscars_graydon200503.
26. “panorama”: Frank DiGiacomo, “The Oscars Enter the New Century!” New York Observer, April 3, 2000.
27. Regis Philbin: DiGiacomo, “The Oscars Enter the New Century!”
28. “Everyone’s trying”: Frank DiGiacomo, “Oscars MCMXCVIII,” New York Observer, March 30, 1998.
29. “I’m sorry”: Frank DiGiacomo, “A Tense Best-Picture Victory for the Miramax Mogul Who Stormed Oscar Beach,” New York Observer, March 29, 1999.
30. “I need to come in”: Jane Sarkin, interview by author.
31. “People needed that”: Jane Sarkin, interview by author.
32. at the Dakota: Lorne Manly, “Off the Record,” New York Observer, December 16, 1996.
33. “The basic atmosphere”: Kathleen Sharp, “Graydon Carter,” Hollywood Reporter, June 8, 1999.
34. “Who wants tuna?”: Dana Brown, Dilettante: True Tales of Excess, Triumph, and Disaster (New York: Ballantine Books, 2022), 157.
35. “getting your own”: Maureen Dowd, “Feathered and Tarred,” New York Times, June 10, 1998.
36. “deprived of her voice”: “Monica Lewinsky,” Vanity Fair, December 1998.
37. “You better call”: Todd S. Purdum and Jim Rutenberg, “In the Prelude to Publication, Intrigue Worthy of Deep Throat,” New York Times, June 2, 2005.
38. Graydon never contacted: Graydon Carter, “The Checks Are in the Mail,” Vanity Fair, July 2005.
39. first pitched the story: Todd S. Purdum and Jim Rutenberg, “In Final Chapter of Watergate, Intrigue Worthy of Deep Throat,” New York Times, June 2, 2005. See also Katharine Q. Seelye, “Disclosure by Magazine Catches Post by Surprise,” New York Times, June 1, 2005.
40. a $100,000 payment: David Carr and Sharon Waxman, “Vanity Fair Editor Got $100,000 for Suggesting a Movie,” New York Times, May 14, 2004.
41. one out of every three: Eliza Gray, “Camelot Tales,” New Republic, April 11, 2011.
42. “I try not to be”: Alex Williams, “Graydon Carter, the Last Impresario,” New York Times, February 28, 2014.

Chapter 13  Age of Empire

1. “I was sitting there”: Alexandra Penney’s quotes are from interviews with the author, unless otherwise noted.
2. “Wear this ribbon”: Alexandra Penney, “Letter from the Editor,” Self, October 1992.
3. “pinkwashing”: See Gina Kolata, “Some Breast Cancer Activists Assail Rampant ‘Pinkification’ of October,” New York Times, October 31, 2015.
4. “Dash! Vitality!”: Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins, Alex: The Life of Alexander Liberman (New York: Knopf, 1993), 344.
5. “I don’t want to go there”: Polly Mellen, interview by author.
6. “Beauty is news”: Linda Wells, “Beyond Beauty,” Allure, March 1991.
7. “This is going”: Linda Wells, interview by author.
8. “a bold”: Linda Wells, “Our Secret Weapons,” Allure, October 1996.
9. “You see those women”: Jonathan Wingfield, “Portfolio: Ruth Ansel,” System, Fall/Winter 2016, https://system-magazine.com/issues/issue-8/portfolio-ruth-ansel.
10. “She was the discoverer”: Joshua Levine, “Brand Anna,” Wall Street Journal, March 24, 2011.
11. “How did I do?”: Kevin Haynes, “Anna’s Big Year,” Women’s Wear Daily, November 10, 1989.
12. Michael Kors: Levine, “Brand Anna.”
13. “I just came for”: Michael Gross, “War of the Poses,” New York, April 27, 1992.
14. Edna Woolman Chase: “Benefit Party for Costume Institute Set,” Women’s Wear Daily, October 18, 1948.
15. “This,” Talley declared, “is Anna”: Frank DiGiacomo, “Careerist Glitzmongers Hijack Bluebloods’ Ball,” New York Observer, December 11, 1995. See also Aileen Mehle, “Suzy,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 6, 1995, and Amy Odell, Anna: The Biography (New York: Gallery Books, 2022), 174–77.
16. “the collective coming-out”: Frank DiGiacomo, “Careerist Glitzmongers Hijack Bluebloods’ Ball,” New York Observer, December 11, 1995.
17. “The future is”: Amy M. Spindler, “When Fashion Marries Music,” New York Times, December 5, 1995.
