Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2013 i Vanity Fair

Not to generalize, but mankind can be divided into three groups. There are those who like to record and share every aspect of their lives no matter how inconsequential. There are those who live lives that are actually worth recording yet don’t. And there are the rest of us, the vast sweep of humanity, who neither record our lives nor live ones particularly worth recording. For the purposes of this issue, let’s concentrate on the first group. It’s a younger, growing demographic, and one reflective of a new movement called Quantified Self. Where past generations had film cameras, scrapbooks, notebooks, and that part of the brain which stores memories, we now have a smartphone app for every conceivable recording need. The thing is, all that time you spend logging and…

The release of the film version of Jack Kerouac’s iconic novel from 1957, On the Road, reminds us that, without a literary agent and gentleman of the old school named Sterling Lord, chances are we would never have heard of the mythic Kerouac. Along with the work of William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, On the Road pioneered the Beat Generation. “Good to meet you, Mr. Lord,” I said over lunch, shaking his hand. “Call me Sterling,” he replied wryly. “The ‘Mr.’ makes me seem older than I am.” He is 92, dapper in his tailored jacket, a charming and decent man with shrewd eyes who still goes to work every day at the agency he founded. We met at Le Pain Quotidien, which is in the same building as…

Since the age of six, Michael Hainey had been haunted by the mysterious death of his father, a Chicago newspaperman. In After Visiting Friends (Scribner) he recounts in moving detail the obstacles he faced in uncovering the truth, the resistance from his father’s still-loyal cronies, and his mother’s hesitancy to talk, as well as his own reluctance to confront who his father really was and, for himself, what it means to be a man—and a son. Nicole J. Georges believed her family’s story that her father was dead, until a psychic told her otherwise; in her graphic memoir, Calling Dr. Laura (Mariner Books), she opens the door on her family’s duplicity even as she tries to tell them the truth about her sexuality. George Saunders’s stories in Tenth of December…

“I always wanted my songs on the radio,” says Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine. “I wanted them to woo the world.” For the past 10 years, Maroon 5 have heard their catchy hits (“Sunday Morning,” “One More Night,” “Moves Like Jagger”) on the radio. But the band’s sexy videos and tabloid coverage of Levine’s romances threatened to peg him as a rock-star cliché. Now, moonlighting as a judge on the TV talent-competition show The Voice, Levine has been able to reveal both his personality and his passionate knowledge of music. The L.A. native’s résumé also includes acting: he’s been on American Horror Story and co-stars with Keira Knightley in the forthcoming movie Can a Song Save Your Life? As Maroon 5 start a U.S. tour this month, Levine talks…

For its spring 2013 motto, Smashbox Cosmetics shouts, “Love Me!” With a little help from famed graffiti artist Curtis Kulig—known for spraying the cheeky slogan across the New York cityscape—the Love Me limited-edition collection includes colorful lip shades, liners, and blush, bringing art alive in a bold makeup form that will surely make you love yourself. The collaboration, dreamed up over lunch by Smashbox cofounder Davis Factor and Kulig, celebrates the most universal of all messages: a little love goes a long way. ($19–$34; sephora.com)…

BELLES OF THE BALL The younger international jet set congregated at the Hôtel de Crillon, in Paris, for the annual Bal des Débutantes. Among the 21 celebrated debutantes were young women from Colombia, China, and Vietnam. FRAME WORK Jonathan Becker’s celebrated portraits are gathered together in the newly released 30 Years at Vanity Fair (Assouline). Graydon Carter and John Demsey co-hosted a cocktail reception at the Beatrice Inn in honor of the photographer and his lavish coffee-table book.…

In the three or four decades after 1490, the human experience on planet Earth arguably changed more than it had since the Year One. Voyages of discovery transformed a world of isolated societies and sent potatoes and tomatoes sailing from the New World to Ireland and Italy, and horses and apples from Europe to the Americas in return. Trade became truly global, and cross-cultural exchange the norm. The invention of movable type and the printing press fostered popular literacy. In the West, the Reformation broke the stranglehold of a single system of religious belief. Gunpowder destroyed feudalism and sustained large standing armies and robust nation-states. At the time of Columbus’s first voyage, direct trade and communication between Europe and East Asia was mostly blocked by the Islamic regimes that lay…

