Hollywood High

THE GOLDEN AGES OF VANITY FAIR'S HOLLYWOOD

I was at one of those gay old Lotusland parties of yore, with all of us huddled round the Steinway while Harry Warren banged away at the keys, that I heard Yip Harburg extemporize the couplet "All I really want, oh dear Mr. Mayer / Is a Packard and my picture in the Vanity Fay-er." Well, I was just a hungry kid then, an underpaid guy Friday for the Dick Powells, and that was my sentiment exactly. Alas, I never made it to the top-after I got the heave-ho from the second Mrs. Powell, Joan Blondell, I scraped together a living writing flowery profiles of Deanna Durbin and Vera-Ellen for fan rags like Screen Scene and CinePageant. But now at least 1 can live the dream through the pages of Vanity Fair's Hollywood—AN EPIC TINSELTOWN TOME!, as we say in the blurbing business. Published this month by Viking Studio, this boffo book features the best of V.F.'s Hollywood portraiture and journalism from both incarnations of this magazine—the 1914-36 version of which Yip sang, and the current version that we've all known and loved since 1983. In other words, you get Cary and Carrey, Garbo and Gwyneth, Liz, Dick, Arnold, Meryl—all between the same covers, shot by everyone from Steichen to Leibovitz, sketched by everyone from Covarrubias to Risko. Plus the witty words and withering insights of acclaimed V.F. contributors from P. G. Wodehouse and Dorothy Parker to Christopher Hitchens and Dominick Dunne. Ooof! If they gave out an Oscar for best coffee-table book, the Oscar would go to ... Vanity Fair's HollywoodI

WALTER MONHEIT