18. had only been created: “Times Magazine Names Style Editor,” New York Times, September 8, 1998.
19. “Fashion needs to”: Spindler, “When Fashion Marries Music.”
20. “I don’t even know”: Frank DiGiacomo, “Met Life,” New York Observer, December 15, 1997. Although Madonna was a guest at the event, she did not ultimately perform a song; Wrightsman didn’t attend, citing a previous dinner engagement.
21. “Hello, Puff Daddy”: Frank DiGiacomo, “It’s the Last Party of the Century,” New York Observer, December 13, 1999.
22. hot-air balloon: Levine, “Brand Anna.”
23. more than $250 million: Figure provided by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
24. “I just think”: Frank DiGiacomo, “Back to the Couture,” New York Observer, April 21, 2003.
25. “I feel a sense”: To Russia with Vogue, Mary FitzPatrick, producer, Trouble at the Top, BBC2, March 3, 1999.
26. Condé paid $2 million: “Vogue Cancels Extravaganza in Red Square,” WWD, September 2, 1998.
27. “In Russia. At Long Last”: Michael Idov, Dressed Up for a Riot: Misadventures in Putin’s Moscow (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018), 13.
28. 800,000 readers: Fleur Britten, “Vogue Russia Closes,” Guardian (London), April 20, 2022.
29. “The Arabs deserve”: Elizabeth Paton, “A Muslim Fashion Identity,” New York Times, November 3, 2016.
30. “We covered our poor”: Bernd Runge, interview by author.
31. In the early years: An early history of Condé’s international editions can be found in H. W. Yoxall, “The Story of the Condé Nast Publications” (New York: privately printed, 1951), in Ilka Chase Papers, box 20, folder 15, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library.
32. “Vogue carries to the four corners”: Paul Géraldy, “Bouquets,” Vogue, January 1, 1923.
33. An internal booklet: Carl Swanson, “Off the Record,” New York Observer, March 8, 1999.
34. an estimated $100 million: Charles V. Bagli, “Condé Nast’s Stylish Clan Moves into Times Sq.,” New York Times, June 20, 1999.
35. “Sometimes, Brian would”: Shawn McCreesh, “44 at the Royalton,” New York, April 8, 2024.
36. a dozen cappuccinos: Dana Brown, Dilettante: True Tales of Excess, Triumph, and Disaster (New York: Ballantine Books, 2022), 29–30.
37. had met Gehry at a dinner party: Paul Goldberger describes Si and Gehry’s relationship in Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry (New York: Vintage Books, 2017), 338–41.
38. “It was a very witty”: James Truman, interview by author. Truman’s quotes are from this interview unless otherwise noted.
39. “The company’s fashion”: Herbert Muschamp, “Tray Chic,” New York Times, April 23, 2000.
40. “slightly vaginal”: Alexandra Jacobs, “Condé Nast Employees Get Their Very Own Private Cafeteria,” New York Observer, April 17, 2000.

Chapter 14  “Do It All Grandly!”

1. “Si used money far more”: Katrina Heron, interview by author.
2. “That was the kind”: Stephen Drucker, interview by author.
3. “This is what I failed at”: Joan Kron, interview by author.
4. “He drove with reckless”: Lucy Sisman, interview by author.
5. “I had to learn how”: Jennifer Barnett, interview by author.
6. “No, no. I didn’t flee”: Lucy Sisman and Véronique Vienne, Alex Liberman: Ways of Thinking About Design (New York: Lucy Sisman, 2013).
7. “Darling, I had”: Véronique Vienne, “Make It Right… Then Toss It Away,” Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1991.
8. “This is what”: Sisman and Vienne, Alex Liberman.
9. “There was a way”: Linda Wells, interview by author.
10. “We were in heels”: Plum Sykes, interview by Liana Satenstein, Neverworns, May 16, 2024, https://neverworns.substack.com/p/the-plum-sykes-x-neverworns-live.
11. “The clothes that people”: Boss Women: Anna Wintour, Christine Hall, dir., BBC1, 2000.
12. “I was absolutely terrified”: Lynden Volpe Greenfield, interview by author.
13. ran an item about it: Susan Heller Anderson, “The Press,” New York Times, October 24, 1986
14. “possessed no evidence”: “Editors’ Note,” New York Times, October 25, 1986.
15. One grandee: Lauren Waterman, “Manhattan When I Was Young,” The Entertainment Staff, April 4, 2018, https://lauren.substack.com/p/manhattan-when-i-was-young.