TRIED AND TRUE These haunts attract those with awards in tow and evoke the golden age of Hollywood. HANGOUTS (1) Chateau Marmont 8221 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood; 323-848-5908 The flame of Old Hollywood is kept alight at the renowned hideaway. (2) Sunset Tower Hotel 8358 Sunset Blvd., L.A.; 323-654-7100 Channeling Deco elegance, the Tower Bar draws such stars as Tom Ford, Ben Stiller, Chelsea Handler, and Reese Witherspoon. In the days before the show, regulars dine on California cuisine and enjoy skyline views. (3) Soho House 9200 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, 310-432-9200 Tom Cruise and Sean Penn can be seen catching up at this pre-awards-show party mecca. (4) The Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel 9641 Sunset Blvd., Beverly Hills; 310-887-2777 Quintessential Beverly Hills. Nominees can order up their favorites,…

AGE: 18. PROVENANCE: Sydney, Australia. BABY GRAND: As the daughter of Oscar-winning writer-director Jane Campion (The Piano), Englert spent some of her earliest years on sets. “I think the traveling and exposure really sort of influenced the way I grew up.” FRONT AND CENTER: Unlike her behind-the-scenes mother, Englert found her calling on-screen, making her debut in Ginger & Rosa last year. “We’ve always told stories, and to be able to do it on this level is kind of amazing. Being a part of that in any way was always fascinating to me.” TRIPLE-HEADER: While Englert participated in short films growing up, she got her big start in three feature-length movies virtually back-to-back, including this month’s Beautiful Creatures. “At this stage I actually just thought they were insane, because it…

MINAJ: Tom, my manager says you know a lot about China, so I wanna ask you, How do I blow up in the Chinese market? I want me some yuan in my thong, know what I’m sayin’? Some renminbi in my vazh-shinbee, psych! FRIEDMAN: Well, I’m glad you bring up China, Nicki, because I have an idea for you. MINAJ: Bring it! FRIEDMAN: We need to send an urgent bulletin to American youth, because they’re not getting the message. I think you should sing a rap about globalization and technology. MINAJ: “Sing a rap”? What kind of old-man Waffle House bullsh— FRIEDMAN [interrupting]: The playing field has been leveled, Nicki. The world is flat. MINAJ: Flat? All my Barbz know it’s spheroid, and they’re still in high school! FRIEDMAN: What…

SEPTEMBER 1947 MARY NELSON gives birth to daughter Norma, later NORMA MCCORVEY— the future “Jane Roe”— in Louisiana. In her memoir I Am Roe, McCorvey maintains that Nelson sought to terminate the pregnancy. Told she was too far along,”my mother was left with no other choice but to have me.” JANUARY 1970 HENRY MCCLUSKEY, Dallas attorney, is consulted by McCorvey when she seeks an abortion, prohibited in Texas. In 1969, McCluskey had successfully challenged a Texas statute against sodomy. (The decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971.) McCluskey puts McCorvey in touch with Linda Coffee. FEBRUARY 1970 LINDA COFFEE and SARAH WEDDINGTON meet with McCorvey. They will become her legal team when she sues as the pseudonymous Jane Roe. Coffee is ambivalent about abortion: “It would tear…

A few years ago, for reasons I won’t go into deeply, I ran out of money. It had something to do with the birth of my third child in five years and the way my old lazy life gave way to a terrible need to earn. Had money not been such a concern, I might have written a novel about high school or a book of sonnets, but it was such a concern, and that’s how I came to know Teddy Forstmann. Teddy was what Tom Wolfe described as a Master of the Universe, a pioneer of the private-equity industry, a legend in the buyout trade. Over the course of his career, he became one of the richest men in America. The first time I met Teddy, in the spring…

