Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, thanks for joining us today on Table for two.
Speaker 1: I'm Bruce and we are in my hometown, NYC at
Speaker 1: Via Coroda.
Speaker 2: We're gonna order some lunch, Okay, I mean, I know usually,
Speaker 2: I guess the last night today we were having lunch
Speaker 2: with a man who has come out with his memoir
Speaker 2: called When the Going Was Good and.
Speaker 1: Editor's Adventures during the Last Golden Age of Magazines. Mister
Speaker 1: Graydon Carter, I'm gonna do the beat salad and the chicken.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll have the and I might have the I
Speaker 3: think it was the best restaurant you are.
Speaker 4: Thank you do.
Speaker 3: That's a big thing coming from.
Speaker 5: So pull up a chair, grab a glass rose, and enjoy.
Speaker 1: I'm Bruce Bosi and this is my podcast Table for two.
Speaker 5: So if you've pulled up a chair.
Speaker 1: Today on Table for two, we were sitting with a
Speaker 1: man himself, mister Graydon Carter. Graydon's come out with a
Speaker 1: book which Graydon, It's a great memoir.
Speaker 5: It really is well was good in.
Speaker 1: Editors Adventures during the Last Golden Age of magazines, not
Speaker 1: only because I actually saw my name in it, which
Speaker 1: blew me away.
Speaker 5: I guess.
Speaker 1: My first question is why is this the time for
Speaker 1: you to tell your story, do you think?
Speaker 3: Oh no, it happened completely backs And I was having lunch
Speaker 3: with a friend of mine, James Fox, the great journalist
Speaker 3: who wrote wrote the book White Mischief and wrote worked
Speaker 3: with Keith Richards on his memoir Life, which was a
Speaker 3: huge bestseller. And he said if I ever decided to
Speaker 3: do a memoir that he would help me. And I'd
Speaker 3: never even thought of it up to that point. And
Speaker 3: then I had was approached by Bob Barnett, who's he's
Speaker 3: a lawyer of Williams and Connolly, but he also represents.
Speaker 4: Authors.
Speaker 3: He represents you know, presidents and popes, who represented the Clintons,
Speaker 3: the Obamas, and he you know, he's Bob Woodward's agents,
Speaker 3: and so he said he would love to represent me,
Speaker 3: and so so, you know, we I coupled together a proposal.
Speaker 4: I thought.
Speaker 3: I retired from Benny Fair, I had a little bit
Speaker 3: more time on my hands, and and I and it
Speaker 3: made me think that I realized that as I sort
Speaker 3: of did the proposal, that I had lived through this
Speaker 3: incredible golden age of of magazines that was very sort
Speaker 3: of glamorous and fun. But because do great work and
Speaker 3: great journalism, and James was invaluable because he you know,
Speaker 3: he knew how to organize. He was helpful in organizing
Speaker 3: the book and he would talk to some of my
Speaker 3: ex employees that I was real like, you know, colleagues,
Speaker 3: because I was sort of too embarrassed to say, can
Speaker 3: we talk about me? And this way he could do
Speaker 3: that and then he sort of guided me through the process.
Speaker 3: I'd worked on it in with him in the South
Speaker 3: of France, in New York, in Connecticut, and in London.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because when you know that you worked on
Speaker 1: it with someone and you're such a great writer and
Speaker 1: your your letters always in you know, the editor's letters
Speaker 1: were so great that one would But now I understand
Speaker 1: too because it is a sort of weird thing to
Speaker 1: not only formulate it and put it together, but ask
Speaker 1: people for things.
Speaker 5: Working with someone that you.
Speaker 3: Will He would tell me what's boring and what's not boring,
Speaker 3: and hopefully we left the non boring stop out as
Speaker 3: much as possible.
Speaker 6: Really did.
Speaker 3: Also, I like having a partner quite frank I'm not
Speaker 3: that sort of solitary writer and a Garrett sort of person,
Speaker 3: and I adore his company and it made it a
Speaker 3: lot more fun than if I'd done it just myself,
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 1: More fun having grown up, and I used to save
Speaker 1: all my vanit affairs. I still have a big stack
Speaker 1: of them. The covers were so great, the articles were
Speaker 1: so great. I mean, you created something, because everything always
Speaker 1: sort of reveals itself. When did you start to smell
Speaker 1: the discontent or the age was ending?
Speaker 3: Well, the Internet and the Internet and the financial crash
Speaker 3: of two thousand and eight really caused magazines a great
Speaker 3: deal of trouble. The Internet sort of gobbled the week
Speaker 3: The Internet sort of gobbled the weeklies first, and it
Speaker 3: was slower to get to the monthlies. But then at
Speaker 3: the same time, the financial crash had dried up a
Speaker 3: lot of advertising pages. We didn't suffer that much because
Speaker 3: I had a very close connection to my advertisers. I
Speaker 3: wrote thank you notes every month. But then the newstand
Speaker 3: just started disappearing. And in New York, you know, every
Speaker 3: major street corner had either one or two newstands on them.
Speaker 3: And now when you see a newsstand on a street
Speaker 3: corner in New York, you think it's like part of
Speaker 3: a movie. Said so, and every every building, every office
Speaker 3: building in the had a news stand in the lobby,
Speaker 3: and now if they do, they sell gum and lotto
Speaker 3: tickets where there's no magazine.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: In fact, when we moved to one World Trade Center,
Speaker 3: when Connie Nass moved there, I don't think anybody who
Speaker 3: thought to ask for a news stand in the lobby.
Speaker 4: There wasn't one.
Speaker 3: We had to send somebody time to Square to get
Speaker 3: a magazine. There was a so called efficiency move a
Speaker 3: foot that would combine all half of my staff into
Speaker 3: a group run.
Speaker 4: By and a win tour.
Speaker 3: And I thought I'd worked with these people for twenty
Speaker 3: five years. They were key to the magazine. That was
Speaker 3: the art direction staff, the photo staff, the fact checking staff,
Speaker 3: and the legal staff. And I thought I couldn't possibly
Speaker 3: work that way without the regular people I had, because
Speaker 3: they knew these like the fact checkers and the researchers.