16. “I had absolutely no qualifications”: Kate Reardon, interview by author.
17. “Dearie”: Linda Wells, interview by author.
18. twenty-one-page booklet: Amy Odell, Anna, 162.
19. fifty words a minute: Rooms with No View: A Woman’s Guide to the Man’s World of Media (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 88.
20. employment form: Condé Nast Publications Inc. application for employment, May 21, 1951. Jacqueline (Kennedy Onassis) Bouvier Vogue Magazine Prix de Paris Papers, box 1, JFK Library.
21. “We did it as much”: William Norwich, interview by author. I am grateful to Catherine Hong, who preserved a copy of the list and posted it on her Instagram, where Norwich provided details on its origins.
22. “When people have”: Katrina Heron, interview by author.
23. “I understand”: Lucy Sisman, interview by author.
24. “There was a kind of largeness”: Linda Wells, interview by author.
25. “You’re not in”: Dominique Browning, interview by author.
26. “I wasn’t that interested”: John Leland, interview by author.
27. Edna Woolman Chase: Edna Woolman Chase and Ilka Chase, Always in Vogue (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954), 211, 225; Ilka Chase Papers, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library, box 20, folder 7.
28. Steichen: Matthew Josephson, “Commander with a Camera-II,” New Yorker, June 10, 1944.
29. “one of the great”: Joan Kron, “Copping a Feel at Vogue,” New York, May 26, 1975.
30. “We were always”: Sisman and Vienne, Alex Liberman.
31. David Bailey: Grace Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 131.
32. she enlisted him to return: Norman Parkinson, Lifework (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983), 112–13.
33. “Money… was not something”: Polly Mellen, interview by author.
34. “I believe that money”: Geoffrey T. Hellman, “Art Lover,” New Yorker, November 26, 1960.
35. “Take the Concorde”: Francine du Plessix Gray, Them: A Memoir of Parents (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), 443.
36. “It was like Vietnam”: Graydon Carter, interview by author.
37. “If you’re not”: Eliot Kaplan, interview by author.
38. a turtle for sale: Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums (New York; Random House, 2019), 119.
39. “There is such truth”: Stephen Drucker, interview by author.
40. forty-one thousand air miles: Tina Brown, “Editor’s Letter,” Vanity Fair, December 1989.
41. “Don’t nickel”: Graydon Carter, interview by author.
42. “many many thousands”: Hamilton South, interview by author.
43. Big Apple Car: Details derived from Diana Clemente, interview by author; Alan Feuer, “Bensonhurst Journal,” New York Times, April 16, 2000; Alan Feuer, “Mob Leader Is Guilty of Ordering 3 Murders,” New York Times, April 6, 2001; John Marzulli, “Twisted Tale of Mob-Taxi Case,” New York Daily News, October 12, 2008; Kimberly Stevens, “An Admiral of the Limo Fleet,” New York Times, August 22, 1999; Charles V. Bagli, “Condé Nast Will Be Anchor of 1 World Trade,” New York Times, May 17, 2011.
44. “I shall miss seeing you”: Diana Clemente, interview by author.
45. Condé signed on as: Michael Calderone, “It’s Condo Nast,” New York Observer, April 10, 2006.
46. “We were expected”: Dana Brown, Dilettante: True Tales of Excess, Triumph, and Disaster (New York: Ballantine Books, 2022), 223.
47. “you’re spending an awful lot”: Sarah Slavin, interview by author.
48. “Don’t you girls worry”: Pamela McCarthy, interview by author.
49. “We would not receive”: Linda Wells, interview by author.
50. “What do you want”: Mirabella, In and Out of Vogue, 207.
51. “Si was extremely secretive”: Tina Brown, interview by author.
52. “It is better”: Rebecca Mead, “The Truman Administration,” New York, May 23, 1994.
53. “What is the glass”: Rochelle Udell, Adventures of the Baker’s Daughter (self-published memoir fragments), https://adventuresofthebakersdaughter.com/expectations-none.
54. “Well, you might”: Sarah Slavin, interview by author.
55. hired an efficiency engineer: Edmund Wilson, The Twenties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1975), 39; George H. Douglas, The Smart Magazines: 50 Years of Literary Revelry and High Jinks at Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Life, Esquire, and The Smart Set (New Haven: Archon Books, 1991), 108.
56. “Typing stifles”: Sarah Slavin, interview by author.