One bottle of Astroglide. Four bottles of baby oil. One Nikon 35-mm. camera, one Sony camcorder, one Samsung camcorder, one Sony Handycam, one Pentax camera, one JVC camcorder, a black Fuji camera, two Canon Rebel cameras. Lots of laptops, DVDs, external hard drives, and condoms. A “Domination Fetish” sheet. A white envelope stuffed with $1,000 in cash. Surveillance glasses and black night-vision glasses. Eight Express Mail labels addressed to Strong Investigations. A notebook and a black leather appointment book, both filled with names. Excel spreadsheets containing e-mail addresses and phone numbers. Ledgers of sexual acts, with a monetary value given to each one, and hours of video recordings of many of them. A CD labeled “Yeah.” These are just some of the items that were taken from the homes, offices,…

Last May, Central European tabloids salivated over a TV commercial Gucci had made in Vienna’s Loos Bar, in which Charlotte Casiraghi, daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco, served as a spokesperson. Officially named the American Bar, the Loos Bar has for more than a century been one of Vienna’s architectural jewels, a concentrate of the paradox that makes that city’s fin de siècle so magnetic. Those who lent the era its fascination were inspired troublemakers, rebelling against the Zeitgeist. Think Egon Schiele’s scalpel of a brush cutting away all previous painterly euphemisms which had kept the nude from being truly, rawly naked; Sigmund Freud’s revelatory upending of burgher proprieties; Arnold Schoenberg’s seminal assaults on melody and sonority. Adolf Loos was of that company, an early-day Buckminster Fuller. To him Vienna…

‘The Queen of Scotland and the queen of fashion,” proposed Karl Lagerfeld by way of explaining the ghostly, richly layered Métiers d’Art collection he showed inside the Gothic ruins of Linlithgow Palace, birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots. Ruffs, cloaks, pearls, and Renaissance sleeves conjured up the rough romance of the formidable Mary, while Queen Coco was invoked by textured tweed jackets, rustic Fair Isle pullovers, and creamy cardigans—haberdashery elements she appropriated from her beau, the Duke of Westminster, when she salmon-fished at his estates in Scotland in the 1920s. But the clothes and accessories (including quilted sporrans and “CC”-emblazoned whiskey flasks) are, above all, references to King Karl himself, who this year marks his 30th anniversary at Chanel. Under his reign, Chanel has purchased many of the embroidery, shoemaking,…

What is your idea of perfect happiness? Sitting in a living room with my sister, Pat Thaler, and her seven grandchildren and just talking with them. They range in age from 9 to 21 years old. What is your current state of mind? At age 88, I wake up every morning and say to myself, “Well, I’m still in New York. Thank you, God.” What is your greatest fear? Of choking on some food and having no one nearby to do the Heimlich maneuver. Which historical figure do you most identify with? Harry Truman, Fiorello La Guardia. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? A willingness to go with my gut feeling, rather than wait a day and contemplate other options. What is the trait you most deplore…

Herewith, astonishing evidence that romance doesn’t fade but actually strengthens. Which segment of the population is least likely to believe in love at first sight? Not the marrieds! Not those in relationships! It’s those of us not is relationships who express the most skepticism about such moments. In coiSrast, the moment we find ourselves married or in a relationship, Jane is bustin’ out all over, (Another possible explanation: we’ve started swiping—sorry, swiggin’—the Kool-Aid.) Neaify three-quarters of us consider open relationships either a mistake or a sin. Also, almost half of Americans fed that asking a father for his daughter’s hand is “a necessary courtesy,” as opposed to just 3 percent who see it as “sexist and offensive.” And the in-law lovefest doesn’t stop there: 71 percent of us ciaim to…

