Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2022 i Vanity Fair

This year marks 70 years since Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne—her platinum jubilee. She has served in her official role alongside 14 British prime ministers, from Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson, and her reign spans 14 U.S. presidents and counting. Her image circulates as currency—actual currency and the Andy Warhol variety—and the length of her tenure is now an indelible part of her legacy. Who in this day and age holds the same job for seven decades? That said, her dominion has indisputably contracted since 1952; just last year Barbados threw off its affiliation with the crown, and in March a royal visit from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Jamaica drew calls for reparations alongside a reaffirmation of the island’s 60years of independence. Monarchist sentiment—or sentimentality—in England…

WHEN GERTRUDE STEIN tucked that waltzing line—“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”—into a 1913 poem, she knew she had landed on something universal. She recycled the phrase again and again, tapping into the flower’s sense of beauty, ubiquity, and foreverness. “Civilization begins with a rose,” she later wrote, establishing it as a matriarch of sorts; ditto the genesis of fragrance. But for all the ancient trivia—Romans scented doves’ wings with rosewater like animated Febreze; Cleopatra used rose petals to lure Mark Antony in a proto–honeymoon suite gesture—the prevailing association is not millennia old but two generations. The rose belongs to grandma. Courteney Cox brings this up in a Zoom conversation about Homecourt, her line of home-care products that showcases the work of master perfumers. Steeped Rose…

THERE ARE TWO or three screenwriters in Hollywood who can switch between English and Russian at will, and I am one of them. This is not a self-aggrandizing statement—no evidence suggests I’m a genius in either. Still, I have been writing in both for 30 years, and these are the hardest words I have ever had to write, because they feel like lopping off half of my brain in public. As long as Vladimir Putin remains in power, I will not write in Russian anymore. In doing this, I am neither assigning collective responsibility nor weaseling out of it. People and their government are different things even in a democracy, to say nothing of a dictatorship. Using the famed Soviet “salami tactics” of reducing freedom one slice at a time,…

FROM THEIR EARLIEST childhood, William and Harry were collateral damage in a cold war between their parents, one that could turn hot in front of them in alarming ways. The two-year age gap between them was critical in forging their distinctive worldviews and, equally so, in shaping their perceptions of their mother. Prince Harry idolized Diana more and understood her less. He would always be her baby, a scamp who was “thick” at his lessons and “naughty, just like me.” His emotions, like hers, were always simmering near the surface. William understood Diana more but idealized her less. He was privy to her volatile love life. He knew the tabloids made her life hell, but he also knew she colluded with them. By his early teens, he was his mother’s…

Tressie McMILLAN COTTOM “MODERN FOLKLORE,” P. 66 “These women are making some of the most moving music out right now,” says the sociologist and cultural critic on her time with country music’s Black vanguard. They also, McMillan Cottom says, know how to have a good time: “What happens in Nash-Vegas, stays in Nash-Vegas.” James REGINATO “ALL IN THE FAMILY,” P. 54 “The Gettys are one of the most fascinating and unconventional dynasties of our time,” says the Vanity Fair writer-at-large. In his upcoming book, Growing Up Getty (Gallery Books), Reginato tells the story of J. Paul Getty and his heirs, including his surprisingly close-knit greatgrandchildren, debunking the myths that have grown around the family. James POGUE “FREE RADICALS,” P. 60 The author of Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West…

A number of settings have housed the world-renowned Tiffany Diamond—of Audrey Hepburn, Lady Gaga, and Beyoncé fame—but these flowers and petite leaves wrought in diamond and yellow gold were one of its earliest imagined iterations. The Fleurage bracelet, which Jean Schlumberger sketched in 1958 but never fully realized, has come to life with a gleaming 48-carat aquamarine at its center, in a size and cut similar to that famous pale yellow friend. Nothing but blue skies ahead for this gemstone garden.…

THE MEMORY LIBRARIAN With contributors who include Eve L. Ewing and Danny Lore, Janelle Monáe explores abuse of power, love, and race through five futuristic stories. (HarperVoyager) THE IMMORTAL KING RAO In Vauhini Vara’s debut, Athena’s father, a tech mogul nonpareil, has died, and she is accused of conspiring to kill him. But she’s also armed with his memories, and sour truths about his company board. (W.W. Norton) LIARMOUTH This “feel-bad romance” about the escapades of a vainglorious, self-proclaimed tease of a scammer named Marsha is peak John Waters camp. (FSG) WE DO WHAT WE DO IN THE DARK Michelle Hart’s first novel follows lonely college freshman Mallory through her relationship with a professor; the woman reunites with her absentee husband, but reemerges seven years later. (Riverhead) HERE GOES NOTHING…

