HALL OF FAME

VANITY FAIR'S ANNUAL

WAS IT REALLY THE FIRST YEAR OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM? WHO CARES: IT CONTAINED THREE ZEROS, THE OLYMPICS, AND SOME PRETTY APOCALYPTIC EVENTS, FROM THE MAPPING OF THE HUMAN GENOME TO A DAY OF JUDGMENT FOR THE INFORMATION AGE'S MOST POWERFUL CORPORATION. TIGER WOODS SANK TO NEW HEIGHTS, SEX AND THE CITY ROSE TO NEW LOW-DOWNS, AND RICHARD HATCH BECAME THE MOST FAMOUS SNAKE SINCE ADAM AND EVE WERE TALKED OUT OF EDEN. ANNIE LEIBOVITZ AND JONAS KARLSSON SHOOT THE CAST OF 2000, WHILE BRUCE HANDY REVIEWS THE PERFORMANCE

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ

Sex and the City

Because, although no one noticed it prior to HBO, there was clearly a need around the watercooler for an upscale, moderately dirty, gynocentric version of Seinfeld.

Because someone had to rescue single women, as a subject of comedy, from Cathy Guisewite and Helen Fielding Because someone had to rescue penises, as a subject of comedy, from men. Because, even though Sarah Jessica Parker's / Carrie is the Mary Richards of the 00s, she's got Rhode's balmy fashion sense. Because Cynthia Nixon's Miranda reminds us that even ballbusters have needs. Because Kim Cattrall's Samantha, who is seen licking her chops on-screen more frequently than any actress since Elsa in Born Free, is Mrs. Robinson without the gin, the self-loathing, and the "Mrs." (and because we always wished Mrs. Robinson well). Because we'd been wondering what had happened to Kristin Davis ever since Brooke's ghost stopped haunting Billy on Melrose Place. Because, as girl drinks go. Cosmopolitans aren't bad

at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, on August 20, 2000.

Tiger Woods

Because Jordan needed Pippen. Because Ali needed Liston and Frazier and Foreman. Because, in the way only the greatest can, he not only transcends his sport but also bares its essence: in his case, a ballet of pure geometry, a perfect dance of arcs and vectors choreographed against an Elysian stillness of sky and green. Because you don't even need to like golf—or the kind of plummy sportswriting that uses words like "Elysian"— to appreciate the sweetness of his swing. Because in winning three majors this year—the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship—he matched a feat last accomplished by Ben Hogan in 1953. Because in setting scoring records in each of the three, he may have had the best year in golfing history. Because he's twenty-fucking-four.

in a Washington, D.C., Metro station on September 6, 2000.

Dr. Craig Venter AND Dr. Francis Collins Because this summer two formerly competing teams of chromosome crunchers, one led by Craig Venter, the other by Francis Collins, announced they had more or less completed the "sequencing" of all the DNA in the human genome, a feat which is biology's equivalent of (pick your comparison): building the atomic bomb; landing cjn the moon; finding the director's cut of The Magnificent Ambersons. Because it's about time human beings had (pick your metaphor): an instruction manual; an updated Book of Creation-a recipe. Because, so far, they're using their genius for good, and the resulting ben4fite-new therap es and cures for genetic diseases and conditions—should outvj'eigh anyone's future attempt to create a race of Kyle Maclachlan-chinned supermen. Bedause, by puttmg"asfde their public " . . . - — and private spats, Dr. Collins, who heads the federal government's Human Genome Project, and Dr. Venter, founder and president of theGelera Genomics Group, proved that even with .Nobels and fortunes at stake we can aJi get along—or at least us brainipcs.

at Weed Beach Park in Darien, Connecticut, on September 15, 2000.

Chloe Sevigny

Because she's the first actress since Garbo who can make shyness and reluctance seem compelling, even piercing—and without a hint of the old Scandinavian frost. Because she makes stooped shoulders sexy. Because, after being nominated for an Oscar this year for her breakthrough role in Boys Don't Cry (her sixth film, mostly indies), she said she didn't really care about winning. Because, unlike the other 1300 or so actors and actresses who have been nominated for Academy

Awards since 1927, she meant it. Because what Audrey Hepburn did for Givenchy

she does for whichever thrift-store gown and pair of chunky boots she happened to pull out of the closet this morning. Because she survived being the subject of a Jay Mclnerney "It girl" profile in The New Yorker back in 1994, when she was just a 19-year-old kid from Darien going to raves and hanging out in squats. Because, now that she's graduated from downtown to uptown, she'll survive beirig labeled "the absolute poster child for the new glamour" in Harper's Bazaar. Because she still lives in Darien. Because there's no better or more fearless young actress. Because, to her everlasting credit, she turned down the part in I Know What You Did Last Summer.

FOR DETAILS, SEE CREDITS PAGE

at Walnut High School, Walnut, California, on April 14, 2000.

Marion Jones

Because, despite the wind resfetynce of ad campaigns, magazine covers, dnd the Ghosts of Eamings Future, she sprints and jumps as if sport were b joyous calling (rather than a marketing ( tool). Because she loses with grace, d»icl honest disappointment. Because she won "or^Iy" three gold medals and two bronzes—more medals in one Olympics than any other female track-andfield athlete ever. Because she had the nerve to dream openly and vocally about winning five golds. Because she says she may go about the same quest "more quietly" in Athens in 2004, and because we won't let her. Because she wears the spotlight like Armani.

Richard Hatch

Because America needed to learn that not all gay men have abs.

Because, unlike some of his fellow castaways, he never lost sight of the fact that Survivor was supposed to be a game show and not an encounter group.

