EDITOR'S LETTER

GORILLAS AND WIGS

It's hard to give you the dress code for this month's Vanity Fair. Pith helmets and diamonds, perhaps: one contributor has tomtommed a scoop from deepest Africa, and another has dispatched a report from the

ballrooms of Bavaria via Malcolm Forbes's private jet. Vava-va -voom.

You may remember news items earlier this year about the mysterious murder of the primatologist and feminist icon Dian Fossey. She was found bludgeoned to death in the bush, where she had lived more or less in solitude for eighteen years among the gorillas of Rwanda. The natives knew her as Nyiramacibili, the Woman Who Lives Alone in the Forest, and she became as much of a wildlife legend as Jane Goodall. However, as Alex Shoumatoff reveals in his compelling piece on page 82, there was a tragic flaw in Fossey's psyche that invited nemesis. From the days of her lonely childhood, she disliked people as much as she loved animals. She nursed a rancor toward the poachers who killed her beloved gorillas that went far deeper than a passion for conservation. What Shoumatoff has been able to do by talking with Fossey's friends and enemies is to unravel the origins of a dark compulsion. One of his discoveries about her early days in Africa may turn out to be the key to what happened.

After reading the story, it's irresistible to ponder who could play the tragic Fossey in a movie version of her life. Meryl Streep already has her jodhpurs from Out of Africa. Jessica Lange had a dry run in King Kong. But my vote would go to Vanessa Redgrave. She has just the right amount of fanatical glare.

There is no doubt about who could play Arianna Stassinopoulos: only Arianna herself could perform the unconvincing role of the Greek girl who goes to Cambridge, becomes president of the Union, writes a biography of Callas, emigrates to the United States, marries a Texas oil heir with le tout New York at her wedding, and sets off for Washington to storm the White House. Arianna is to gossip columnists what Dian Fossey was to gorillas. I've known her since Cambridge and have watched her spangled progress through London, New York, and Los Angeles. One day, when we are both frisky octogenarians, she and I will probably find ourselves alone together in a sauna at the Golden Door comparing face-lifts. As the heat

rises I will turn to her and ask, "Now, tell me, Arianna—what was it all about?" On page 106 Bob Colacello gives us something of a clue. He explores our heroine's less publicized evangelical streak. It seems she has long been in the thrall of

an unlikely new guru called Jolhn-Roger and his teaching, called Insight, and has been gaining converts galore in Beverly Hills and on Park Avenue. The social rise of Insight is a comedy of modem manners, tailor-made for Colacello's droll touch.

Colacello has been somewhat inspired himself this month: After tracking Insight's metaphysical spoor he rushed off to Regensburg Palace in a three-cornered hat. You will see the results on page 92, his wicked eyewitness account of the fancy-dress ball in Bavaria where half the coroneted heads of Europe came wigged out for Prince Johannes von Thum und Taxis's sixtieth-birthday party. (Readers of V.F. may remember Colacello's profile last year introducing the hostess, Princess Gloria von Thum und Taxis, to America and dubbing her "Gloria TNT, the Dynamite Socialite.'' Clearly she enjoyed the limelight, because ever since her appearance in our pages Gloria has been even more in excelsis, appearing at New York night spots with a dyed Mohawk hairdo and at the Paris collections in a twinkling pixie hat.) Consider these pages of the ball of the summer as pure cabaret, directed by Visconti. They provide a fascinating glimpse of the ancien regime in overdrive, and as our pictures show, the faces haven't changed since the eighteenth century. Appropriately enough, the hostess came dressed as Marie Antoinette.

Kathleen Turner doesn't need a mask to change her identity. It changes from moment to moment. But, as Brad Gooch notes (page 76), the key to this chameleon's allure is not her face but her voice, husking away about Henry James. Annie Leibovitz's stylish cover shot of the Queen of Curves gives her the air of a knowing Grace Kelly. Although, you never know with Turner.. .she may wind up playing the redoubtable Dian Fossey.

See you on safari,

Editor in chief