Speaker 3: They knew that every writer's strengths and weaknesses, and they
Speaker 3: were the ones who kept us.
Speaker 4: Out of court or libel actions.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and so you know, when Anna tried to
Speaker 3: take home half my staff, and I don't I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 4: Blame her in anyway, but it just had that sort
Speaker 4: of marked the end for me.
Speaker 5: And then I'm sure.
Speaker 3: My wife Anna had been pestering me to retire, and
Speaker 3: so I thought I was coming up to twenty five years,
Speaker 3: and I thought that's a nice tidy number. So she
Speaker 3: went ahead and rented a house in the south of France.
Speaker 3: They had sort of finalized the whole thing because it
Speaker 3: started in December and my last day was I think
Speaker 3: sometime in November, and three days later we were on
Speaker 3: a flight to Europe, So it is that amazing.
Speaker 1: How did it feel after twenty five years? And I
Speaker 1: want to really go through sort of the editorial, like
Speaker 1: you know, I would love you to explain what the
Speaker 1: editor does, and you were.
Speaker 4: Not that much by Oh yeah, we will, I'll do
Speaker 4: my best.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that with your magazine because your
Speaker 1: magazine was so curated, so perfectly and so beautiful. But
Speaker 1: when you woke up in France after twenty five years,
Speaker 1: did it feel like oh okay?
Speaker 4: It was like I was, I have not missed a
Speaker 4: single thing. It's funny.
Speaker 3: I thought I'd missed having a car and driver, but
Speaker 3: they invented this thing called.
Speaker 4: Uber so that took care of that.
Speaker 3: And I missed not seeing my colleagues when I was
Speaker 3: over there. But Brad, you know, Airmail is staffed with
Speaker 3: old Benny Fair hands, and I see all my colleagues
Speaker 3: on a regular basis, so I don't I don't. I
Speaker 3: don't now miss them because I see them. And it
Speaker 3: was like losing like fifty pounds overnight, you know, I
Speaker 3: felt healthier. It was, you know, running those big, a
Speaker 3: big magazine like that under a lot of is a
Speaker 3: lot of stress, and I I felt immensely relieved when
Speaker 3: it was over, and I you know, I could wake
Speaker 3: up in my own hours. I saw I got about
Speaker 3: two thousand letters after I retired, and I took a
Speaker 3: couple of months and answered every single one of them.
Speaker 5: Wow. So I mean, well that's reflective like this access.
Speaker 1: I think of Vanity Fair and of you, and I
Speaker 1: kind of want to go a little bit back in
Speaker 1: your life.
Speaker 5: Is the why the parties were something?
Speaker 1: Why you is the attention to detail and the level
Speaker 1: of elegance and respect that you make sure you have
Speaker 1: an aesthetic that sort of I mean, you're from Ottawa,
Speaker 1: You're from Canada. You love you know, you have an
Speaker 1: incredible restaurant here in New York called Waverley.
Speaker 5: The Waverley in and it's beautiful in the foot.
Speaker 1: How did you sort of develop this aesthetic from being
Speaker 1: a kid from Ottawa who worked in the I mean
Speaker 1: the early years of your life were tough.
Speaker 4: They weren't dead tough.
Speaker 3: I mean my parents I sent My parents were like
Speaker 3: a lot of my parents' friends. They sent their sons
Speaker 3: off to work somewhere out in the West coast, either
Speaker 3: on the oil fields or the railroad, to toughen them
Speaker 3: up before they started college and got on with their lives.
Speaker 3: And I worked for six months for the Canadian Railroad
Speaker 3: and National Railroad out of the Prairie as a lineman,
Speaker 3: and I lived in a box car with eleven man
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe, many of whom had sort of criminal records,
Speaker 3: some minors, some slightly less so. And I adored these
Speaker 3: guys and I had a great time and it taught me.
Speaker 4: It taught me a ton.
Speaker 3: First of all, I got over my fear of heights,
Speaker 3: because you had to climb first twenty foot telegraph poles
Speaker 3: and then thirty foot ones.
Speaker 4: And it was hard labor, and it was really.
Speaker 3: Enjoyable, and I felt an enormous sense of accomplishment.
Speaker 4: So and a tough it did tough me up.
Speaker 3: I came back with muscles I didn't know I had,
Speaker 3: all of which are probably gone now. And so but I,
Speaker 3: you know, I felt, Okay, I'm done with that, and
Speaker 3: now it's time to get on with an adult life.
Speaker 3: And I care about little things because I just do.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 3: I spent you know, I had a magazine in college
Speaker 3: that was a literary political magazine, and it used to
Speaker 3: spend hours and hours and hours there and spend sometimes
Speaker 3: eighteen hours a day the Canadian Review, and it was
Speaker 3: it was not very good. It was a magazine put
Speaker 3: up by a bunch of young people who had never
Speaker 3: worked at a magazine before.
Speaker 4: And what was it like articles?
Speaker 3: It was like it was like a like a very
Speaker 3: bad collegiate version of Harper's or The Atlantic, and uh,
Speaker 3: it just never did anything but lose money. And uh,
Speaker 3: the Canadians like they the Canadian writers produced poetry at
Speaker 3: incredible an incredible volume, and so that I hate contemporary poetry,
Speaker 3: or not all of it, but I hate most of it,
Speaker 3: at least the stuff that was being sent to me.
Speaker 3: And I used to just at one point I just
Speaker 3: the staff found caught me. They were very big on poetry.
Speaker 3: And they caught me shoveling a load of recent submissions
Speaker 3: into the waste basket one day, and they revolted on
Speaker 3: masks and I had to bring in the news style.
Speaker 3: And there was at this point you were I was
Speaker 3: like twenty, and there just it was constant infighting. And
Speaker 3: you have no idea the level of infighting at a
Speaker 3: small magazine. And but you know, we eventually sold it
Speaker 3: to our closest competitor, and it got me a job
Speaker 3: at Time magazine.
Speaker 1: You talk about New York at a time where I
Speaker 1: was growing up in New York and was in the seventies,
Speaker 1: was in elementary school, but like ending by like fourteen,
Speaker 1: so hitting nineteen eighty to fifteen, and New York truly
Speaker 1: was and I can from at any I think at
Speaker 1: any stage you were in a magical.