Because no one ever called Michael Jordan or John Elway "Rasputin-like" just because they played to win. Because within a month of Survivor's end—a record?— he manfully faced the reality of his shelf life and made an appearance on The Hollywood Squares. Because the fact that in real life, as a "corporate trainer," he can make a good living running team-spirit seminars for middle managers shows far more cunning than anything that transpired on Pulau Tiga.

Because he would have made mincemeat of Gilligan and the Skipper.

Photographed by ANNIE LEIBOVITZ at Hatch's home in Newport, Rhode Island, on September 27, 2000.

j~.U1( Fon(hI Because, having announced their separation on January 4, she and Ted Turner took upon themselves the burden of being the first celebrity split of the new millennium. Because her latest evolution-at the age of 62has the actress/activist/fitness expert/trophy wife swapping her role as the Miss Ellie of CNN for a more visible part crusading against teenage pregnancy and for women's health issues, both in this country and abroad. Because, having taken up with a modest African-American church in Atlanta, she ranks as the most unexpectedly avid Christian since Bob Dylan got born again. Because her lament in 0 magazine for posing in Hanoi as a Commie anti-aircraft gunner may have helped lower some dangerously high blood pressures down at the Legion post. Because her appearance this year at the Oscars, where she looked gorgeous and glad to be back while presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Andrzej Wojda, reminded us that once upon a time she made some pretty decent pictures herself. Because, speaking of which, we're always happy for an excuse to rent Kiute.

Photographed by ANNIE LEIBOVITZ in New York City on September 26, 2000.

FOE DETAILS; SEE CREDITS PAGE

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson

Because he is the anti-lto. Because, whatever happens on appeal in the Microsoft case, he will be remembered for having seen through Gates and company's high-tech sleight of hand and pitiful-giant boo-hoo-hooing and said, in effect, Give me a break (up). Because he recognized that the justice system, in addition to serving as a slow-moving sugar-tit for lawyers, is, once in a while, actually supposed to decide things. Because, even though the prospect of hearing the case must have struck him in much the same way that swallowing Dick Cheney would strike a garter snake, he git-alonged one of the most complex anti-trust cases this country has ever seen in a dizzying (by legal standards) 24 months. Because—gee whiz!— this country had an anti-trust case.

Photographed by JONAS KARLSSON in Judge Jackson's chambers in the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C., on September 5, 2000.

Because even in this Olympic year, and with the possible exceptions of eucalyptus trees and the Mad Max movies, he remains Australia's greatest export. Because, whether writing about art for Time or hosting the recent six-part series on his native continent he conceived for the BBC and PBS, he conducts himself like a man who never tires of seeing and learning, but also a man who never lets his cheerful enthusiasm congeal into mush-headedness (to say the least). Because, rather than turning him into some slurpy Celestine prophet, last year's near-fatal automobile crash on a Western Australia highway seems only to have goosed his critical swagger. (As he recently noted, with a happy disdain for populism one wishes would occasionally surface in a political campaign, "There are some works of art that stupid people will never understand because they weren't made for stupid people.") Because we'd love to know what Rodin would have made of that bull's body, that medicine-ball head, and that face belonging to a wee, dyspeptic babe.

Robert Hughes

Photographed by ANNIE LEIBOVITZ on Shelter Island in New York on October 3, 2000.

Katie Couric

Because who knew that Katie Couric was buff, or that she could write a better children's book (The Brand New Kid) than Jamie Lee Curtis or Fergie? Because in the aftermath of her husband's death from colon cancer, nearly three years ago, she used some of her Q-rating capital as co-anchor of the Today show to run two weeklong series raising awareness of the disease, including a sequence in which she helped viewers overcome their squeamishness by herself undergoing an on-air colonoscopy. Because she handled the ick factor with the spunky aplomb of a sorority sister leading a safe-sex seminar. Because she may have saved thousands of lives. Because someone on daytime TV was bound to broadcast a colonoscopy—and what if it had been Regis?

Rulori (,arduei' Because kids used to call him "fatso." Because, in winning an Olympic gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling, he beat Russia's Alexander Karelin, the most formidable athlete in the sport's history (if not Olympic history), a man who hadn't lost a match in 13 years, a man who hadn't given up a single point in 10 years, a man who even in defeat remains big and scary and bald. Because these Olympics needed a frisson of Cold War tension (where were those half-cocked East German women when NBC's ratings needed them?). Because-until now, anyway-he's never been within five counties of a $100 million deal with Nike. Because we've always wanted to use the word "araooler" in the maaazine

in New York City on October 5, 2000.

FOR DETAILS; SEE CREDITS PAGE

J. K. Rowling

Because she plays mix-and-match with myth more cannily and wittily than anyone since George Lucas. Because her sequels actually get better.

Because—as sick as we may be of kids' wearing lightning tattoos

and owly specs and reviewers' making coy reference to themselves as Muggles,

just as we were once sick of plastic lightsabers and C-3PO pajamas—

who wants to begrudge Star Wars-like success to a mere author

(especially one as wary of licensing, the death's engine of modern kid culture,

as this one is)? Because, what with all the to-do surrounding the publication

in July of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire—a record 3.8 million initial printing by

Scholastic in the U.S., kids lining up for blocks at midnight before the first day of sale,

the New York Times best seller list torn asunder—she single-handedly created

the greatest stir in reading (Harry Potter is FUNdamental!) since 19th-century crowds

lined New York docks to get the latest installment of Dickens. Because her names

(the Dursleys, the Weasleys, Dumbledore, Nearly Headless Nick) are almost

as good as his. Because that Narnia business was getting old.

Photographed by ANNIE LEIBOVITZ in New York City on October 17, 2000.

FOR DETAILS, SEE CREDITS PAGE