VANITY FAIR

August 2007

No. 564

ON VANITYFAIR.COM THIS MONTH: • MORE BEHIND-THE-SCENES STORIES FROMTHE SIMPSONS • BOOK EXCERPT: THE NEW WALL STREET NOVEL BYV.F.DEPUTY EDITOR DOUG STUMPF

FEATURES

116 LANDING IN HOLLYWOOD Years ago, Shia LaBeouf was selling hot dogs from his dad’s cart in Los Angeles, dressed as a clown. Today he's taking notes from Steven Spielberg. As LaBeouf lends a human touch to Michael Bay’s science-fiction blockbuster Transformers, Michael Hogan hears about the 21-year-old actor’s first love, his first tangle with the tabloids, and the thrill of being tapped to star in the next Indiana Jones movie. Photographs by Mark Seliger.

112 THE HISTORY BOYS In a last-ditch effort to spin Bush’s legacy, the president’s team has been comparing him to Truman, and Iraq to World War II Europe. With a deeply researched essay, written just before he died, David Halberstam debunks the White House’s wild distortion of history, which reflects the blinding hubris, anti-intellectualism, and willful ignorance that led the U.S. into disaster. Illustrations by Edward Sorel.

126 CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON'S LEAP YEAR Bruce Weber and Laura Jacobs spotlight choreographer Christopher Wheeldon as he repackages ballet for the textmessage generation with his new company, Morphoses.

128 "SOMETHING HAPPENED AT ANNE'S!" Last April, in a terrifying home invasion at her Connecticut estate, multi-millionaire divorcee Anne Bass was bound, blindfolded, and injected with what she was told was a deadly virus. Reporting from South Kent, where Bass created the perfect 1,000-acre valley retreat, Michael Shnayerson delivers the harrowing, minute-by-minute account of the crime. Photographs by Cameron Davidson.

134 A TRANSATLANTIC AFFAIR Michael Roberts and Ned Zeman spotlight Claire Danes, who joins a pack of top-ranked British actors in the fantasy film Stardust—and falls for one, too.

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136 SLY STONE'S HIGHER POWER With his infectious beats and outlandish outfits, Sly Stone was the funky, hopeful hero of Woodstock, until drugs and guns and paranoia turned him into music’s most illustrious recluse. Now Stone finally takes off the shades and tells David Kamp about cleaning up his act, re-uniting with his family and band, and working on a headful of fresh songs. Photographs by Mark Seliger.

140 EXPATS IN WONDERLAND Gerald and Sara Murphy epitomized 1920s expatriate glamour, summering in the French Riviera with the likes of Picasso, Hemingway, and Diaghilev, and inspiring F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night. As a new exhibition follows the Murphys’ art-filled, fun-loving decade in the sun, John Richardson explores what turned a pair of wealthy Americans into the toast of bohemian Europe.

148 GONE LIKE THE WIND Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was in pursuit of the Triple Crown when he shattered his leg—and America’s heart—at the 2006 Preakness. With stories from Barbaro’s team and exclusive access to owner Gretchen Jackson’s diaries, Buzz Bissinger revisits the brief, meteoric rise of a Thoroughbred phenomenon, and the epic struggle to save his life. Photographs by Jonas Karlsson.

FANFAIR

61 DAYS IN THE LIFE OF THE CULTURE Pirelli Calendar outtakes. The Cultural Divide. Elissa Schappell’s Hot Type. Matt Tyrnauer checks into Rome’s Portrait Suites; Victoria Mather’s favorite travel guides. Bruce Handy reviews 2 Days in Paris; Krista Smith plays Mexican dominoes; Ankasa opens its N.Y.C. flagship store. Eve Epstein gets re-sculpted at Tracie Martyn’s facial haven; Molton Brown returns to its roots; Hot Looks.

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COLUMNS

80 MORT THE KNIFE While Lenny Bruce made his exit in a blaze of self-destructive glory, Mort Sahl—who did just as much to slice through the conventions of stand-up comedy—lived to joke about another millennium. As Sahl enters his ninth decade, James Wolcott argues that his career reflects the survival of the wittiest. Illustration by Andre Carrilho.

86 LEGEND WITH A BULLET In L A. for Phil Spector’s murder trial, Dominick Dunne runs into a friend of the deceased, hitches a ride with famed “Mafia lawyer” Bruce Cutler, and catches up—in the men’s room, of all places—with the frock-coated, gun-loving defendant. Photograph by Just Loomis.

92 WALL STREET GETS A SHINER Jonathan Becker and Cullen Murphy spotlight V.F. deputy editor Doug Stumpf, who puts his best foot forward with a debut novel, Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy.

94 SIMPSON FAMILY VALUES Political controversy. Yellow skin. World domination. America’s longest-running sitcom was never just a cartoon. As The Simpsons Movie hits theaters, John Ortved gets a somewhat contentious behind-the-cels oral history from the TV show’s voices, writers, animators, and ultimate boss—Rupert Murdoch.

VANITIES

107 WILD WILD WEIXLER Tina Brown tells Craig Brown about her current project. Jamie Malanowski’s red-state dispatches; That Was Then & This Is Now; Michael Douglas becomes a horrified father, a frightened boy, and an enlightened young woman.

ET CETERA

44 EDITOR'S LETTER

46 CONTRIBUTORS

52 LETTERS Hitchens’s Londonistan

78 PLANETARIUM The heat is on, Leo

178 CREDITS

181 FAIRGROUND That Cannes-do spirit

185 PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE Helen Gurley Brown

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