VANITY FAIR'S 1991 HALL OF FAME

Contributors

This year, V.F.'s Hall of Fame is devoted to a gallery of the dramatis personae of the Gulf War. Our portfolio, by Annie Leibovitz, presents a powerful document of how the war was won, from the terrible strength of the Stealth bomber to the quiet dignity of Isaac Stem, whose only armor was his music.

Annie Leibovitz, whose best V.F. work is collected in her new book, Photographs: Annie Leibovitz 1970-1990 (HarperCollins), was an air-force brat. One of her earliest portraits was taken at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, where her father, a lieutenant colonel, was stationed. So this year's Hall of Fame assignment had a particular resonance for her as she revisited the military life, photographing the likes of Major Joe Bouley, who flew more than forty Stealth missions in the war; the charismatically larger-than-life General Norman Schwarzkopf, who had just met with George Bush when he arrived for his portrait amid the euphoric preparations for the victory parade in Washington, D.C.; and an introspective Colin Powell, who sat for his picture following a meeting with the families of the war dead at Arlington National Cemetery.

Susan Mercandetti, formerly a producer at Nightline and now V.F.'s Washington editor, was the strategic coordinator behind the Hall of Fame. For four months, Mercandetti worked her invaluable Rolodex to help schedule sittings with the key figures of the Gulf War, giving birth to her first child halfway through. As she tracked her subjects around the world—trying to coordinate with the frantic schedules of Prime Minister John Major, Javier P6rez de Cuellar, who was photographed en route to Geneva to negotiate the release of the hostages in Lebanon, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S., and Red Adair—Mercandetti also worked out the location details: arranging for the air force to fly the Stealth bomber for an overhead shot, and launching a steady barrage of phone calls at the Pentagon to get a dispensation for Melissa Coleman, the first female P.O.W. of the war, to be allowed to wear her battle fatigues in her portrait—finally getting the go-ahead in the middle of the shoot.

Leslie Bennetts says of her subject in this issue, "The Cinel case fascinated me because it seemed to be the tip of a very large iceberg. Priest pedophilia has caused great concern within the church, but until recently it was largely hidden, despite the enormous cost of such behavior to its victims. I thought a deeper look was long overdue."

Marie Brenner, author of House of Dreams: The Bingham Family of Louisville (Random House), is working on a memoir of her South Texas childhood. Of Marietta Tree, the subject of this month's profile, she says, "She was a woman who could have done little more than look pretty and go to parties, but she was first-class in every respect—extraordinarily accomplished, and a person who fought prejudice of all kinds her entire life. She never gave in to cynicism, she never slowed down, and she never lost her moral center."

Craig Raine, the poet, is the author of, most recently, Haydn and the Valve Trumpet (Faber and Faber), a book of literary essays. He was the poetry editor at Faber and Faber in London and is now a fellow in English literature at New College, Oxford.

Ron Rosenbaum'sTravels with Dr. Death and Other Unusual Investigations is out from Viking Penguin.

Kevin Sessums, V.F.'s Fanfair editor, frequently profiles entertainment figures. He is writing a novel, Porterhouse, to be published by Random House.

Gail Sheehy wrote the V.F. cover story on Mikhail Gorbachev in February 1990.

Michael Shnayerson, author of Irwin Shaw: A Biography (Putnam), is a consulting editor of Conde Nast Traveler. "What fascinates me about Peter Matthiessen," he says of this month's story, "is that he's one of the few larger-than-life writers we have. Like Hemingway, he's always been both inwardly and outwardly adventurous, pitting himself against the elements to reach destinations of the heart."

Roxane Witke is the author of the biography Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, based on an unprecedented sixty hours of interviews in 1972 with Mao Zedong's wife. "She was the only leader of Communist China to provide personal biographical materials to a foreigner since Mao spoke to Edgar Snow in the mid1930s," says Witke of her piece this month. She is completing a novel set in contemporary China.

James Wolcott has written for Harper's, The New Republic, and the London Observer.

Firooz Zahedi, a V.F. contributing photographer, is based in Los Angeles.