By E. Graydon Carter GQ November 1985 A mile or so from the spot where Jackson Pollock came to a messy end on a lonely stretch of Long Island black-top, Jann Wenner is sliding his silver Dino 308 GT4 Ferrari through a long, graceful turn. Route 114, between Sag Harbor...
By Marcelle Clements New York Woman October 1991 The best thing about fall in an urban environment, aside from the sight of a few burnished leaves, must be those delicious attacks of nonspecific, free-floating, and undirected lust. It’s not an oft-mentioned...
By Lawrence Wright Rolling Stone July 14-28, 1988 To understand clearly that Jimmy Swaggart plotted his own destruction, you must stand here in the courtyard of the Travel Inn, that squalid rendezvous on Airline Highway in Metairie, Louisiana, just across the parish...
By Helen Lawrenson Viva August 1978 When Joan Crawford invited me to visit her in California, I should have had sense enough to refuse. However, curiosity led me to accept, although if I had known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldn’t have done so. This was in...
By O’Connell Driscoll The Los Angeles Times October 19, 1986 The man stopped the silver BMW 3.0CS in the middle of the narrow street. He emerged dressed in khaki pants, boat shoes and a bright green polo shirt with thin, yellow, horizontal stripes. He absent-mindedly...
By E. Graydon Carter Smart January/February 1990 The show was over, Saturday Night Live had just celebrated a milestone on television with an awards ceremony for itself—a live, clip-heavy, two-and-a-half-hour prime-time special. NBC’s Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center,...
By Michael Sragow SF Weekly September 30, 1998 In 1974 Robert Towne was seething about the lot of his script for Chinatown, now considered his most famous work. Released that same year, the screenplay won an Oscar for Towne. When I interviewed him at the time, he was...
By E. Jean Carroll Outside July/August 1983 “Uh, Jean?” “Yes?” “Are you awake?” “Yes.” “What the hell is that?” “What?” “That funny glare outside.” (Pause.) “The moon, Fran.” We are in a tent. Fran Lebowitz is lying on my right; George Butler on my left. Fran lights...
By James Wolcott The Village Voice September 6, 1976 Has any writer since Boswell possessed a shrewder sense of careermanship than Truman Capote? Gore Vidal expertly packages his arch, marcelled aphorisms for television consumption, Norman Mailer at his most combative...
By Julie Baumgold New York Magazine October 28, 1984 Inside Mortimer’s on the day of Truman Capote’s New York memorial service, two small segments of society were in tumult. In the side room, C.Z. Guest was holding a luncheon for twenty-four of Truman’s good...
By Diane K. Shah Inside Sports May, 1980 “The truth is, those are not Soviet troops in Afghanistan. They’re ABC technicians, sent by Roone, dressed in Russian uniforms.” — Don Ohlmeyer Don Ohlmeyer wishes. Usually what Ohlmeyer wishes, he gets. As a young production...
By Helen Lawrenson Cosmopolitan February, 1970 Ever since his first film (Splendor in the Grass) ten years ago, Warren Beatty has been one of the most talked about figures in Hollywood—and the least understood. It is an open secret that the reason Bonnie and Clyde...