Chapter 15  Up Is Up

1. The world’s most glamorous: Joseph Nocera and Peter Elkind, “The Buzz Factory,” Fortune, July 20, 1998.
2. “I was not short on”: David Carr, “The Tell-All Steven Florio Won’t Sell,” New York Times, June 27, 2005.
3. “Si likes it”: Edward Hayes, with Susan Lehman, Mouthpiece: A Life In—And Sometimes Just Outside—The Law (New York: Broadway Books, 2005), 124.
4. license plate: Gigi Mahon, The Last Days of The New Yorker (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), 310.
5. “I’m going to keep it”: Carl Swanson, “Off the Record,” New York Observer, February 1, 1999.
6. Ron Galotti: This portrait is derived from author interviews with Ron Galotti and Jay McInerney, “Goodbye, Mr. Big,” New York, April 30, 2004.
7. “I used to tease”: Tom Florio, interview by author.
8. “Succeed, succeed, succeed”: Mitchell Fox, interview by author.
9. “the dictator”: Iris Cohen Selinger, “Si Speaks,” Inside Media, December 4–17, 1991.
10. More than two dozen: Joanne Lipman, “Glitzkrieg,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 1996.
11. “Was I a motherfucker?”: Ron Galotti, interview by author.
12. pushed their heads: Keith Kelly, “Muzzle for Mad Dog,” New York Post, September 22, 1999; Alex Kuczynski, “Condé Nast Pays Woman Injured by Executive,” New York Times, September 22, 1999.
13. “wouldn’t have thrown down”: Amy Odell, Anna: The Biography (New York: Gallery Books, 2022), 228.
14. “Charles is not”: Tina Brown, “A Woman in Earnest,” The New Yorker, September 15, 1997.
15. “I was prepping”: Susan Mercandetti, interview by author.
16. $80 million: Robin Pogrebin, “Media,” New York Times, June 1, 1998.
17. Edward Sorel sketch: Warren St. John, “Tina Brown’s Contract Negotiations at The New Yorker,” New York Observer, June 1, 1998.
18. “nosebleed”: Keith Kelly, “Red Ink Still Flows at Tina’s New Yorker,” New York Daily News, January 20, 1998; Patrick M. Reilly, “Newhouse Acts to Stem New Yorker’s Red Ink,” Wall Street Journal, January 30, 1998.
19. When Si called Tina: This exchange was described by a person familiar with the conversation. See also Janny Scott and Geraldine Fabrikant, “Editor of The New Yorker Leaving for New Venture,” New York Times, July 9, 1998.
20. reimbursed by Condé Nast: David Plotz, “Let Si Get This,” Slate, December 6, 1997.
21. “To graft it”: Jay Stowe, “S. I. Newhouse Lumps New Yorker In with Condé Nast Glossies,” New York Observer, September 8, 1997.
22. cut his face shaving: Lynn Hirschberg, interview with author.
23. “Washington think tank”: Warren St. John, “Tina Goes Cheek to Cheek with Miramax,” New York Observer, July 20, 1998.
24. “Don’t go anywhere”: Michael Kinsley’s quotes are from an interview by the author unless otherwise noted.
25. Slate on Paper: Peter H. Lewis, “Print Edition for Journal on Internet,” New York Times, June 26, 1996.
26. “You seem reluctant”: Kinsley composed an account of his interactions with Si in the immediate aftermath of this conversation, from which this dialogue is drawn. Kinsley emailed his account, that same evening, to members of the Slate staff and Bill Gates. The message was widely forwarded and later published in full by one of Slate’s digital competitors. Si also independently confirmed the account. Bruce Barcott, “The Last Temptation of Kinsley,” Salon, July 14, 1998; Robin Pogrebin, “Staff Writer Named Editor at New Yorker,” New York Times, July 14, 1998.
27. “Springsteenian”: Jonathan Sale, “Passed/Failed,” Independent, October 19, 2006.
28. “I didn’t know how”: “David Remnick,” podcast interview, Print Is Dead (Long Live Print), June 7, 2024.
29. “That never crossed”: Ken Ringle, “The New Yorker’s Literary Lion Cub,” Washington Post, August 5, 1998.
30. an infelicitous phrase: “Bloquez Cette Métaphore!” New Yorker, October 19, 1981.
31. “Five people tore that”: Ken Ringle, “The New Yorker’s Literary Lion Cub,” Washington Post, August 5, 1998.
32. “He said there were no”: Sally Quinn, interview by author.
33. “Do I get to make”: David Remnick, podcast interview, Print Is Dead (Long Live Print), June 7, 2024.
