Graydon Carter’s position as the editor of Vanity Fair was shaky when he launched the magazine’s now-famous Oscars party.
The Canadian-born Carter, 75, took over the glossy Condé Nast monthly in July 1992 after having founded the satirical magazine Spy. As he writes in his new memoir, “When the Going was Good” (out Tuesday), the first couple of years at VF were “dreadful.”
“The atmosphere was so poisonous I wouldn’t even bring my family into the office,” he writes, explaining that some staffers still loyal to former editor-in-chief Tina Brown were “deeply hostile and subversive.”
Nevertheless, he decided to take a big swing. After Old Hollywood agent Swifty Lazar, famed for his own Oscars bashes, died in December 1993, Carter surmised Vanity Fair could fill the gap.
“I don’t know why I thought that,” he told Page Six in an exclusive sit-down interview. “I had not thrown any big parties up to that point. But I do believe that, if you think there is a possibility of failure, don’t have too many eyes on it.”
The first party, in 1994, was a small affair— maybe “150-odd people for dinner and then another 150 to 200 after the show.”
It turned out everyone wanted to be there, and not just to have a good time. Carter quickly learned that there was no need to have a band because Hollywood “doesn’t really dance,” he writes. “Why dance like a fool when you could be networking with someone who could say yes to your next movie?”
It quickly grew so much that Sara Marks, an editor who handled the guest list, “was the object of bribery, threats, and even abuse.”
Carter says that one Saudi Prince once offered a cash gift of around “$150,000 to $250,000.”
But the mandate was clear: “Get as many movie stars and as many movie stars with Oscar statues in one room as humanly possible,” he explains. “That was our complete focus.”
With a fire marshal counting guests at the door, the rule became that anyone carrying in their Oscar could go in immediately through a “speed lane.” Everyone else had to wait until someone else left, and sometimes that meant being turned away.
Though that sometimes meant getting hoodwinked — like in 1996 when a man in a tuxedo turned up with a small pig on a leash, claiming it was the same one who had starred in the Best Picture nominee “Babe.” They got in but, Carter writes, “As you might have guessed, this was not the real Babe.”
Only one person was banned for life: Harvey Weinstein, who, Carter writes, “regularly showed up with more guests than his invitation indicated and would bully the staff.”
“He got banned from everything because he was rude to the staff and I didn’t like that,” Carter told Page Six, noting that the initial ban was temporarily lifted — only to be reinstated again.
“It was not from drink,” Carter said of the disgraced movie producer. “It was just within him.”
Marks also kept a “complaints box” where the staff could nominate celebs for banishment. Courtney Love’s name landed it in one year after she came up to Carter and insisted that her manager needed to be let into the party — because “He’s got my money, my car keys and my drugs.”
The editor-in-chief sent Love to Marks, who refused to help. So the singer went out to where some 150 photographers and videographers were assembled to capture the arrivals, and announced that she had an important announcement.
“I just want to say one thing,” Love shouted. “Sara Marks is a c–t!”
Carter — who left Vanity Fair in 2017 — offered, however, that if he were the magazine’s editor now, he would do things differently.
“I’d probably do an Emmys party,” he said. “If we went out to dinner and we only discussed things we’d seen recently, 80% would be on TV. I haven’t watched the Oscars in seven years.”
Carter, who went on to found digital newsletter Air Mail, describes his 25-year reign at Vanity Fair as hard work “swathed in cashmere.”
The perks were astounding: Jaunts to Europe on the Concorde, stays at luxe hotels, a car and driver at his disposal, and a seemingly unlimited expense account.
He defends the excess of the era, explaining that Condé “wasn’t a publicly traded company, so it’s not like they could fill you up with stock options. This was it — your salary and your expenses.
“Si [Newhouse, Condé’s late chairman and owner] wasn’t doing this willy-nilly, it was there to make the magazine seem more glamorous and the competition was fierce … Si took Condé Nast up to the top tier and a part of that aura was the Town Cars parked outside the building every day. There was method in his madness.”
As for his old colleague Anna Wintour, Carter admitted he has complicated feelings toward the legendary Vogue editor.
“Half the time she greets me warmly,” he said. “And half the time I feel like she’s going to toss me her car keys.”
He writes how, when their sons were in the same class at Collegiate, Anna turned up in the front row for a school fashion show “wearing sunglasses.” Carter admits he “almost burst out laughing” at the sight.
One of his last Vanity Fair covers before he stepped down in late 2017 was Meghan Markle.
“Jane Sarkin, who booked our covers, came in and said, ‘We should do a cover on Meghan Markle,’” Carter told the Post. “I said, ‘I have no idea who that is.’ She said, ‘She’s on ‘Suits.’ I said, ‘I have no idea what that is, why should we do a story on her?’ So she said, ‘Because she’s going to marry Prince Harry.’”
Carter laughs remembering how, at one point during the interview, Markle challenged the reporter: “Excuse me, Is this going to all be about Prince Harry? Because I thought we were going to be talking about my charities and my philanthropy.”
Raising his eyebrows, Carter said of Markle, “This woman is slightly adrift on the facts and reality.”
The editor was friendly with Markle’s late mother-in-law, Princess Diana, and had co-hosted the 1994 party for which Diana donned her so-called “revenge dress” — in supposed retaliation for the televised admission of adultery by her husband, Prince Charles.
He remembers sitting next to Diana at several dinners. “She was very intrigued and kept asking questions — she wanted to know how Jackie Kennedy was treated by the Kennedy family because, I think, she felt there were parallels between how Jackie was treated and the way she was treated by the royal family.”
Carter believes that Diana would not be happy with her son Harry’s current estrangement from the royal family.
“I would think she would feel great sorrow for her son to have been pulled away from his family like this, especially his brother but also his father … ,” he said. “Anytime someone comes between siblings that’s a disaster, horrible for a family.”
Carter also edited the 2006 Vanity Fair cover that introduced baby Suri Cruise to the world, leading Tom Cruise to send him several Christmas gifts — including a document, under plexiglass, that had 20 tenets of Scientology printed on it.
The book ends with bits of wisdom learned by the editor, who is also a co-owner of The Waverly Inn. “Always be open to a new line of endeavor,” he writes. And “Plan your exit before your entrance.”
But, for a man who’s over the Oscars, he still loves a cinematic moment.
“Put yourself in the movie,” Carter says. “When a confrontation arises, just ask yourself: Are you the hero in this story, the villain, or someone in between?”
Read the full article here
