VANITY FAIR

AUGUST 1997 N° 4 4 4

Features

MEL ON WHEELS | 86

For two decades and throughout 23 motion pictures, Mel Gibson's rugged looks and boyish charm have made him so many fans it's getting suspicious. On the set of his big summer movie, Conspiracy Theory, Cathy Horyn locates the darkness behind Gibson's baby-blues. Photographs by Michel Comte.

MOBUTU'S FINAL DAYS | 92

When rebel leader Laurent-Desire Kabila flew into Kinshasa on an executive jet in May, the 32-year dictatorship of grand sorcier and consummate kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko, his old foe, came to an end. Amid the looting and carnival rocking the streets, Alex ShoumatofT discovers foreign interests and frightening rumors surrounding the new leader—and threatening the future of the land now known as Congo.

GEHRY'S OCTOBER SURPRISE | 104

With the October opening of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, architect Frank Gehry triumphs, creating a worthy rival to Frank Lloyd Wright's New York landmark and, Matt Tymauer reports, confounding those who thought his $100 million, titanium-skinned dream was technologically impossible. Photographs by Todd Eberle.

BOBBY'S KIDS | 108

From Michael Kennedy's trysts with the family's teenage baby-sitter to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's quiet good works, the paternal legacy of Robert F. Kennedy is a curious amalgam of disgrace and dignity. Tracking down R.F.K. children in L.A. and Chicago, Georgetown and Annapolis, Michael Shnayerson cuts through the clan's omerta-Uke loyalty to get the truth behind the most shocking of the recent Kennedy scandals.

PRADA CENTRAL | 120

Miuccia Prada has built a $750-million-a-year fashion empire on must-have shoes, clothes, and bags, but, as she shows Cathy Horyn, a pink-washed 19th-century Milan villa—with avant-garde art, model trains, and "boofalo" horns—is where her soul lives.

PARADISE RETAINED | 126

With the publication of French photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue's Riviera images, Ingrid Sischy recalls an artist whose innocent eye found the camera at age seven, and never left it.

IN THE COMPANY OF SHARKS | 128

The C.E.O. of Dow Jones and the publisher of its flagship Wall Street Journal, Peter Kann is popular with just about everyone— except the scions of the New England Bancroft family that owns Dow Jones, who want to oust him. As Robert Sam Anson finds, Kann also has a problem closer to home: the ambitions of his wife, fellow Pulitzer Prize winner Karen Elliott House.

FOR DETAILS, SEE CREDITS PAGE

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THE LADY AND THE DIAMOND | 134

Undaunted by the tragedies that befell its previous owners, gold-mining heiress Evalyn Walsh McLean proudly wore the Hope diamond and carelessly entertained her way to the top of Washington society, charming everyone from President Warren G. Harding to King Leopold II along the way. But, Gary Cohen reveals, as fast as the extravagant hostess lived, she could not outrun the jewel's dark legend.

Columns

THERE'LL ALWAYS BE AN INDIA | 52

Fifty years after India's bloody liberation from the British Empire, Christopher Hitchens travels from Amritsar to New Delhi, and beneath the tumult of faxes, cell phones, and music videos, he hears the steady hum of its colonial past.

DON'T MESS WITH STEVE BRILL | 62

Until he was stripped by Time Warner of his company, including Court TV and the small but deadly American Lawyer magazine, Steve Brill was one of the most feared journalists in legal circles. Jennet Conant finds Brill $30 million richer and itching to inspire new fear and loathing—this time in his own media world. Portrait by Nigel Parry.

HALL OF FAME | 76

Alex ShoumatofT nominates Environmental Protection Agency head Carol M. Browner, because she has staked her career on clean air. Portrait by Bill Zules.

Vanities

RYAN'S HOPE | 79

Russell Simmons plays for speed; the Hamptons for sun and profit.

Et Cetera

EDITOR'S LETTER: The Colony Club | 38

CONTRIBUTORS | 40

LETTERS: The ballad of Joni Mitchell | 44

CREDITS | 165

PLANETARIUM: Looks are deceiving, Leo | 166

PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE: AlecGuinness | 168

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