Vanity Fair's Hollywood (Hardcover)

by Graydon Carter (Editor), David Friend (Editor), Christopher Hitchens (Author), Dominick Dunne (Author) "The woman had done him wrong..." (more)
Key Phrases: human heartbeat, pink bedroom, New York, Vanity Fair, Marion Davies (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
As everybody who's anybody knows (and the rest of us too), the most exclusive Hollywood party is Vanity Fair magazine's Oscar-night bash. Vanity Fair's Hollywood is like the ultimate movie party--and how inviting it all is! Flip through the thick, glossy pages and greet the greats of all ages. Lillian and Dorothy Gish share a spread with Blythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow. Ms. Deneuve, resplendent in scarlet, meet Mr. Valentino, in classy black and white. Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra, meet Liz Taylor as Cleopatra (and if it's not too catty, did you notice Claudette was better dressed?). The stunning photos are cleverly juxtaposed. Julia Roberts, posed naughtily in see-through undies in the water, is followed by a very properly attired Doris Day in a see-through skirt. Day holds six brightly dyed poodles by white leashes; the composition forms a visual rhyme with the six accusing fingers pointed at Peter Lorre in the next picture. The photo captions by Christopher Hitchens are as succinctly clever as Dorothy Parker, encapsulating entire careers in a punning paragraph. Even if you've seen a shot before, you learn things: in the most notorious still ever snapped at a Hollywood party--the one where Sophia Loren ogled Jayne Mansfield's voluminous bosom--Hitchens tells us the object of Loren's appalled regard was "the strategic dabs of makeup on [Jayne's] nipples."

Like any good party, this vast book offers sparkling talk as well as gobs of eye candy. The brilliant Peter Biskind evokes the '70s heyday of superagent Sue Mengers, D.H. Lawrence makes a stab at defining "sex appeal," Patricia Bosworth adds the patented VF dash of scandal in a piece on Lana Turner's gangster boyfriend's murder, and Hitchens gives a quickie history of the fabled Sunset Strip. Not everything rises to the august occasion: Carl Sandburg's poem about Chaplin and Clare Boothe Luce's snooty ode to Garbo are mostly of antiquarian interest. Most of the historic stuff is great (e.g., Fritz Lang directing a crowd scene in Metropolis), and the most austere cineaste should own this book. On practically every page, Vanity Fair's Hollywood dazzles. It's a keeper. --Tim Appelo

From Publishers Weekly
This lavish, photo-laden tour of Tinsel Town's history is coffee-table condensation of 87 years of Vanity Fair coverage of the Hollywood scene. Visually, it's a thrilling compendium of images that have defined not only the film industry and its workers but how the American public has understood them. Ranging from Edward Steichen's iconographic black-and-white portraits of Louise Brooks, Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg, and Gloria Swanson (which defined the "look" of Hollywood in its first half-century) to the contemporary and often shocking color photographs of Annie Leibovitz (of nearly everyone from Sylvester Stallone and John Travolta to Cate Blanchette and Johnny Depp)Dand peppered with shots by Bruce Weber, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Griege Hurrell and othersDthe book traces how these stars have come to embody pop mythologies of everyday life. The photos are interspersed among 13 (mostly short) essays by writers as diverse as Carl Sandberg, Patricia Bosworth, P.G. Wodehouse, Dorothy Parker, Peter Biskind and D.H. Lawrence, which range from the humorous to the illuminating. While serious film buffs will find nothing terribly new here, Vanity Fair's trademark mix of wit and style, chic and intelligence is guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser. (Oct. 23)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Viking Studio; First Impression edition (October 19, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067089141X
• ISBN-13: 978-0670891412
• Product Dimensions: 12.2 x 10.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #249,733 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Gorgeous, Glamorous Glance at Glitter, November 28, 2000

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Hollywood has always stood for dreams. Vanity Fair's take has always
been to turn the tinsel used to depict those dreams into glamor. This
book is very much in keeping with the magazine's slant and Hollywood's
most inflated view of itself. The book faithfully reproduces a
cross-section of Vanity Fair's 86 year history.

Before you read
further, let me caution you that this book teems with suggestiveness.
If that sort of thing isn't your cup of tea, skip this book.

The
photographs are the best part of thebook. There are large numbers of
outstanding examples of work by Edward Steichen and Annie Leibovitz.

The pages are oversized, and many images are done as double
spreads. This makes for seeing very large features of the stars
portrayed, and this has high impact effects on the viewer -- evoking a
sense of the wide screen. The editing was wisely done to select many
images that can be reasonably faithfully reproduced that way.

Unfortunately, many fine photographs were reproduced with the
middle fold through an important part of the image. Some of the
images that were not so spoiled also were overinked in a way that make
the details hard to discern. Inexplicably, there were no credits
listed for many photographs. I graded the book down one star for
being insufficiently well designed, credited and printed to portray
all of the photographs to their best advantage.

Except for this
very regrettable and significant set of flaws on the photography side,
the book is very well done. The selection of photographs was
brilliantly done to not only highlight great ones, but to create
interplay among them . . . and among themes . . . and among
generations of Hollywood performers. I found it all quite exciting
and entertaining.

Some of my favorite photographs in the book
are:

Jack Nicholson; Annie Leibovitz, 1992

Robin Williams, Eddie
Murphy, and Jim Carrey; Annie Leibovitz, 1997

Doris Day; John
Florea, 1953

Spencer Tracy and Katherine Kapburn; n.c., 1949

Nancy and Ronald Reagan; Harry Benson, 1985

Pee-Wee Herman; Annie
Leibovitz, 1984

Walt Disney; Edward Steichen, 1933

Dustin
Hoffman; Herb Ritts, 1996

Rita Hayworth; n.c., 1946

Robert
Redford; George Gorman, 1984

Meryl Streep; Annie Leibovitz,
1982

Gloria Swanson; Edward Steichen, 1928

I also liked the
caricature of Greta Garbo by Miguel Covarrubias from 1932.

The
essays were more of a mixed lot. My favoite was D.H. Lawrence on sex
appeal. "Sex appeal is only a dirty name for a bit of life
flame." Other essays looked at Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo (by
Walter Winchell), the queens of gossip columnists, and agent Sue
Mengers.

After you have finished enjoying this close-up look at
Hollywood, ask yourself where your dreams come from. Then consider
where they should come from. Should Hollywood be the source of your
dreams, the reinforcement of your dreams, or simply be a source of
entertainment? You'll have to decide. But do so explicitly. Your
dreams are too important to turn over to others to create and
manipulate.

As the Everly Brothers used to sing: "Dream, Dream,
Dream . . ."

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Glorious Glittered Tour through Stardom, December 19, 2000

By	Mark Piske (farmers branch, texas USA) - See all my reviews

A wonderful book that portrays the glitz and glamour of Hollywood at its most glorious. Vanity Fair's best inspirational photos are presented from the distant and not-too-recent past. A perfect gift for that star follower in your world. Every page screams "Hooray for Hollywood", and the nostalgia of some will have you yearning for past times. It's possibly the most beautiful book ever made on the stars that captured our imagination and inspired us.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Instant Classic, October 17, 2000

By	M. Kravitz (Morton Grove, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is a pure delight. It captures the glamour and shimmering romance that is Hollywood. David Friends' brilliant picture editing showcases the best of Vanity Fairs' evocation of the dream factory, past and present. Each turn of the page elicits a gleeful chuckle or nostaglic sigh. There's enough star power here to illuminate a small town. God bless Vanity Fair and David Friend for giving us this book just in time for the gift giving season.