Speaker 5: Place in the seventies, it just was.
Speaker 1: I agree, explain what New York was to you, because
Speaker 1: you really came and again impressive, the tweed blazer that
Speaker 1: you know you're sweating your ass off.
Speaker 5: When you're trying to like a dime in your pocket
Speaker 5: for a phone call.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't have New York clothes.
Speaker 3: I didn't have you know, like like you know, seer
Speaker 3: soccer suits or anything like that, because Canada is much
Speaker 3: colder and I didn't have to wear a suit that much,
Speaker 3: so I only came.
Speaker 4: I only had a.
Speaker 3: Huge thick tweet jacket and a huge thick blue blazer.
Speaker 3: And uh, I just love. I was so excited to
Speaker 3: be New York. They burned as you know, they were
Speaker 3: burned out cars. There was prostitutes everywhere. There's drugs everywhere,
Speaker 3: there was there was like crime and fasted feet. Was
Speaker 3: I've never been more excited. And you know, also when
Speaker 3: you look back, it was New York was it was
Speaker 3: sort of more free wheeling than it is now.
Speaker 5: And I'm not even no comparison.
Speaker 3: No comparison, and and I mean I appreciate that it's
Speaker 3: less pre wheeling now that I'm older.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't want to be like the seventies again, for sure.
Speaker 3: I mean my brid was, yeah, two hundred dollars a
Speaker 3: month from apartment not.
Speaker 4: Far from here.
Speaker 5: Chewing gum was ten cents twenty.
Speaker 1: I mean every I know, it's sound hot, the concrete,
Speaker 1: well it's those eywhere else. Probably the you could go to, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a movie for two bucks.
Speaker 5: I mean you could go out and have a full
Speaker 5: dinner movie.
Speaker 1: Experience for twenty bucks. That was at that but more
Speaker 1: so it was there was like anything could happen. And
Speaker 1: and anyone who has lived through that, who I've spoken to,
Speaker 1: it's not like we're glamorizing something. We're just appreciating sort
Speaker 1: of the I think something that you are so good.
Speaker 5: At, the authenticity of what it was. And how did
Speaker 5: those years gifts?
Speaker 1: I think, I think they really do influence influence you
Speaker 1: in Time Life Spy to then get to Vanity Fair
Speaker 1: because you go.
Speaker 5: From satirical to satorial.
Speaker 1: So it's an interesting at some point you made a
Speaker 1: shift in something.
Speaker 3: Well, as you get older and as you get paid
Speaker 3: a little more, you can dress a little better and
Speaker 3: so and I have the love clothes. I'm not interested
Speaker 3: in patch that money at all, but I really love clothes.
Speaker 3: And also close I'm putting on a beautiful suit in
Speaker 3: the morning makes.
Speaker 4: You feel better about the entire day, all right, So.
Speaker 3: No, it just everything was sort of gradual, and I
Speaker 3: was so just happy to be in New York. And
Speaker 3: there was a review in the Washington Post with the
Speaker 3: credits really funny, so compared me to Buddy in l
Speaker 3: and I thought, hey, that's really offensive.
Speaker 4: B it's really funny. And see it's really accurate.
Speaker 1: That's one of the great facets of your personality when
Speaker 1: you read this book too, is you fine when it's bad,
Speaker 1: but then you're like, but you know what, I really
Speaker 1: that was really funny.
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, Canadians are very happy people. Look at the
Speaker 3: Canadians you probably know in York, Mark and Short, Catherine O'Hara.
Speaker 3: They're really happy people, right, They're really very affable. And
Speaker 3: it's not a it's not a just a surface happiness.
Speaker 3: They're happy, right, And I think they're especially happy to
Speaker 3: be in America.
Speaker 5: This other than I think is right.
Speaker 7: Up until the last couple of months.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to Table for two.
Speaker 1: After writing for Time and then Life Magazine, our guest
Speaker 1: Graydon Carter co founded Spy, a satirical magazine.
Speaker 5: That ran for twelve years. What inspired him to make
Speaker 5: the leap?
Speaker 1: What kind of gave you the cajones to say now
Speaker 1: I'm going back out on my own.
Speaker 4: Wellus having had a magazine in coll It just I
Speaker 4: knew how to make a magazine. I didn't know how
Speaker 4: to make a good magazine yet. And I knew, but
Speaker 4: I knew the.
Speaker 3: Elements of Megia magazine, and so I teamed up. When
Speaker 3: I was at Life, I was a little bored. The
Speaker 3: city had come out of that seventies period, burned out,
Speaker 3: car has been towed away, with less drugs and prostitution,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden the city was washed with
Speaker 3: investment bankers right and money and ladies who lunch and
Speaker 3: people like Donald Trump and Riona Helmsley.
Speaker 1: And Steinberg, Sawberg, Godfrey, Shebang.
Speaker 3: So so it was accidentally really good timing. And so
Speaker 3: I teamed up with Kurt Anderson, who I had met
Speaker 3: at Time magazine, and over a nine month period he'd
Speaker 3: come up to my office at Life every day and
Speaker 3: we'd work on a proposal for a magazine called Spy,
Speaker 3: which would be a funny, journalistic magazine.
Speaker 4: About New York City.
Speaker 3: And then we raised the money and we both left
Speaker 3: our jobs, and it was.
Speaker 4: A shockingly big hit at the time.
Speaker 1: So when you were sitting with one another and you're
Speaker 1: now putting together the issue, how did you target the
Speaker 1: person that you're like?
Speaker 3: Didn't target anybody other than we just tried to make
Speaker 3: each other laugh, and we thought if we laugh, other
Speaker 3: people will do.
Speaker 5: And the covers were quite interesting.
Speaker 4: They were good. We had no money, but we did
Speaker 4: our best with covers, and.
Speaker 3: We had sometimes we had very primitive versions of photoshop,
Speaker 3: but we haven't. We attracted a number of good photographers
Speaker 3: to shoot the covers, and we did the covers in
Speaker 3: the way.