PHOTOGRAPH BY FRÉDÉRIC LAGRANGE Thank you for the article “The Expendables,” published in the December issue [by William Langewiesche]. My dear friend Gerhard Jansen was killed while fighting for the Legion in Afghanistan in August of 2011. This piece brought him back to me as I read it. He was so much like the men described: troubled, unsure of why he was fighting, constantly balancing the overwhelming urge to desert with his equally strong sense of duty and loyalty to his regiment. I’m glad someone finally decided to pay some honest attention to this group of ragtag, hell-raising, but ultimately good-hearted men. BRIDGET VETTER Lolo, Montana KATE EXPECTATIONS I’ll never forget the first time I ever saw the strange, ethereal, sylph-like Kate Moss, when I was 11 years old [“The…

Though the title of Mary Blume’s slim biography of grand couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga—The Master of Us All (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)—is taken from Christian Dior’s appraisal of his colleague, the book’s perspective derives from a less celebrated source, Balenciaga’s top saleswoman, Florette Chelot. Blume’s extensive interviews with Chelot, who stayed with Balenciaga from his first collection, in 1937, to his last, in 1968, yield fresh material about an enigmatic man whose creations—such as “the pillbox,” “the sack,” and “the baby-doll”—are still imitated today, even if his reclusive self-effacement is not. Balenciaga cultists will delight in such character-revealing minutiae as the designer’s technique for stirring up impeccable martinis (blot the ice first), his habit of wearing a hairnet to relax his curls, and his maniacal penchant for re-pinning sleeves. Blume’s needle’s-eye…

We love tequila. On the rocks, by the shot, at times straight from the bottle,” says Rande Gerber, who, along with George Clooney, has taken his passion for the spirit to the next level, by creating Casamigos, a private label launching nationwide this winter. After trying tequilas the world over and finding that none conformed to their ideal, the pair hatched an idea to develop a “warm, rich tequila whose taste we didn’t have to cover up with salt or lime,” says Clooney. They teamed with a master distiller in Jalisco, Mexico, and created a sublimely drinkable tequila—distilled from 100 percent Blue Weber agave and a proprietary yeast. It was intended to be enjoyed for personal use—“to be shared with family and friends.” But word got out, and friends of…

In 1993, Japanese designer Issey Miyake launched Pleats Please—a ready-to-wear collection showcasing fluid lines, vibrant colors, theatrical shapes, and signature pleats that sparked an international fashion movement with a decades-long ripple effect. This spring, for the line’s 20th anniversary, Miyake translates that spirited aesthetic into his first fashion-inspired fragrance. Pleats Please Eau de Toilette features notes of nashi, fresh peonies, sweet pea, and white vanilla, in a geometric, glass-paneled bottle (inspired by his graphic Bao Bao bag), with perfectly balanced accents that are sure to launch another sensational movement. ($92; nordstrom.com)…

You may not know it to look at me, but I’m wired up, baby. I’m into the 21st century in a big way, fully connected and exuding data like nobody’s business. Strapped on my right wrist is a Fitbit Ultra activity tracker, a high-tech buddy that records how many steps I take, stairs I climb, and calories I burn, puny though those numbers may be. (There’s an updated model, the Fitbit One, which I have on order.) Its little blue L.E.D. display not only gives a running scoreboard of my pedestrian moves but beams motivational messages such as STEPONIT and YOUROCK. Cynics may scoff, but I like being told that I rock, because, to be candid, there are days when I don’t feel I sufficiently rock and could use an…

‘Dinner? I’m afraid we can’t serve you dinner,” the waiter at Charlie Trotter’s said starchily as we arrived at the celebrated Chicago restaurant. For 25 years, people made special trips from all over the country to brag about the dozens of courses Trotter served on his ever shifting tasting menus. But as other chefs became more celebrated, the traffic slowed, and Trotter—the first American celebrity chef to build a cult following for elaborate, very long, take-what-I-give-you meals—announced he would be closing for good. I’d never been to Charlie Trotter’s and called the restaurant to ask when in the next six weeks or so they could possibly seat us. After a long time on hold, the man on the phone told me they could fit me in at 5:30 on a…