WHEN NEWS BROKE in 2016 that Bob Dylan had given his vast archive of recordings and artifacts to the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, people were taken aback. Why was this cultural trove going there, of all places? Now we know the answer. That initial cache of Dylanalia has become the cornerstone of an entire museum: the Bob Dylan Center. Recently I asked the singer-songwriter, who is 80, why he’d chosen Tulsa. “There’s more vibrations on the coasts, for sure,” he explained. “But I’m from Minnesota and I like the casual hum of the heartland.” The BDC will certainly hum. When it opens in May, Dylan’s visage—on the building’s three-story facade—will gaze down on downtown Tulsa’s popular Gathering Place, sometimes called Guthrie Green (for Oklahoman Woody Guthrie). But that…

ADIA VICTORIA album A Southern Gothic | LINER NOTES As the title of her latest album suggests, the South Carolina native’s sonic creations are imbued with the deep hues of gothic indie blues—tales of life that both unsettle and intrigue listeners. AMYTHYST KIAH ALBUM Wary + Strange | LINER NOTES An alum of East Tennessee State University’s Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Roots Music Studies program, Kiah already has a Grammy nomination for penning “Black Myself” in 2020. TEN YEARS AGO, you could not name more than three Black country music artists, if you could name any country artists at all. In 2022, there are so many Black artists making contemporary country music, you would have to book a festival to get even half of them on one show bill. And if you did…

Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty—a love letter to the team’s 1980s “showtime” era—stars heavyweights like John C. Reilly, Adrien Brody, and Gaby Hoffmann, but needed an actor with epic charisma to embody colead Earvin “Magic” Johnson. That part went to Quincy Isaiah, a Michigander like Johnson and the youngest of seven in a Brady Bunch–esque blended family. (“Instead of getting Alice, they got me,” he laughs.) Here, he reflects on turning his first professional role into a career layup. HOOP DREAMS: “I played basketball all my life, all summer long. I would go to football practice, come home, and then play basketball the rest of the day…then video games. It was lovely. Take me back!” A PRODUCTION of A Raisin in the Sun at Kalamazoo College gave…

Style File DAILY UNIFORM: Nothing makes me feel more confident and powerful than wearing DVF (9)! WORKOUT WEAR: Splits59 leggings are the softest and most flattering. TO SLEEP: A comfy and colorful sweater from the Elder Statesman (3). On Beauty MAKEUP ESSENTIALS: Chanel Le Correcteur concealer (2), Ilia mascara (8), Charlotte Tilbury highlighter wand, Makeup by Mario cream blush stick (10), and Anastasia Beverly Hills contour kit for cheeks and eyes. SKIN CARE: Biologique Recherche. HAIR CARE: Olaplex shampoo and conditioner (12). BRUSH: I have been using Mason Pearson hairbrushes since I was a baby! They are simply the best (7). STYLING: The Dyson Airwrap has changed my life. The Menu SWEET TREAT: Frozen yogurt, or really any dessert…. I have the biggest sweet tooth (5). COCKTAIL HOUR: Laúd tequila…

VIOLA DAVIS Having grown up a “spunky, sassy mess,” in Finding Me: A Memoir, from HarperOne, the triple crown–winning actor describes racism, poverty, her mother’s love, and a life guided by her constant question: “What did I learn from this?” Her first trip to Africa is a highlight; in The Gambia, she feels a sense of home. SIMU LIU In We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story, from William Morrow, the Marvel actor describes his complex and at times abusive parents; immigrating from China to Canada; xenophobia; teen rebellions; escape through acting—and weaves humor, raw detail, and empathy throughout. SELMA BLAIR Named simply “Baby Girl Beitner” at birth, in Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up, from Knopf, Blair describes her path from moody infant to activist. Along the…

CHRISTINA NAJJAR, BETTER known as Tinx on Instagram and TikTok, where she has nearly 2 million followers combined, has a litmus test. “I always think it’s a testament, especially in L.A., how far you’ll drive for something,” she told me early this March. She lives in West Hollywood, literally over hills and far away from both of the two Goop Kitchen locations, in Santa Monica and Studio City. Yet, she said, “I drive 20 minutes to get this fricking food because I love it so much.” Goop Kitchen, a takeout chain run out of ghost kitchens, is an extension of Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand—one that her team says they had hoped to do for years, with a signature hybrid of restrictive indulgence, a monk living la dolce vita. Everything is…

“STAND BACK—IT’S ABOUT TO GET WACK!” “Single droppin’ in a couple hours. Wack—Balt Getty—wack.” Behind a turntable set up in the parking lot of a strip mall on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, on an evening in June 2019, Paul Balthazar Getty—J. Paul Getty’s eldest great-grandchild—was whipping up the crowd. At his invitation, a couple hundred local hipsters and characters—including Tommy the Clown, the hip-hop-dancing L.A. legend—had gathered for a block party. At 44, Balthazar had much to celebrate: Monk Punk, his luxe streetwear line, was debuting; his retail store (housed in a former RadioShack outlet) was opening; and his latest hip-hop track—entitled “Wack,” if you hadn’t guessed—was about to drop. A father of four, Balthazar was now one of Hollywood’s most multi multihyphenates: actor–producer–director–DJ–musician–artist–fashion designer–shopkeeper. His trajectory into fashion…