Speaker 4: That Lauren did Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 3: In the early days, we thought we were sort of
Speaker 3: not ready for prime time, but we wanted people on
Speaker 3: the covers.
Speaker 4: It'd be like the guest stars on Saturday and Live,
Speaker 4: that the.
Speaker 3: Reader would recognize the people on the cover, if not necessarily.
Speaker 4: In the early stages, the writers of the.
Speaker 3: Magazine, okay, so we had like, yeah, famous, like Chris
Speaker 3: Elliott was on our famous cover for people who don't know,
Speaker 3: Chris Elliott was a big thing when David.
Speaker 5: Le Chris Elliott, who is so funny, very funny. So
Speaker 5: then because really it's the road to.
Speaker 1: Vanity fair that I think pivots, probably pivots your whole
Speaker 1: life in this way, and you leave that room, it
Speaker 1: seems like you're leaving a room and coming into another
Speaker 1: room of now elevating the people in a way that
Speaker 1: you were.
Speaker 4: Now satirizing just writing in a straightforward way.
Speaker 3: But there was a after we sold Spy after five
Speaker 3: years to excuse me, Johnny Pagazzi and Charles Sacci, and
Speaker 3: then I went and edited The New York Observer. It
Speaker 3: was very sleepy, upper each side broadsheet. It was salmon colored.
Speaker 3: It had some New York Times type type face is
Speaker 3: on the front page. After about six months they caught
Speaker 3: on and I started sending complimentary copies to friends of mine,
Speaker 3: A lot of them were editors in Europe. And then
Speaker 3: sign new House, who made a.
Speaker 4: Twice yearly trip to all his properties in Europe. Young
Speaker 4: you know, Vogue and The Fair and The New Yorker.
Speaker 3: And Details and GQ and Architective Digists and a dozen
Speaker 3: other magazines. So he would go to visit and go
Speaker 3: to London, Paris, Milan where their offices were in Europe.
Speaker 3: And at one point, everywhere he went he'd see a
Speaker 3: copy of The New York Observer in the editors in boxes.
Speaker 3: And he came back thinking that this the paper was
Speaker 3: this international success. I mean, it wasn't. I was, I
Speaker 3: was sending them copies, but it was. It was a
Speaker 3: success in New York. And so he he asked me
Speaker 3: if I'd like to get together. And I'd met him previous.
Speaker 3: Anna Winter and introduced me to him, and so I
Speaker 3: went to his apartment and he said, like, I wonder
Speaker 3: if you'd be interested in one or two of the
Speaker 3: magazine and I said, all Earth, and he said either
Speaker 3: The New Yorker or Vanity Fair.
Speaker 4: And I thought, oh my god. Right. So I we
Speaker 4: had made religious fun.
Speaker 3: Of Banny Fair, both the writing style, the editors, some
Speaker 3: of the contributors, and I thought, so he said, well,
Speaker 3: let's let's do the New York for them. And so
Speaker 3: I worked on a plan for The New Yorker. And
Speaker 3: then two weeks before no the day was supposed to
Speaker 3: be announced. This is This is about two weeks after
Speaker 3: he'd operated to me. So the day was supposed to
Speaker 3: be announced, and a Winter calls me up and says,
Speaker 3: it's going to be the other magazine.
Speaker 4: So I said, uh, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: And by that time, you know, I'm sort I had
Speaker 3: no plan for Vanity Fair, but I felt that after
Speaker 3: he offered me the job, and I accepted that I
Speaker 3: had to get to work right away otherwise you wouldn't
Speaker 3: pay me. And I had three kids at that point
Speaker 3: and another one on the way. So I went to
Speaker 3: work right away without a plan, and so it took
Speaker 3: me a full two years to to pull together issues
Speaker 3: that I wanted rather than ones I could just get
Speaker 3: my hands on stories and photographs. I could get my
Speaker 3: hands on them. And also there was a number of
Speaker 3: people left over from the old regime who delighted and
Speaker 3: spreading tales of my incompetency and inadequizines around town at
Speaker 3: dinner parties.
Speaker 4: And I finally, I tried to work with them.
Speaker 3: For two years to bring them around to my way
Speaker 3: of thinking, the way I like to work.
Speaker 4: But I just couldn't.
Speaker 3: And so one day, one week I went into the office,
Speaker 3: and on successive days I got rid of all three.
Speaker 4: Of these troublemakers. And then things just changed.
Speaker 3: I got people to I don't like drama at the office,
Speaker 3: and I got people to work together in a collegial
Speaker 3: way rather than the combative way.
Speaker 4: I believe you get the most.
Speaker 3: Out of the people by treating them with great respect
Speaker 3: and allowing them their dignity, and so I within by
Speaker 3: the end of that second year, you know, people were
Speaker 3: saying please and thank you, and working together, being collegial
Speaker 3: and having great respect for the other person's talents and abilities,
Speaker 3: and that's the way it was for the next twenty
Speaker 3: three years.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really amazing because when I recall seeing
Speaker 1: as a young person Vanity Fair pre you, it seemed
Speaker 1: like a very old magazine like that was because that
Speaker 1: had been it had quite a history.
Speaker 5: I don't know when it began as a magazin.
Speaker 3: Started in nineteen thirteen, went to nineteen thirty six, and
Speaker 3: was closed by Conye Nass who was a person not
Speaker 3: too names jammed together right, and he closed it in
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 5: Kanye n asked was a person, was.
Speaker 3: A person, and so it was very much for a
Speaker 3: magazine for the smart set, as was The New Yorker,
Speaker 3: and stayed too frivolous in the nineteen thirties, as you know,
Speaker 3: as the rise of passion and Nazism in Europe and
Speaker 3: folded in nineteen thirty six it was blended into Vogue Magazine.
Speaker 4: Where's the New Yorker really.
Speaker 3: Cut its teeth during World War Two with great reportage,
Speaker 3: and that's what made the New Yorker. World War two
Speaker 3: is when the New Yorker became what we think of
Speaker 3: was the New Yorker and so yeah, so it had
Speaker 3: it had it had an illustrious history, but it and
Speaker 3: it was very much It was the biggest launch of the.