1 Week to Go New York–based skin guru Tracie Martyn makes her yearly visit, setting up temporary headquarters at Le Parc Suite Hotel to perform her famous Red Carpet Facial, a favorite of Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connelly. Or there’s Ole Henriksen, whose star-studded clientele includes Charlize Theron and Jessica Chastain, as well as Daniel Craig. Then head to Neil Weisberg and Tracey Cunningham’s exclusive new salon, Méche, to ensure you get the perfect color and cut. Don’t forget to wax: A-listers swear by Queen Bee Salon & Spa, which offers home service. 2 Days to Go They say it’s all in the eyes, so first head to Lôngmi Lashes for Daniel Dinh’s eyelash extensions, and then cross the street to Anastasia, where you’ll get expert brow shaping. For a…

Timothy Ferriss On fast learners, self-promoters, and those uncanny eyes “Does it make him even more intriguing that he is built like a brick house? When you see him, ask him about playing with his kettlebells. You ever meet one of those people who just seemed versed in all and sundry? This is one such dude.” Our contributing editor chats with the lifestyle wizard—whose C.V. ranges from tango expert to Mensa member—hot on the heels of his latest book, The-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life. GEORGE WAYNE: I perused your résumé and my immediate thought was … this résumé must be padded. It is way too eclectic and genius. TIMOTHY FERRISS: I’m not making up much at all, but…

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELLEN VON UNWERTH STYLED BY JESSICA DIEHL Jennifer Lawrence, the 22-year-old star of Silver Linings Playbook and The Hunger Games, has no problem laying it all out there, unlike others in her cohort. Kristen Stewart, also 22, seems perpetually annoyed with media attention. Taylor Swift, 23, is happy to make the rounds, but she plays it safe, which is fitting for someone who does ads for Walgreens and Target. Miley Cyrus, 20, occupies a middle ground: she has worked to project a squeaky-clean image, only to find herself occasionally undone by leaked stories of wild nights. Lawrence favors another line of attack altogether. She is completely unguarded and uncensored. On a recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, she happily told the host about the time…

She plays the wife of bounty hunter and former slave Django (Jamie Foxx), who sets off to rescue her from plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) in Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino’s second rollicking, shoot-’em-up revenge fantasy involving a historical atrocity (see Inglourious Basterds). But please don’t tell Kerry Washington the movie looks like “fun.” It is about “total fear, and emotional and spiritual imprisonment,” says the feisty 35-year-old. At one point during the filming, Washington was so spent that “Jamie leaned over and said, ‘It’s going to be O.K., Olivia.’” By which he meant Olivia Pope, the sashaying, often ruthless Washington, D.C., fixer the actress plays in Scandal (now in its second season on ABC). “I was going from running barefoot in the forest to wearing platform Gucci pumps,” she…

No arc is more difficult to predict than the one that actors travel to become movie stars. How many could have foreseen that the taller co-star of Bosom Buddies would become a two-time Oscar winner? Maybe the mother of Tom Hanks, but not many others. So who’s to say how high Jason Clarke will soar? Fans of Australian TV know Clarke from shows such as Mercury and Blue Heelers. If you like cable drama, you may have seen him as Tommy Caffee, the Irish pol on Showtime’s Brotherhood. Here is where the trajectory curves upward: after well-praised performances in Texas Killing Fields and Lawless, Jason Clarke plays a C.I.A. operative in Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow’s much-lauded saga about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It is her first film…

BECAUSE, when danger loomed high above the streets of New York City last October, Michael Alacha and Timothy D. Lynch, very much like superheroes, vaulted upward under adverse conditions and thwarted the menace. BECAUSE, as Hurricane Sandy lashed the city with 80-mile-per-hour winds, the pair quickly assessed the damage to a snapped construction-crane boom atop One57—at 90 stories, projected to be the city’s tallest residential building (where the duplex penthouse is tagged at a vertiginous $90 million). BECAUSE engineers Alacha and Lynch, emergency and forensic specialists for the city’s Department of Buildings, raced to the scene, took an elevator to the 20th floor, and hoofed it the remaining 53 flights. BECAUSE once they arrived, hundreds of feet above West 57th Street, they braved life-threatening gales as storm winds tore through…