34. “I had steeled myself”: Lloyd Grove, “Insider to Succeed Editor Tina Brown at New Yorker,” Washington Post, July 13, 1998.
35. “A balance between”: Kathleen Sharp, “Talk of the Town,” Hollywood Reporter, July 12, 1999.
36. “David’s mandate”: Grove, “Insider to Succeed Editor Tina Brown at New Yorker.”
37. “I hate to sound”: Daniel E. Slotnik, “Gladys Bourdain, Who Helped Her Son Reach an Audience, Dies at 85,” New York Times, January 14, 2020.
38. “I have to tell you”: Ken Ringle, “The New Yorker’s Literary Lion Cub,” Washington Post, August 5, 1998.

Chapter 16  A House Divided

1. sensible domestic style: Dominique Browning, The Well-Lived Life: One Hundred Years of House & Garden (New York: Assouline, 2003), 7, 45.
2. an entire reshoot: Joan Kron, “The House and Garden Blues,” New York, April 28, 1975.
3. “I couldn’t make it”: Paige Rense, Architectural Digest: Autobiography of a Magazine, 1920–2010 (New York: Rizzoli, 2018), 35. This chapter draws details from Rense’s coffee table–sized memoir and a definitive profile of Rense by Joan Kron, “Interior Motives,” New York Times, November 4, 1990. Kron uncovered the untold story of Rense’s early life, to Rense’s chagrin.
4. “Sherry believed”: Paige Rense, “Ciao, Sherry,” Cosmopolitan, November 1967.
5. She kept a collection: Amanda Vaill, “The Only Dame in Town,” New York, February 21, 1994.
6. “It’s all, ‘Look at me!’ ”: Vaill, “The Only Dame in Town.”
7. circulation… revenue: Kron, “Interior Motives.”
8. “has the hideousness”: Martin Filler, “A Gilded Age at Architectural Digest,” New York Review of Books, November 4, 2018.
9. “the people who had the palazzo”: Joan Kron, interview with author.
10. “It was never discussed”: Rense, Architectural Digest: Autobiography of a Magazine, 294.
11. Paige once paid: Beverly Russell, Deadline Diva: A Journalist’s Life: Snubbing Cary Grant and Other Stories (High Falls, NY: privately published, 2015), 77–78. Russell was the editor in chief of Interiors at the time of this incident.
12. “Lou, have you”: Carol Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of a Media Merchant (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998), 281.
13. “Apparently I am”: Tina Brown, Vanity Fair Diaries, 1983–1992 (New York: Henry Holt, 2017), 257.
14. “I was shocked”: William Grimes, “The Hearth and Home Wars,” Avenue, April 1988.
15. “Look how dramatic”: Nancy Novogrod, interview by author.
16. “Decorators would say”: Joan Kron, interview by author.
17. “Let’s say there are”: Lorne Manly, “Off the Record,” New York Observer, November 3, 1997.
18. “I killed it once”: Penelope Green, “Margaret Russell Unveils the New Architectural Digest,” New York Times, February 2, 2011.
19. “I can’t be seen”: Dominique Browning, interview by author.
20. “because the competition”: Graydon Carter, interview by author.
21. “richly deserved”: Irin Carmon, “Paige’s Curse,” Women’s Wear Daily, January 28, 2008.

Chapter 17  Technical Difficulties

1. “Computers!”: Linda Rice, interview by author.
2. “They’ll be playing”: Joan Juliet Buck, The Price of Illusion (New York: Atria Books, 2017), 299.
3. a single computer: Eric Gillin, “The Oral History of the Launch of Epicurious,” Epicurious, August 18, 2015, https://www.epicurious.com/about/epicurious-oral-history-article.
4. “I don’t worry”: “Steven Florio,” Charlie Rose, PBS, February 3, 1995.
5. “You’re going to have”: Richard Pérez-Peña, “Can Si Newhouse Keep Condé Nast’s Gloss Going?” New York Times, July 20, 2008.
6. “The digital world”: Deborah Needleman, interview by author.
7. Steven O. Newhouse: Some details from Linda Fibich, “A New Era at Newhouse,” American Journalism Review, November 1994.
8. “was being shown off”: Daniel Machalaba, “Newhouse Chain Stays with Founder’s Ways, and with His Heirs,” Wall Street Journal, February 12, 1982.
