CONTRIBUTORS

For nearly two decades, special correspondent Dominick Dunne has trod the line between fact and fiction. "I've always enjoyed my twopronged career as reporter and novelist. For me, one usually feeds off the other." In the wake of the resurrection of the Martha Moxley murder case, he has found his niche especially rewarding. "To write a novel like A Season in Purgatory that turned out to be a catalyst in the reopening of a near-forgotten murder case has been a thrilling experience for me," says Dunne, who on page 348 chronicles his role in the 25-year-long drama. Now at work on a new novel, Dunne will say only, "Of course there's a crime of murder in it. Of course it's based on something that actually happened."

On page 340, contributing editor Leslie Bennetts profiles actress Kate Hudson, whose newest film, about the 70s rock scene, has Bennetts particularly excited. "I loved Cameron Crowe's wonderful movie Almost Famous, " says Bennetts, who has interviewed some of Hollywood's hottest young leading ladies, including Natalie Portman and Catherine Zeta-Jones. "Kate Hudson's character personifies an important part of what those times meant for young women—both the newfound sexual freedom and the hurtful downside of being 1 vulnerable to people who weren't worthy of that trust. I thought the collaboration between Crowe and Hudson was masterful."

One might assume that contributing editor Sebastian Junger, who has reported from war zones, would be immune to fear. In fact, he goes into each assignment with a certain amount of anxiety. "Every time I get off the plane in one of these places I'm convinced that this is the assignment I'm gonna blow. But pulling out of what feels like a nosedive is really exhilarating." This month, Junger, author of the best-selling The Perfect Storm, follows up his August dispatch from Sierra Leone with the story of how he and photographer Teun Voeten helped secure some 180 photographs from an escaped prisoner of the country's rebel forces. The pictures may serve as some of the best evidence in a special court for war crimes that should be in operation by mid-fall.

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On page 378, special correspondent Amy Fine Collins examines designer Emilio Pucci, from his family's origins in the Florentine Renaissance to the latest Pucci revival. "So much of what women wear today began with Emilio Pucci," Collins says—"feminine trousers, men's-wear shirts, and stretch clothing." In fact, the designer's influence has reached as far as Collins's own living room, where she keeps a Pucci rug, circa 1970. As far as her Pucci dress collection goes, "it doesn't exist anymore. I passed it on two sisters—my best friends, who've been enjoying Pucci ever since."

When contributing editor Judy Bachrach interviewed the famously private Giorgio Armani for her story on page 360, she was surprised by the designer's candor. "I felt that he had come to a decision at age 66 that he wanted the world to know who he really is," says Bachrach, who met with Armani at his Milan palazzo. "He ran the interview very much the way he runs his business. It was all him, and he knew what he wanted to say." Bachrach came away liking the man as much as she likes his fashion. "His clothes speak to a type of woman one wants to be: sophisticated and eloquent."

Due to the chaotic schedules of the executives he photographed for this year's New Establishment, Jonas Karlsson sometimes faced absurd time constraints and last-minute location changes. On one occasion, this challenge proved serendipitous. When he found out the CAA agents couldn't leave the building for their picture, Karlsson (far right, with his assistants) remembered that all of them had started out in an agency mailroom and decided to take them back to their roots. "It was a total mess: a tiny room, 6 by 12 feet, with 15 people in there, mail all over," says Karlsson, who lives in Stockholm. "I try to tell a story, always—to put in things that tell something about the person."

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Contributing editor Gail Sheehy found her subject this month, Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush, to be "the most reluctant politician" she's ever profiled. "He seems to be running to prove he isn't a failure and to live up to his family's expectations," says Sheehy, who wrote about both A1 Gore and George Bush in 1988. This summer, when she wasn't on the campaign trail with Bush or interviewing his friends and colleagues, Sheehy was launching her Web site, GailSheehy.com, and updating a new, paperback edition of her best-selling Hillary Clinton biography, Hillary's Choice.

This month, contributing photographer Jonathan Becker displays his deftness at capturing high society in all its glory. Together with writer Brooke de Ocampo, Becker documents the lifestyles and homes of New York's young elite. Their book, Bright Young Things, is previewed on page 226 and is due out this month from Assouline. Also in this issue, Becker photographs the illustrious Pucci family and their bedazzling palazzo in Florence, where the famous Pucci prints, once again in fashion, were conceived.

For contributing editor James Wolcott, getting an animated answer out of his subject this month, actor-director-comedian Christopher Guest, proved challenging. Famous for his "deadpan disguise," Guest is "more comfortable doing interviews in character, like doing a Spinal Tap promotion as Nigel," says Wolcott, referring to Guest's character in Rob Reiner's 1984 "mockumentary" cult classic. "One of the things he complained about was that reporters and interviewers now think they're comedians, so when they interview Spinal Tap, they try to be funny, and the band's attitude is: No, we're doing the satire.

"Whenever I say that I am Greek, people always mention Callas and Onassis," says Nicholas Gage, author of Greek Fire: The Story of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis (Knopf), excerpted on page 236. Born in Epirus, Gage moved to the United States as a child in 1949 and now lives in Massachusetts. He calls his book "a dual biography told through their relationship, the first full and accurate portrait of both these people." Gage has been an investigative reporter for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and is the author of six previous books, including Eleni, about his mother's sacrifice for her family during the Greek Civil War.

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For photography editor Lisa Berman, whose love of photography began in high school, with the work of Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, and Annie Leibovitz, the best part of the job is "the incredible variety of the types of stories" in the magazine's pages. When matching photographer to story, Berman, an eight-year V.F. veteran, especially enjoys the reactions she gets from younger artists. "Just the other day, when I called a new photographer with his first assignment, he said ' Vanity Fair? Oh my God, now I can die.'"

When editor-at-large Matt Tyrnauer heard that the German publisher Benedikt Taschen had bought the John Lautner-designed Chemosphere house in the Hollywood Hills, he "knew Taschen had to be an inspired eccentric." Taschen turned out to be as compelling as his Jetsons-style house. "He's one of the few people in business who have the courage to do exactly what they want whenever they want to," Tyrnauer says. "He has the Pop aesthetic of Andy Warhol and the business guts of Rupert Murdoch." This month, Tyrnauer also writes about the opening of the new Hermes store in Manhattan, in addition editing "The New Establishment."

According to Kim Masters, who has covered Hollywood for V.F. since 1993, "One of the hazards of the job is that you don't want to find out too much about talent you enjoy. It diminishes the pleasure of watching them perform." Masters, who on page 254 reveals the other side of Mike Myers, has been amazed by the number of pop-cultural references that began with the star, best known for his characters Austin Powers and Wayne, from Wayne's World. She soon discovered that he is "like so many comedians: how much they make you laugh is in direct proportion to how tortured they are."

His meeting with British ex-spy David Shayler made contributing editor Christopher Hitchens weep for what he feels was his finest hour. "In 1979, I discovered that the prosecution had packed the jury in a case involving the Official Secrets Act," recalls Hitchens. "When I revealed this, I was cited for contempt by a judge, who then collapsed from a stroke. So I missed my chance for martyrdom. But covert state-only jury vetting was then banned, so I have my place in Heaven, and I'll take it when the Official Secrets Act is repealed and replaced by a Bill of Rights."

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