In the spring of 2011, as we reminisced over dinner one night, I told Gore Vidal that, since his feuds with famous men—William Buckley, Truman Capote, Robert Kennedy—had been so widely documented, I’d like to write about some of his treasured, lifelong friendships with interesting women. “Let’s do it,” Gore replied. And so began several months of visits, all ostensibly interviews, which turned into leisurely meanderings down memory lane. In October 2011 the interviews ended, but the visits continued. On February 15 of last year, when Joan Collins, her husband, Percy Gibson, and I were to meet Gore for dinner at Spago, in Beverly Hills, his caregiver called to say that Gore was en route to a local hospital. Our visits didn’t end then either, but from then on they…

His Highness Prince Karim, the fourth Aga Khan and 49th hereditary imam of the world’s 15 million Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims, remains a paradox to many people. The Pope of his flock, he also possesses fabled wealth and inhabits a world of marvelous châteaux, yachts, jets, and Thoroughbred horses. To be sure, few persons bridge so many divides—between the spiritual and the material; East and West; Muslim and Christian—as gracefully as he does. Born in Geneva, brought up in Nairobi, educated at Le Rosey and Harvard, the Aga Khan has a British passport and spends a great deal of his time aloft in his private aircraft, but his base is Aiglemont, a vast estate near Chantilly, 25 miles north of Paris. On-site, in addition to a château and an elaborate…

1 Hillary Clinton A longtime advocate of the arts, Hillary Rodham Clinton has championed the Art in Embassies program (which she spotlights on page 116) as secretary of state, awarding the first-ever U.S. Department of State Medals of Arts. When speaking to the five recipients last November, Clinton (pictured above with artists in the program) described art as a tool of diplomacy. “It is one that reaches beyond governments,” she said, “past all of the official conference rooms and the presidential palaces, to connect with people all over the world.” 2 Joyce Carol Oates With the second season of HBO’s Girls forthcoming, novelist Joyce Carol Oates praises show creator Lena Dunham in this month’s V.F. Portrait, on page 126. “She is a very engaging, unpretentious, intelligent young woman with a…

“I am a doctor of audiology who was reading your December issue while waiting for a flight at the Phoenix airport and was surprised to see Kate Moss’s nude photo when I turned the page.” What a coincidence: we are a magazine-mailbag feature with a similar affinity for sentences containing unrelated information—as this one would be if we decided to end it with, say, a list of recipes that call for parsnips. The Moss article (“The Riddle of Kate Moss,” by James Fox) prompted letters from more than a few readers who self-identify as non-prudes (“not a prude”; “I don’t consider myself a prude”; “I am not a prude”; “No, I am not a prude”; etc.); they complain that V.F. published photos of Ms. Moss’s breasts. But James Hill, of…

Sam Roberts salutes Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America (Grand Central). Amity Gaige shares Schroder (Twelve). Andrew Zuckerman spotlights the Flower (Chronicle). In Hitmaker: The Man and His Music (Grand Central) Tommy “Latin Explosion” Mottola boasts about how he made Mariah, Celine, and J.Lo. Vanity Fair’s David Georgi’s vivid translation brings François Villon’s Poems (Northwestern University Press) to life. Two novellas converge in Jim Harrison’s The River Swimmer (Grove). The Painted Girls (Riverhead) of Degas were Cathy Marie Buchanan’s muses. Lesley Alderman adds up seconds, weeks, and centuries in The Book of Times (William Morrow). Consummate literary craftsmen Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd hone Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction (Random House). Maria Konnikova unravels the mystery of how to think like the great Mastermind (Viking) Sherlock Holmes.…