Speaker 4: Last forty years.
Speaker 3: And here I said it was a huge thing when
Speaker 3: Side relaunched it.
Speaker 5: It had such style, So you brought your sensibility to that.
Speaker 1: And when did you start to understand you were shifting
Speaker 1: actual culture?
Speaker 4: Well I never quite felt that.
Speaker 3: But the inside the magazine was a magazine of great journalism. That's,
Speaker 3: you know, a great sort of narrative stories that would
Speaker 3: run from ten to twenty thousand words. But the cover
Speaker 3: is basically the wrapping. And unlike Vogue and GQ and
Speaker 3: architectural didges say that have different editions in every country
Speaker 3: in the world, there was one additional Vanity Fair that
Speaker 3: we produced here in New York and it went around
Speaker 3: the world. So I had to come up with cover
Speaker 3: ideas that appealed to a newsstand, possible newsstand buyers in
Speaker 3: India and Australia and America and the sort of the
Speaker 3: common currency of the global newsstand.
Speaker 4: Then we're movie stars, so I wanted.
Speaker 3: People to be on the cover who I thought would
Speaker 3: have long shelf lives, so we would look smart and
Speaker 3: having chosen.
Speaker 4: Them, and.
Speaker 3: Movie starts from part because first of all, they're much
Speaker 3: better looking than we are. And so if you're going
Speaker 3: to have it on a newstand and then on your
Speaker 3: coffee table, much better to have somebody who's really nice
Speaker 3: looking rather than somebody who's not so nice looking.
Speaker 1: Sure, which is why I still have so many there
Speaker 1: any care, you know. And I switched to was on
Speaker 1: the car, like who sits on the top? I think
Speaker 1: right now when I.
Speaker 3: Left it was Brad Pitt and it was on that Well,
Speaker 3: if you could get Brad Pitt and George Plooney and
Speaker 3: Julia Roberts every single month, that would have.
Speaker 1: Been and it was a success, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that was happening at the time. And I
Speaker 1: remember this, you know, And I remember when the Oscars
Speaker 1: were in March, and I could remember Swifty Lazare, who
Speaker 1: was like a massive agent in Los Angeles doing his dinner,
Speaker 1: doing those parties at Spago, and now.
Speaker 4: He invented the Oscar party.
Speaker 1: He invented it. So Swifty dies in December. You're like,
Speaker 1: what sort of clicks that you have not only four
Speaker 1: months to do this, in about like three months to
Speaker 1: do it in three and a half to say, okay,
Speaker 1: this is we have to own this, and how did
Speaker 1: you get to that?
Speaker 4: Well, it wasn't It wasn't that curtain.
Speaker 3: He invited me to what turned out to be his
Speaker 3: last Oscar party, and since I didn't know many people,
Speaker 3: I had a good chance to sort of see how
Speaker 3: he did things. For the Swift he had an a
Speaker 3: room and a b rooms. Spot was divided in two,
Speaker 3: and he the A room was for like the Gregory
Speaker 3: packs and the Jimmy stories and all the rest, But
Speaker 3: then the b room was for people like me, And
Speaker 3: I thought, okay, So if I and he parole, he
Speaker 3: parromed around the perimeter and like made sure people were
Speaker 3: sitting in their seats, they couldn't take bathroom breaks, and
Speaker 3: he got you would scream at you if you were
Speaker 3: talking too much.
Speaker 4: So I thought, okay. When he dies in December, and
Speaker 4: I thought we could do this. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's and but I had a number of rules.
Speaker 3: First of all, I would I want only one room,
Speaker 3: no a B delineation. And in those days big uh
Speaker 3: uh dinners or parties, there was often an area off
Speaker 3: on the side that was roped off with the velvet
Speaker 3: rope where the VIP sat, and I thought, I'm not
Speaker 3: having any of that.
Speaker 4: Once you get in, everybody's the same. We'll probably make
Speaker 4: it pretty difficult to get in.
Speaker 3: But I wanted a a sort of democratic celebrity serengetti
Speaker 3: once you got in, And so we did.
Speaker 4: We we started. We did the first Oscar party.
Speaker 3: And we did it at Morton's, not Morton's Steakhouse, but
Speaker 3: Morton's restaurant in.
Speaker 4: La which was then the sort of their power restaurant.
Speaker 5: And like you said, Monday.
Speaker 3: Nights, Monday night when the Oscars were on Monday, and
Speaker 3: it was a single room, and so we did. We
Speaker 3: started small because I thought we could really mess this
Speaker 3: up and I didn't want a lot of witnesses.
Speaker 4: To our our fiasco.
Speaker 3: So but we had one hundred and fifty people for dinner,
Speaker 3: and then about one hundred and fifty two hundred people
Speaker 3: who came after the Oscars, and it was successful, and
Speaker 3: so the next year got a little bigger, and it
Speaker 3: got uh and and sort of more popular.
Speaker 4: Then it became very difficult.
Speaker 3: To limit the number of people coming because there's so
Speaker 3: many people who wanted to come. But we would have
Speaker 3: the fun of the the Beverly Hills Fire Marshal would
Speaker 3: stand outside the door with a clicker, and once you
Speaker 3: hit a certain number of people inside, he would stop
Speaker 3: the entries. So you had to we had to tear
Speaker 3: people at what time they came, hoping that the earlier
Speaker 3: people would have by that time left. And then we
Speaker 3: had a if you had an oscar, we had a
Speaker 3: sort of speed lane in an H O V lane
Speaker 3: And so the oscar got you an immediate that there's
Speaker 3: a there's a party planner here in New York called
Speaker 3: Bronze and van Wick.
Speaker 4: And he said.
Speaker 3: He he told me much later that he went he
Speaker 3: bought he bought an oscar at a pawn shop in
Speaker 3: the valley and just use it a whisk right in.
Speaker 4: That that speed when I was very respectful of him
Speaker 4: for that.
Speaker 5: I mean, you liked.
Speaker 1: One of the things about you is like you like mischief.
Speaker 1: I do like this, you like Misschi and in that
Speaker 1: party like that. If you're clever like that, I'm fine
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 3: I mean I'm not fine with like Harvey Weinstein showing
Speaker 3: up with like seven Ladies.