9. “No one else”: John Huey, Martin Nisenholtz, and Paul Sagan, “Riptide: What Really Happened to the News Business,” Shorenstein Center Discussion Paper Series 2013.D-81, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, September 2013.
10. 15 percent stake: Michael Wolff, Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 45.
11. “If I had been”: John Huey, Martin Nisenholtz, and Paul Sagan, “Riptide: What Really Happened to the News Business.”
12. trouble with a turkey: The story of Epicurious’s origins is derived from author interviews with Rochelle Udell and Joan Feeney; Rochelle Udell, Adventures of the Baker’s Daughter (self-published memoir fragments), https://adventuresofthebakersdaughter.com/expectations-none; Gillin, “Oral History of the Launch of Epicurious”; Amy Odell, Anna: The Biography (New York: Gallery Books, 2022), 172–73; Jeff Jarvis, Magazine (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024), 104.
13. “The safe way”: Rochelle Udell, podcast interview, Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!), February 16, 2024.
14. Her internet connection: Gillin, “The Oral History of the Launch of Epicurious.”
15. “This is just”: Lorne Manly, “By Newhouse’s Decree, James Truman Plays Prince of Condé Nast,” New York Observer, August 18, 1997.
16. $80 million: Amy Harmon, “Digital Culture Pioneer Sold to Condé Nast,” New York Times, May 11, 1998.
17. “Si would not spend”: Linda Rice, interview by author.
18. “Think of us as”: Amy Harmon, “Media Talk,” New York Times, July 27, 1998.
19. “This is the worst-run”: Katrina Heron, interview by author
20. “This is Vogue”: Odell, Anna: The Biography, 173.
21. post menus from restaurants: Deirdre Carmody, “Condé Nast to Jump into Cyberspace,” New York Times, May 1, 1995.
22. “We are uninterested”: Bob Andelman, “Why Isn’t Vogue Online?” Mr. Media, March 24, 1997, https://mrmedia.com/2007/08/joan-feeney-condenet-editorial-director-mr-media-interview-classic-1997.
23. “Because Anna blessed”: Jeff Jarvis, “Capturing the History of Our Early Web: Vogue.com & Style.com,” BuzzMachine, September 14, 2015, https://buzzmachine.com/2015/09/14/capturing-history-early-web-vogue-com-style-com.
24. “Choose over”: Vogue.com, home page, November 28, 1999, https://web.archive.org/web/19991128123549/http://www.vogue.com/run/SearchCollections/SpecifySearch.
25. twelve-dollar annual fee: Amy Odell, Anna: The Biography, 200.
26. Neiman Marcus: Lisa Lockwood, “Style.com and W Go Live Monday,” Women’s Wear Daily, September 15, 2000.
27. $100 million: Elizabeth Paton and Vanessa Friedman, “Condé Nast Closes Style.com Months After Its Debut,” New York Times, June 13, 2017.
28. “We’re very 2002”: Gillian Reagan, “More Than Fashionably Late, Condé Nast Hits the Internet,” New York Observer, October 27, 2009.
29. “I couldn’t get”: Linda Wells, interview by author.
30. just 3 percent: Nat Ives, “Time Inc. Tops List of Digital Earners,” Advertising Age, January 19, 2009.
31. “They just felt”: Dominique Browning, interview by author.
32. “Si thought [the web] was”: James Truman, interview by author.
33. nudged Si to create: Ruth Reichl, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir (New York: Random House, 2019), 207–10.
34. “They were really bad”: Dana Brown, Dilettante: True Tales of Excess, Triumph, and Disaster (New York: Ballantine Books, 2022), 223.
35. “a waste”: Deborah Needleman, interview by author.

Chapter 18  The Elephant

1. “the most counterintuitive”: Paul Farhi, “A New Portfolio,” American Journalism Review, April/May 2007.
2. “There was a sense”: Tom Florio, interview by author.
3. “Oh my god, yes!”: John Koblin, “At Columbia, the Inadvertently Boldface Joanne Lipman Sticks to the Script,” New York Observer, March 14, 2008.
4. “All I did”: Jim Impoco, interview by author.
5. “Not bam bam”: Tom Wolfe, “The Pirate Pose,” Portfolio, May 2007.
6. Ugly bits of gossip: Michael Calderone, “Lipman’s Legions Leery in Portfolio’s Second Sortie,” New York Observer, August 14, 2007.
7. “There wasn’t really”: Phillip Toledano, interview by author.
8. $30,000: David Carr, “Portfolio Magazine Shut, a Victim of Recession,” New York Times, April 27, 2009.