When Carla Körbes dances, time stops. The Brazilian-born ballerina has the rarest gift of all: the ability to transcend mere brilliance and break our hearts. She is arrestingly beautiful and possesses an abundance of technique, but what especially rivets one’s attention is her subtlety. Often, it is through the power of stillness itself that she challenges us to decipher why her dancing matters so much. Imagine a note echoing through the universe long after its sound begins; so it is with Carla’s performances, which appear unfettered by laws of time and space. Even when she was still a student at the School of American Ballet, Carla Körbes’s sophistication was inescapable—she seemed to breathe different air from other dancers and to be saying something essential through her movement. After a few…

This month, for the first time in its almost four-century existence, the iconic French candle-maker Cire Trudon releases a specialedition candle, created in collaboration with the makers of the luxurious, highly coveted fragrance collection Arquiste. Inspired by his Mexican heritage, perfumer Carlos Huber focused the candle’s scent on the sweetly aromatic guava tree, adding notes of mahogany and gunpowder, among others, to create the festive and sumptuous-smelling Mérida, emblematic of a balmy celebratory night and named after the historic Yucatán capital. ($90; barneys.com)…

Now then, now then.” That was Jimmy Savile’s catchphrase, repeated in his burlesque northern-English accent. “Now then, now then.” Like most catch phrases, it’s meaningless, more an identifying noise—what naturalists call “phatic communication”—without content. It’s what nannies or teachers might say when they find children being fractious. In retrospect, it seems a prophetic utterance. The Jimmy Savile affair is above all about how then looks now. A great, collective national act of righteous nostalgia. If you’re not British, it’s difficult to describe what Jimmy Savile was. Even more difficult to describe how he could have become, and remained until his death, in 2011, a national celebrity. It’s almost impossible to understand why anyone would have found him remotely attractive or interesting. He dressed theatrically badly in sparkly tracksuits. He had…

KIRK DOUGLAS I never go to a ceremony without . . . I actually rarely go unless I’m presenting. I always bring a savvy guide to get me in and out in record time. In 2010, I presented best supporting actress to Melissa Leo at 6:15 P.M. I was back home in Beverly Hills nibbling potatoes and caviar with my wife at 6:50! When it’s time to de-stress, I head to . . . Ole Henriksen. A facial with Narine always makes me feel festive. Otherwise, I do pretty much what I do before any big evening: my wife and I have massages, I take a nap, and then she lays out my clothes. I always look very proper, thanks to her, but when I turned 90 a few years…

1 Act like an adult. Go to the parties, do the grip-and-greets, smile for the cameras. The audience will probably forget the name of your movie in six months, but Hollywood will never forgive—or forget—if you fail to promote it. 2 Write a speech. It’s fine to act flustered and exclaim, “I never expected this! I didn’t prepare anything!” so long as you’ve already committed the whole thing to memory. Otherwise, paper will suffice. But let’s be honest: haven’t you been practicing for this moment, in the shower, since you were 11 years old? 3 Work the emotions. Tears are good; tales of adversity are better; acknowledging the influence of a graying icon in the audience (Spielberg, Lucas, Scorsese) is best of all. Be sure to mention your agent, significant…

Like denim in Texas, tweed in Britain is a fabric test for social fluency. Heaven forbid you mix up your Donegals with your Derbys. Herewith, a Downton Abbey–ready primer with a match for every occasion . . . SHOOTING: Cocooning you in warmth while you’re waiting on pheasants, shooting tweed has all the fluidity and drape of a tractor tarp. Prepare to look upholstered. STATELY WALKING: Surveying one’s grounds calls for breathable “estate” tweed, in the official pattern of the grillion-hectare pile you’re roaming. That way, if you get lost, you’re easily returned by mail. MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS: The Duke of Windsor’s favored glenurquhart check—now glen plaid—is the most urbane tweed, and was smart enough on Sean Connery in From Russia with Love. Have your girl call Brooks. ACHIEVING TENURE: The…