Speaker 1: Of the Night, you know, and was treating your staff
Speaker 1: and mistreating Sarah staff badly. You never come back, right, Well,
Speaker 1: that's the hospitality gene that I can share. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, no, no no. So Harvey Harvey was
Speaker 1: lucky to last as long as he did. So he
Speaker 1: finally it's America, big boot.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm. You also talk you have.
Speaker 1: There's a funny story about Courtney Love who mistreated Sarah
Speaker 1: Mark who figured out because you know you kicked her out.
Speaker 3: I didn't kick her out, You didn't, she wanted, she
Speaker 3: said during the party, and she said, great, you gotta
Speaker 3: let my manager in. Her managers a very famous guy
Speaker 3: in Hollywood. Now, but I won't say his name.
Speaker 4: She said.
Speaker 6: He's got my keys, he's got my walle and he's
Speaker 6: got my drugs. He said, Look, I just can't deal
Speaker 6: with this right now. There's Sarah Marks over there. Want
Speaker 6: to Glasger I knew what the end explained to everyone listening.
Speaker 6: Sarah markin She's a fucking gene. Okay, she was the
Speaker 6: She was that my the person who ram the Oscar
Speaker 6: party of the buildout of whatever we had to do.
Speaker 6: She worked with my architect, Basal Walter. She brought in
Speaker 6: the rolling stones, lighting manager path, the woodrup to do
Speaker 6: the lighting because movie starts like good lightings, and so
Speaker 6: she she sort of basically was the employee in charge
Speaker 6: of the team in charge of the Oscar party.
Speaker 4: So and Sarah's she's a much tougher not than I am.
Speaker 1: I mean I was scared of her for so many years.
Speaker 1: I have fallen in love with her. You know, I
Speaker 1: just saw her recently and I can't get up for years.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, she terrified me. People would people would ask me.
Speaker 3: My kids found it really funny when people would come
Speaker 3: up to me and ask me if I had any
Speaker 3: any poll with her. And so I said, go talk
Speaker 3: to Sarah Marxu. I knew what Sarah's gonna say. She's
Speaker 3: gonna say no then, So it was according to she does.
Speaker 3: I see her go out, and she goes out where
Speaker 3: all the banks and photographers from all over the world
Speaker 3: were and film cameras and we broadcast the arrivals inside
Speaker 3: the room where the tele and sad word when the
Speaker 3: oscars were on.
Speaker 4: So she goes down there.
Speaker 3: She says, I've got an important announcement to make, so
Speaker 3: all the cameras turn on her.
Speaker 4: She's that's Courtney Loves. She's standing there. You can see it.
Speaker 3: Everybody inside the room can hear and see this. And
Speaker 3: she said, I've got an important announcement to make. I
Speaker 3: just want to say one thing that Sarah Mars is
Speaker 3: a cunt.
Speaker 4: My lord.
Speaker 3: I mean, I felt so badly for Sarah, but it's
Speaker 3: sort of immortalized her a bit. And she and I
Speaker 3: thought a great use of technology on Courtney's part. And
Speaker 3: then I think when Minority Report came out, Sarah must
Speaker 3: have turned away a screenwride at one point because one
Speaker 3: of the villains and Minority Report was called Sarah Marx.
Speaker 5: That's yeah. Well, it's a tough, tough job. And one
Speaker 5: of the other tough jobs.
Speaker 1: And one of the interesting things that you did was
Speaker 1: placement at tables like a wedding, and it's a very
Speaker 1: difficult job.
Speaker 5: So and you also talk.
Speaker 1: About always throwing in that one person that's sort of
Speaker 1: you know, the special person.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, the oscars are a long haul,
Speaker 3: so it's four hours at a dinner table with other people.
Speaker 4: So I tried to make a save.
Speaker 3: We had one hundred and twenty people for dinner and
Speaker 3: try to make twelve tables of ten and make each
Speaker 3: table convivial dinner party then, so you would group people
Speaker 3: together and often throw in a sort of wild card
Speaker 3: that would be sort of help things move along. And
Speaker 3: so yeah, and by large, by you know, by large,
Speaker 3: we got it right. Occasionally we got it wrong. And
Speaker 3: I tried to always separate people who had maybe had
Speaker 3: affairs before and tried, or people who had turned down
Speaker 3: somebody else's movie.
Speaker 4: There was a real there.
Speaker 3: It was an inexact science, but as science done the
Speaker 3: last that we ninety five percent of the time we
Speaker 3: got it really right of five percent, and now we got.
Speaker 4: It really wrong. But then it's funny. And then also
Speaker 4: you have these different roles.
Speaker 3: In in New York, husbands and wives sit at the
Speaker 3: same table, but not together. In Los Angeles, husbands and
Speaker 3: wives sit at the same table beside each other. In Europe,
Speaker 3: husbands and wives sit at different tables. So it's just
Speaker 3: knowing this are the rules of the road. And when
Speaker 3: we spent a lot of time on scene, we called
Speaker 3: them seating meetings, and it would be about a half
Speaker 3: dozen or a dozen of us.
Speaker 4: Frankly woulds often.
Speaker 3: Be there and she would try to kept saying, frank,
Speaker 3: you're an observer to this.
Speaker 4: You're not a participant.
Speaker 7: She because she had opinions about everybody, and she would
Speaker 7: have she.
Speaker 4: Would have had like three people.
Speaker 1: She had her way, so like if somebody pulled out,
Speaker 1: that can completely change the way.
Speaker 3: Well, we were very careful, so we would we once
Speaker 3: you accepted, we would follow up the week before, three
Speaker 3: days before, the day before, and a few hours before.
Speaker 3: So we wanted to so that there was only thank
Speaker 3: you very much. Only a very few occasions did anybody
Speaker 3: hansel and one time they one. I remember one time
Speaker 3: we had an opening end. It was where Michael Mann
Speaker 3: and his his wife were gonna sit. And I talked
Speaker 3: to Sarah next day he said what happened to them?
Speaker 4: He said, Well, I really admired him for saying this.
