HERE’S LOOKING AT HUGHES

LETTERS

Cover critiques; still hoping for a Jon Peters memoir; class actress; bullish De Niro; bearish Baldwin; old-school animators; 100 and wonderful

Thank you for David Kamp’s wonderful article on John Hughes [“Sweet Bard of Youth,” March]. The man was a mystery, a genius, and one of my generation’s defining voices. I remember exactly where I was and the feeling I had after seeing The Breakfast Club—someone got me! I was in awe of the man who captured the hilarity, sadness, and complexity of the American teenager. There are few movies I can watch over and over, but The Breakfast Club, She’s Having a Baby, and Planes, Trains & Automobiles feel as fresh now as they did back in their prime. I thank John Hughes’s sons for sharing their stories, and I’m so sorry for his family’s loss of a great father, husband, and grandfather.

JACKIE SANDERS Carmel, California

I WAS PRIVILEGED to work for Mr. Hughes at his farm from the time of the filming of Uncle Buck until about 2002. I even had a cameo in Curly Sue. While I was one of a group of part-time employees, Mr. and Mrs. Hughes treated us with respect and could not have been nicer or more gracious. Every Christmas they would have a present for each of us—nothing crazy-expensive, just nice, thoughtful things like a watch, a wallet, or a pair of binoculars. Mr. Hughes (I still can’t call him John, though he often insisted on it) was a regular guy who loved his family and cherished the time he spent with them. My heart aches for Mrs. Hughes, his sons, and his grandchildren, who will not get to know him except through his body of work and the letters he left behind.

MARTY GAINER Chicago, Illinois

DAVID KAMP’S PIECE on John Hughes is a wonderful testament to one of the best late20th-century storytellers. His films, with old-school-comedy charm and new-school hipness, gave depth to adolescent archetypes, humanizing them while giving real-life teens a voice in society. Though he could easily be criticized for not having racially diverse protagonists, I, a struggling African-American writer, have great respect for Mr. Hughes for at least paving the road for me and others. Thank you, Mr. Hughes, my brother-in-prose.

ROY PHILLIPS Queens, New York

DIVERSITY DEFICIT

I HAVE BEEN a faithful reader of Vanity Fair for more than 15 years. As a woman of color, I find your March cover (“A New Decade, a New Hollywood!”) very discouraging. Am I to infer from it, because there is not one actress of color represented, that in this new decade actresses of color do not exist, or that they are just not “up-and-coming”? As the mother of a daughter who has dreamed of being an actress since she was old enough to say the word, I find this particularly disheartening. I am aware that actors of color are underrepresented in Hollywood in general, but for Vanity Fair to so blatantly support this type of exclusion is, in my opinion, reprehensible.

PIA MURPHY Los Angeles, California

I HAVE ENJOYED reading your magazine in the past, but I was really disappointed that you couldn’t find one actress of color to appear on the cover of this important issue. Zoe Saldana appeared in the No. 1 movie for weeks [Avatar] and Gabby Sidibe [from Precious.: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire] is an Oscar-nominated actress her first time out, and they didn’t even deserve a place on your cover? In 2010, when we think that we have moved beyond this type of “oversight,” we get sorely reminded that people who run magazines still don’t believe that having people of color on the front cover can sell copies.

MARY McKOY Washington, D.C.

THERE’S SO MUCH to say about this supposed “New Hollywood” cover, but I’ll cut to the chase. Gabourey Sidibe should have been on it. Period. I don’t care that she’s inside the magazine. If this is supposed to feature up-and-coming talent, she should have been included, hands down. She got an Oscar nomination, for crying out loud!

FAITH PEN NICK Brooklyn, New York

MORE PETERS, PLEASE!

YOUR ARTICLE in the March issue about writer William Stadiem’s attempts to get Jon Peters’s memoirs to see the light of day [“Studio Head: The Greatest Story Never Sold”] was quite entertaining and left me wanting more. My only hope is that Mr. Peters will soon remove the bullet he has placed in his own foot and somehow find a way to work with others long enough to get his story written and published so that humanity will not be deprived of this great monument to his enormous ego. Even as a “work of fiction,” this book would be a hoot to read.