9. luxury, automotive, and travel: Carr, “Portfolio Magazine Shut, a Victim of Recession.”
10. ad pages: Jon Fine, “Condé Nast Shutters Portfolio. Why It Failed,” Bloomberg Businessweek, April 27, 2009.
11. “Make sure”: “Eat Sheet: Truffles,” Portfolio, October 2007.
12. “the right magazine”: John Koblin, “At Portfolio, Prehistory Was Prologue,” New York Observer, April 29, 2009.
13. “All this is so unlike”: Tina Brown, “The Quake at Condé Nast,” Daily Beast, April 27, 2009.
14. in favor of the subway: Keith J. Kelly, “Sic Transit Gloria,” New York Post, March 25, 2009.
15. “When they gave up”: Jim Impoco, interview by author.
16. netted more money: Reeves Wiedeman, “What’s Left of Condé Nast?” New York, October 28, 2019.
17. “We’ll all have”: Peter Kafka, “Condé Nast CEO Chuck Townsend to the Troops: Keep Your Heads Up, and Your Expenses Down,” AllThingsD, March 5, 2009.
18. “the enchanting, mystical era”: John Koblin, “The Gilded Age of Condé Nast Is Over,” New York Observer, August 11, 2009.
19. “In the economics”: Stephanie Clifford, “Condé Nast Closes Gourmet and 3 Other Magazines,” New York Times, October 5, 2009.
20. idea of saving money: Amy Odell, Anna: The Biography (New York: Gallery Books, 2022), 267.
21. $120 million: Wiedeman, “What’s Left of Condé Nast?”
22. “it takes courage”: @BarackObama, Twitter, June 1, 2015, https://x.com/BarackObama/status/605487361011544065.
23. “Can I offer you”: Dana Brown, Dilettante: True Tales of Excess, Triumph, and Disaster (New York: Ballantine Books, 2022), 252.
24. “America is an aspirational”: David Marchese, “Graydon Carter,” New York Times, July 19, 2019.
25. “Then she called back”: Todd Purdum, interview by author.
26. anti-Semitic remarks: The offending language appeared in Frank Crowninshield, “The New Left Wing in New York Society,” Vogue, February 1, 1938.
27. “My periodicals have been”: “Magazine Artist Out over Slur in Drawing,” New York Times, January 26, 1938.
28. paid to reprint: Allen Ellenzweig, “Antisemitism, Now in Vogue,” Tablet, January 18, 2022, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/antisemitism-now-in-vogue.
29. Gordon Parks… Alex Liberman: Gordon Parks, Voices in the Mirror: An Autobiography (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 120–23; Gordon Parks, A Hungry Heart: A Memoir (New York: Atria Books, 2005), 95–97.
30. “She had been called”: William Norwich, interview by author.
31. “cautiously conservative”: Francine du Plessix Gray, Them: A Memoir of Parents (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), 408–9.
32. already on the outs: William Grimes, “Edmonde Charles-Roux, 65, Novelist and Editor of French Vogue, Is Dead,” New York Times, January 22, 2016; “Fashionable Novelist,” New York Times, November 22, 1966.
33. One biographer: Dominique de Saint Pern, Edmonde, l’envolée (Paris: Éditions Stock, 2022), 179. (“Fine mouche, Edmonde saisit le prétexte du racism antinoir des Américains, à mi-mot, habilement, sans s’étendre ni polémiquer.”)
34. the pictures prompted objections: David Michaelis, “The Now of Avedon,” Vanity Fair, December 2009; Philip Gefter, What Becomes a Legend Most: A Biography of Richard Avedon (New York: Harper, 2020), 285. It’s possible that the negative response to the Luna photograph in Bazaar—which included canceled subscriptions and advertisers pulling ads, according to Gefter—was a factor in how Condé Nast handled the Charles-Roux episode the following year.
35. “for reasons of racial”: Dennis Christopher, “Donyale Luna: Fly or Die,” Andy Warhol’s Interview, October 1974. See also Richard J. Powell, Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 103.
36. “Dick, you can’t take”: Doon Arbus, interview with Richard Avedon, March 17, 1972, typed transcript “Dick on Luna,” Richard Avedon Foundation, New York. Avedon also recalled Vreeland describing Luna with phrases like, “There’s no splendor to her, there’s no glory to her. She could be sitting on the side of the road in the Bahamas watching the tourists go by.” Avedon was a champion of Luna and her career, although one of his reasons for casting her in the Japan shoot could be read as problematic today: “It seemed to me that that presence in this country—that black presence in this country of yellow people, and in the snow, would be very, very beautiful.” I am grateful to Elspeth H. Brown for providing a copy of this transcript, which she cites in her invaluable book, Work! A Queer History of Modeling (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019). The dialogue with Vreeland was reported in Donyale Luna: Supermodel, Nailah Jefferson dir., HBO, 2023.