Speaker 3: He said that he and his wife got into a
Speaker 3: fight on the way there and they just turned around
Speaker 3: and went home. I just so admired his honesty that
Speaker 3: we invited them back the next.
Speaker 1: Year, because right that that is a deal breaker if
Speaker 1: you are like a show.
Speaker 4: If you don't want an empty seat beside.
Speaker 3: But we but then I would stick a convivial.
Speaker 4: Staff memory the.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us for Table for two. Before the break,
Speaker 1: Graydon Carter was telling us about his time as editor
Speaker 1: in chief at Vanity Fair and of course the Vanity
Speaker 1: Fair Oscar Party.
Speaker 5: It was a time of transformation for the magazine.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious what Graydon thinks of his legacy there.
Speaker 1: You created something that you know that really lasted for many,
Speaker 1: many years.
Speaker 5: Obviously, what from your perspective.
Speaker 1: What did you what did you value that you were like,
Speaker 1: there's an opportunity to create.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, the ninety in the early nineties
Speaker 3: when we did started this Grange was very much the fashion. Right,
Speaker 3: the oscars were very much out of paper. They were
Speaker 3: considered really square, and people shunned them. And Grove so
Speaker 3: and I thought, I loved I loved movies when I
Speaker 3: was growing up.
Speaker 4: I love older movies especially.
Speaker 3: And I thought, maybe it takes people from the East
Speaker 3: to tell Hollywood their story that this is the glimer
Speaker 3: was one of their huge trading currencies.
Speaker 4: And so I.
Speaker 3: Thought, if we did it lam mostly the guests would
Speaker 3: appreciate that and come up to the game. And so.
Speaker 4: We had a lot of old Hollywood in the first
Speaker 4: All right, you've always loved.
Speaker 3: Loved old Hollywood, Right, We had Billy Wilders and people
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 4: So, but it after a while.
Speaker 3: Then it helped I think it helped and they and
Speaker 3: then the as the Hollywood Issue we did, I think
Speaker 3: it helped make the the Oscars cool again.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, next level, hool you made the Oscar
Speaker 5: so cool.
Speaker 1: So the Hollywood Issue that Greaton is talking about, which
Speaker 1: also was a showstopper. You've done a couple of massive
Speaker 1: things I think with when you're with your reign at
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair, and one was the Hollywood Issue where you
Speaker 1: have a trifle, and you were showing of male or
Speaker 1: female you know who who are the up and coming,
Speaker 1: who are the stars? And as you go in detail
Speaker 1: about Annie Lieberwitz and her extraordinary talent and the positioning,
Speaker 1: you know, what was that like and what did that
Speaker 1: What was the competition to get on that cover because
Speaker 1: I know there was certainly an issue with being on
Speaker 1: the front versus the middle or versus the third page
Speaker 1: to fold out because and I think you really elevated
Speaker 1: people's careers at the same time, like it was like
Speaker 1: one of those pretty good.
Speaker 3: At picking also, I mean, so when we first did
Speaker 3: the Hollywood Issue with side new houses, I do after
Speaker 3: we did after the party was success. The first one
Speaker 3: was say a good boss to see like the greatest
Speaker 3: loss one could ever Jimmilate come out, you know.
Speaker 4: I I ador size.
Speaker 3: It was like my second father and so we were
Speaker 3: having lunch one day and he said, have you ever
Speaker 3: thought of doing a special issue on Hollywood? And I
Speaker 3: said no, And I actually I didn't like special issues
Speaker 3: because I felt people come to a magazine for the
Speaker 3: variety of stories. And he brought it up again. And
Speaker 3: then one night I was sitting in the kitchen after
Speaker 3: my kids were gone asleep, and I was at any manuscripts,
Speaker 3: and I thought, wait, I think I could put together
Speaker 3: a Hollywood. Sure they would have a business story that
Speaker 3: would have an old story about an old Hollywood.
Speaker 4: I think I could do some of.
Speaker 3: It, with a conflict story and so, and maybe a
Speaker 3: house story. So I went the next time I had lunches,
Speaker 3: I said, yeah, let's do this. And so I but
Speaker 3: I thought at that time it was like nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: four or something. Now that I that there wasn't a
Speaker 3: single actor or actress who was strong enough to carry
Speaker 3: over this, carry this into you her concept. So I said,
Speaker 3: let's do a three panel covered I don't know what
Speaker 3: it's ever been done. Before, but I loved big group
Speaker 3: shots and photographs, so we did. We thought a three
Speaker 3: panel cover that folded out and then we would take
Speaker 3: a billboard on sunset and so that over the years
Speaker 3: of mutual friend of ours, Jane Sarkin, if she was
Speaker 3: the one who organized the covers. We'd go through the
Speaker 3: list of the candidates and then it was her job
Speaker 3: who placed them on the first panel, second panel.
Speaker 4: Well, I would work with her, but she was.
Speaker 3: The one who negotiated with their agents and managers because
Speaker 3: obviously the first panel of people are happier than the
Speaker 3: second panel of people, and the second title people are
Speaker 3: happier than the third of people, but the third panel
Speaker 3: people are happier people.
Speaker 5: That didn't have anything so on the non existent fourth bound.
Speaker 3: But when they when they By the time anybody showed
Speaker 3: up to Annie's shoe, all the negotiators had been.
Speaker 4: Worked out, there was no surprises for anybody.
Speaker 5: Never.
Speaker 4: There was never a situation did.
Speaker 5: Anyone walk for not being on the first time.
Speaker 3: Never, because they knew exactly where they were going to
Speaker 3: be before they got there.
Speaker 4: We made sure that.
Speaker 1: You've mentioned a lot family and one of the things
Speaker 1: that comes across and I've actually seen in real life.
Speaker 1: And your children are amazingly gracious, smart.
Speaker 5: To earth human beings.
Speaker 1: And that's a true testament to you and their mother
Speaker 1: and mother. And and you did you do something that
Speaker 1: I thought was so true.
Speaker 5: I never thought about this grade And like when you would.