I is a spring night in rural Texas, and crickets sing as a woman in her 60s with broad shoulders and short brown hair stops a pregnant young woman on an empty sidewalk. The older woman has heard that the younger woman, her neighbor Lucy Mae, may be seeking an abortion. “You don’t have to do this,” she says, her brown eyes and long loose cheeks filling with emotion. “Children are a miracle—a gift from God!” The women are performing a scene in Doonby, a movie about a drifter who awakens a sleepy Texas town to its spiritual possibilities. The movie, tentatively set to be released this year, is directed by Peter Mackenzie, a Catholic filmmaker from Britain. It stars John Schnei der, best known for The Dukes of Hazzard,…

In my line of work, we often talk about the art of diplomacy as we try to make people’s lives a little better around the world. But, in fact, art is also a tool of diplomacy. It reaches beyond governments, past the conference rooms and presidential palaces, to help us connect with more people in more places. It is a universal language in our search for common ground, an expression of our shared humanity. That’s why Art in Embassies is so important. The Museum of Modern Art first envisioned this global visual-arts program in 1953, and President John F. Kennedy formalized it at the U.S. Department of State in 1963. Working with over 20,000 participants globally, including artists, museums, collectors, and galleries, this landmark public-private partnership shares the work of…

‘I think that I may be the voice of my generation.” Part bravado, part desperation, this claim is made by Lena Dunham’s feckless heroine Hannah in the first episode of the HBO series Girls, which debuted last year to much critical acclaim, earning for its 26-year-old creator-writer-director-star four Emmy nominations and a dizzying admixture of fame and notoriety. No sooner does poor Hannah make the claim than she undermines it, saying, ruefully, as her incredulous-looking parents stare at her, “Or at least a voice, of a generation,” with perfect comic timing. As the earlier HBO series Sex and the City was a glittery-glamorous fable of serenely attractive, beautifully dressed young career women whose loyalty to one another survived a hilarious barrage of really awful men, so the gritty-glamorous Girls focuses…

It’s all in the gaze. “She thinks before she speaks,” says actress Michelle Dockery of Lady Mary Crawley, the character she plays on Masterpiece’s hit series Downton Abbey. “From the get-go Mary has always been someone who thinks.” The same can be said of Dockery, who recently spent an afternoon at Claridge’s in London with the celebrated illustrator David Downton, master of the light touch that goes deep. “The sense I had of Michelle,” says Downton, “is of somebody that is very intelligent and very ‘watchful’ . . . no, ‘watchful’ is the wrong word. She’s alive to life, to what’s going on.” For three hours the artist sketched, the actress wore Givenchy and Balenciaga and Oscar de la Renta, and the two “Downtons” talked while a face was captured.…

For Joyce DiDonato, 2013 is the year of the queen. This month, the 43-year-old American mezzo-soprano sings the title role of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera. Although prima donnas from Maria Callas to Beverly Sills hurled their coloratura at the notoriously difficult part, the opera, which premiered in 1835, has never before been presented at the Met. Based on the lives of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I, it reaches maximum intensity when Mary calls her cousin a “vilbastarda.” Every time, says DiDonato, who also sang the part at the Houston Grand Opera last season, “this rush of adrenaline goes through me.” This from a woman whose latest recording, Drama Queens, presents arias from the 17th and 18th centuries that run the gamut—as…

Jack Reacher, a thriller from Paramount based on One Shot, the ninth book in the best-selling series by the mystery writer Lee Child, opened last month with a cast headed by Tom Cruise, as the former military-police officer Reacher, and Rosamund Pike, the British beauty, as Helen Rodin, the lawyer who has to track Reacher down in order to exonerate her client. Pike, 33, an Oxford graduate who made her film debut as Miranda Frost, the icy Bond girl in Die Another Day (2002), says she had to work hard to humanize the stereotype of the American lawyer: “I wanted to defeat that, because the most interesting thing about bringing a character to the screen is to make her relatable.” A consistent screen delight over the past decade, Pike has…