Contributors

After completing First in His Class: The Biography of Bill Clinton, David Maraniss, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Washington Post, realized two things: first, he loved writing biographies, and second, he needed to find "an utterly different archetype to write about." In Vince Lombardi, the legendary, tough-as-nails coach of the Green Bay Packers, he found that figure. "This book was a labor of love," says the Wisconsin native about When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi, which is excerpted on page 206. "I can't think of any book in my life that will mean more to me than this one."

Award-winning photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber's portfolio of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy on page 274 exemplifies Weber's unique talent—he divines his subject's identity in order to capture her essential nature. From his Academy Award nomination for the jazz documentary Let's Get Lost to his groundbreaking work for Abercrombie & Fitch, Weber invites the viewer into the world of the viewed. In 1997 he exhibited work at the National Portrait Gallery in London. His exclusive images of Bessette Kennedy pay tribute to a woman whose name has been added to the pantheon of American style.

For special correspondent Bryan Burrough, investigating the recent discovery of George Mallory's body on Mount Everest was the realization of a lifelong obsession with the fate of the British mountaineer. But unlike most historians, who continue to debate whether Mallory was the first to reach the peak's summit, Burrough was interested in how Mallory died. The disappearance of a human being "is the best story you can have," he says. "Some part of me just hates that they found him."

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The workday for V.F. fashion director Elizabeth Saltzman is not exactly nine to five. "It's more like a 22-hour-a-day job," says Saltzman. Fortunately, she doesn't do it alone. "The job has nothing to do with me—it has to do with the team," Saltzman says of her fashion-department staff, whose members, in the days leading up to a photo shoot, are often seen frantically running through the halls, inspecting racks of clothing. "I'm the 'yes or no' girl, but they're the creators." After working for Vogue for more than seven years, Saltzman joined Vanity Fair in 1995.

In 1997, contributing editor Patricia Bosworth published Anything Your Little Heart Desires, a memoir of her father, attorney Bartley Crum, who in 1947 defended the Hollywood 10. On page 322, she writes about that dark period and director Elia Kazan, whose recent Oscar for lifetime achievement rekindled the controversy over his 1952 decision to name names. "He's going to be remembered for his work, not for his politics," Bosworth says of her former teacher and longtime friend. "There's a chilling effect on free expression when artists are judged on their politics alone."

Presumed Innocent author Scott Turow first noticed that the penis was going mainstream a few years ago when his children were watching Singled Out on MTV. As the phallic puns mounted, Turow says, "I just found myself scratching my head and going, 'What's up? What's going on?'" The result of Turow's musings on the subject begins on page 168. Turow's new novel, Personal Injuries, is due out next month from Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

In order to profile Britain's premier pop icons, Glaswegian contributing editor Steven Daly spent a day in the dangerous life of Victoria "Posh Spice" Adams and David "Becks" Beckham, complete with a car chase by kamikaze journalists. "I didn't want to die like Dodi Fayed," says Daly, whose story appears on page 298.

"The meta-death of being killed by paparazzi who aren't even chasing you." For Daly, translating Becks and Posh for Americans wasn't easy. "In the U.K., they're a suffocating presence—people know everything about them. In the U.S., she's just a curiosity, and 'soccer' is a girls' sport."

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According to contributing editor Lisa Robinson, whose first "Hot Tracks" column appears on page 270, there is an extraordinary amount to cover in popular music this fall. "There's ; never been such a glut of albums from major acts," says Robinson. "The unfortunate side to this is that it makes it almost impossible for new bands to get noticed." The legendary rock columnist, formerly with the New York Post, is a member of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

She joined Vanity Fair in April.

When his children's Saturday-morning cartoons were interrupted on July 17, 1999, by coverage of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s missing Piper Saratoga, David Michaelis assumed that the nation would be witnessing Kennedy's rescue within minutes. He was wrong. "The future shortens—you lose a piece of your life," Michaelis says of the mourning process. A longtime friend of the Kennedy family's and biographer of N. C. Wyeth, Michaelis eulogizes J.F.K. Jr. on page 130 as a means "to fight back against the chaos of his death. The act of writing allows us to hold on to order."

For his article on the demise of the Gambino crime family, contributing editor Howard Blum was faced with the unsettling task of a one-on-one meeting with former Mob underboss Sammy Gravano. Despite Gravano's reputation, Blum was undaunted. "One of the good things about being a reporter is that you can transcend all of your normal fears and concerns," he says. "You're after a story, and when you're after a story, that's all that matters." Blum is the author of five best-selling works of nonfiction, including the 1993 Gangland:

How the FBI Broke the Mob.

For contributing photographer Jonathan Becker, who captured Elia Kazan for this issue, the sitting at the director's town house was like a trip to 1940s New York. "First you pass three floors of the Kazans' neat, almost New Age living space. Then you arrive at the attic and suddenly it's On the Waterfront," recalls Becker. "It's 100 degrees and there's Kazan, unshaven, in a T-shirt, feet up on an old sofa." Completing the hard-boiled image, Kazan was grumpy throughout the shoot, until, with a "Great job," he invited Becker to join him in front of the camera.