Speaker 1: Go out to dinner having the young children sit in
Speaker 1: a table, having your kids sit at a table in
Speaker 1: the same way as supposed to leaving them home with
Speaker 1: the babysitters. So you're gonna sit, which is teaching them
Speaker 1: social interaction. Your your commitment to your family is a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing. So talk was when what was it so
Speaker 1: you were able to figure where most people of your
Speaker 1: success chose one over the other, they were not able
Speaker 1: to and usually the family sufferer.
Speaker 5: How did you, especially the children? How did you? Was
Speaker 5: that something you grew up with? And I guess I'm
Speaker 5: so impressed with it.
Speaker 3: And I mean, I will I and my family we
Speaker 3: had a dinner together every night. And I thought I'd
Speaker 3: actually strange enough, despite the job and whatever people's image
Speaker 3: of me is, I was home most days at five
Speaker 3: point thirty and I had dinner with my kids and
Speaker 3: then I would work afterwards.
Speaker 4: And it was I didn't go out that much. I
Speaker 4: went out when I had to go out and like
Speaker 4: the Oscar party or something like that, but I so
Speaker 4: we used to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we had a restaurant was Dos Silvano on sixth
Speaker 3: Avenue near here, and my wife and I were.
Speaker 4: Having dinner with another couple.
Speaker 3: I booked the table right beside us, and my four
Speaker 3: kids would go there and they couldn't bring a book,
Speaker 3: they couldn't bring a toy, they couldn't bring any there's
Speaker 3: a pre video everything, and so we just have to
Speaker 3: sit there at first, and they didn't quite know what
Speaker 3: to do at first, and then they started talking, and
Speaker 3: they started talking a lot more and over the years,
Speaker 3: then they had their own dinner party right beside ours,
Speaker 3: and they're staggeringly close as all I've fought kids now
Speaker 3: and they and.
Speaker 4: I think it started at that table at Dos Silvana.
Speaker 1: I just think it was it's a brilliant, not only
Speaker 1: a brilliant idea, but such a testament again who you
Speaker 1: are and what you value, and it's it just blew
Speaker 1: me away.
Speaker 4: And it made me.
Speaker 1: Also think of just how I've raised Brian and I
Speaker 1: have raised our daughter and our and and being a
Speaker 1: step parent and now having grand It's the importance of because,
Speaker 1: as people say, when you look back on your life
Speaker 1: at that moment.
Speaker 5: You're not going to think, no, did I not get
Speaker 5: that person on the county?
Speaker 3: So I have the loving around my kids. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm sure as you do. And then it's it's really fun.
Speaker 3: And so there was a certain selfishness to it. And
Speaker 3: yes that they were a good company and the more
Speaker 3: you invest in them, the better company they are. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you know I was, I was. I divided my
Speaker 3: life very equally between the job. I never thought of
Speaker 3: it as a career. I just thought of it. This
Speaker 3: is a great job, and I'm really lucky to have it,
Speaker 3: and it pays for my family to you know, I
Speaker 3: have a house in the country and you know, nice
Speaker 3: car and so. But I after five point thirty, I
Speaker 3: almost never discussed work at home when I was having
Speaker 3: dinner with my wife and kids, unless it was something
Speaker 3: really funny or really interesting. But never come home, and
Speaker 3: never came home and complained about anything.
Speaker 4: Ever, And I had a million complaints every day.
Speaker 5: Let me tell you that is hystorical.
Speaker 1: And your wife, Anna, who's so lovely, and you guys
Speaker 1: have welcomed us so many times.
Speaker 5: Are you comfortable at this moment?
Speaker 1: You've written this incredible memoir And I really can't speak
Speaker 1: highly of it enough. I really enjoyed it. And I
Speaker 1: am a not a great reader. I mean, Barry Diller
Speaker 1: used to laugh at me.
Speaker 5: It took me.
Speaker 1: Maybe a year and a half to read The Kite Runner,
Speaker 1: and finally he flew it. He flung it off his boat.
Speaker 1: He was like, I'm like, I'm on chapter eight. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm a slow reader, I'm and I just was like, wow,
Speaker 1: are you happy with what's happening now in your life
Speaker 1: in regard to the book? And are you comfortable sitting
Speaker 1: in the seat you're sitting in where normally you were.
Speaker 4: On the other side of the well. I'm a terrible
Speaker 4: interview I'm a terrible journalist.
Speaker 3: I mean, but I no, I've never this is one
Speaker 3: of the happiest experiences in my life.
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 3: I had no idea how much work it was to
Speaker 3: do this, and I'm thrilled it's going on the New
Speaker 3: York Times bestseller list.
Speaker 5: That to me is like, wow, I didn't realize that. Congratulations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but a week from now and so and so
Speaker 3: that makes me that was maybe just so incredibly happy
Speaker 3: and and I love there's a lot of young people
Speaker 3: who read the book because I think it's quite aspirational,
Speaker 3: because if I know, nothing like me can have a nice,
Speaker 3: successful life in New York, anybody can do it, any
Speaker 3: old idiot.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 5: Thank you for joining me today.
Speaker 1: This has been a huge honor for me and me
Speaker 1: too and doing the podcast.
Speaker 5: With George, Julia Roberts, Mike So if.
Speaker 1: You're listening, please when the going was good and editors
Speaker 1: adventures during the last golden age of magazines, it's amazing.
Speaker 5: Congratulations, Thank you for pulling up for share.
Speaker 1: I love our lunches and never forget the romance of
Speaker 1: a meal. If you enjoy the show, please tell a
Speaker 1: friend and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Table
Speaker 1: for Two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeartRadio seven
Speaker 1: three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce
Speaker 1: Bosi and Nathan King. Our supervising producer is Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Vincent to Johnny and Cas b Bias.
Speaker 1: Table for two is researched and written by Jack Sullivan.
Speaker 1: Our sound engineers are Meil B. Klein, Jess Krainich, and
Speaker 1: Jesse funk Our music supervisor is Randall. Poster Our talent
Speaker 1: booking is done by Jane Sarkin.
Speaker 5: Table for two's social media manager is Gracie Wiener. Special
Speaker 5: thanks to Amy Sugarman, Uni Scherer.
Speaker 1: Kevin Vane, Bobby Bauer, Alison Kanter Graber. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.