37. “You’re going to put”: Campbell, who was born in Britain, is of Afro Jamaican and Chinese Jamaican descent. “Anna Wintour on Why She Pushed for Naomi’s First American Vogue Cover,” No Filter with Naomi, interview by Naomi Campbell, posted April 22, 2020, by Naomi, YouTube, 26 min., 22 sec., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=077-_zV5i-E.
38. “black models appear”: Anna Wintour, “Letter from the Editor,” Vogue, July 1997.
39. “I’m a Black woman”: Jonathan Van Meter, “Oprah’s Moment,” Vogue, October 1998.
40. “promised she would lose”: Anna Wintour, “Letter from the Editor,” Vogue, October 1998.
41. “a colonial broad”: Veronica Horwell, “Obituary: André Leon Talley,” Guardian, January 20, 2022.
42. “Could somebody tell”: Amy Odell, Anna: The Biography (New York: Gallery Books, 2022), 195.
43. “There was a lot of”: Odell, Anna, 268.
44. Anna offered her: Elaine Welteroth, More than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say) (New York: Penguin, 2020), 227–29, 265–66.
45. “If you haven’t”: Jacqueline Woodson, “Lena Waithe Is Changing the Game,” Vanity Fair, April 2018.
46. Vanity Fair had featured: Radhika Jones, “Editor’s Letter,” Vanity Fair, July/August 2020.
47. “to get your advertisers”: Chantal Fernandez, “Why It’s So Difficult for Condé Nast to Change,” Business of Fashion, July 1, 2020. Additional details from Edmund Lee, “A Reckoning Rattles Condé Nast,” New York Times, June 15, 2020.
48. “I want to say plainly”: Sara Nathan, “Anna Wintour Admits to ‘Hurtful and Intolerant’ Behavior at Vogue,” New York Post, June 9, 2020.

Chapter 19  The Back of the Book

1. “He knew what”: “Remembering Si Newhouse,” Charlie Rose, PBS, October 23, 2017.
2. “will take my place”: Jon Fine, “The Advance of Steve Newhouse,” Ad Age, January 28, 2002.
3. Steven was elevated: Keith J. Kelly, “New Blood at Condé,” New York Post, April 5, 2019.
4. learned about Reddit: Details from Christine Lagorio-Chafkin, We Are the Nerds: The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet’s Culture Laboratory (New York: Hachette, 2018); David Carr, “Left Alone by Its Owner, Reddit Soars,” New York Times, September 2, 2012; Michael M. Grynbaum and Mike Isaac, “Condé Nast’s Owners Set to Reap a $1.4 Billion Windfall from Reddit,” New York Times, March 20, 2024.
5. “Exposure on social media”: Luca Solca, “Global Luxury Goods,” Bernstein, August 22, 2024.
6. “the democratization of elitism”: Bonnie Morrison, interview by author.
7. “I had no education”: Barbara Kruger, interview by author.
8. “Magazines, in my opinion”: Hjärta Smärta and Ika Johannesson, Hall of Femmes: Ruth Ansel (Stockholm: Oyster Press, 2010), 69–70.
9. “What is boring”: Tina Brown, podcast interview, Print Is Dead (Love Live Print!), February 2, 2024.
10. “There is a place”: Tina Brown, interview by author.
11. “probably the dumbest”: Janice Min, “Tea with Tina Brown,” Ankler, October 20, 2024, https://theankler.com/p/tina-brown-on-trump-harris-and-our.
12. “I’ve known him”: Jada Yuan, “Graydon Carter Can’t Help but Wish He’d Gotten That Jeff Goldberg Scoop,” Washington Post, March 26, 2025.
13. a Netflix crew: Charlotte Klein, “The New Yorker’s Anxious 100th Birthday Celebration,” New York, January 23, 2025.
14. “No one has shaped”: Rachel Tashjian and Maura Judkis, “Anna Wintour Kicks Off Fashion Week with Jill Biden,” Washington Post, September 7, 2024.
15. “This is no longer”: Kara Swisher, “The C.E.O. of Condé Nast,” Sway podcast, New York Times, May 23, 2022.