PAMELA JANSON Saint George, Utah

STILL IN LOVE WITH ALI

I CANNOT THANK YOU enough for the beautiful, moving article on Ali MacGraw (“Once in Love with Ali,” by Sheila Weller, March). Until I read it, I didn’t realize that Ali had weathered so many ups and downs in her life—from her challenging childhood to her tumultuous relationship with Steve McQueen and the harsh critiques of her Winds of War performance. She is truly a remarkable person—and a great role model for today’s starlets, who are so besotted with publicity, plastic surgery, bling, and Twitter. And Annie Leibovitz’s stunning photo of her shows that clean living and a good heart really do offset the aging process.

GAIL SCIBELLI Port Washington, New York

WHEN I WAS 11,1 went with my father, [Columbia Pictures president] David Begelman, to one of Sue Mengers’s parties. It was supposed to be a “drop-by” lasting only a few minutes, but it turned out to be more than an hour. I was completely lost until this nice lady came over and started talking to me. Ms. MacGraw made an awkward child feel interesting, bright, and funny. Who knew she felt insecure herself? I’d like to thank her for being such a warm, empathetic “friend” when I needed one.

LESLIE BELSKIE Hernando, Florida

BLOOD, SWEAT, AND MAKEUP

READING YOUR FASCINATING ARTICLE “Brutal Attraction: The Making of Raging Bull,” by Richard Schickel [March], made me feel a bit nostalgic, because that film was one of my crowning achievements in my 49-year career as a makeup artist. I had created and applied the special makeup for Rocky, so [that film’s] producers, Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler, hired me for Raging Bull. I was surprised that in an article in which De Niro is wearing La Motta makeup in every photograph the only reference to it is one sentence: “Adding to the punishment were tricky devices [De Niro] had to wear on his back and in his mouth which released the blood and sweat on cue.” I don’t remember anything on his sweaty back, but I did have his mouth, forehead, nose, and cheeks rigged with blood-spurting tubes much as I had in Rocky. And not all the spilled blood was on-camera—I gave a lot of my own. In 1981 there was no category for Best Makeup at the Academy Awards [it would be added the following year], but when Robert accepted his much-deserved Oscar for best actor, he personally thanked me, his makeup artist. I had to wait another four years to win my own Oscar [for Peter Bogdanovich’s Mask].

MORE FROM THEV. F.MAILBAG

The mail carrier staggered in, wheezing as he delivered this month's haul—thud. It was a mountain of letters and the Mailbag was excited. We got organized and started reading from the top of a precariously high pile.

“These women ... are all thin and white,” said the first letter, regarding the March cover. In the second, the phrase “blatantly non-diverse” jumped off the page. When the third complained of “not spotting one person of color,” we were pretty sure we had detected a theme, and, sure enough, the fourth letter confirmed it:

“Where the hell was Precious? I love that she's featured inside but have to wonder why she wasn't considered for the cover.” Noted and acknowledged. (Also noted and acknowledged: that last letter was from Angela Di Carlo, of New York City, who adds, “I haven't written you guys since that Diana Ross article in 1989.” Don’t think we haven't noticed!)

“Was entranced by David Kamp's piece on John Hughes ["Sweet Bard of Youth"], a big talent who defined a very interesting time period,” writes Eric Lefton, of Evanston, Illinois, who then recounts going caroling once in Hughes's neighborhood: "As we started singing at his house, they turned off all the interior and exterior lights.” If stories of sightings and near sightings are any indication, Hughes may have indeed been "the cinematic J. D. Salinger for a generation of American teens," as Blair Bess, of Los Angeles, suggests. He offers an anecdote of his own: "Two summers ago. while visiting friends, I made a shopping run to a local market in Lake Forest. There, casually trolling the aisles, pushing a shopping cart, was John Hughes. He was a little grayer, a little heavier, but otherwise unmistakably John Hughes. 1 was internally beside myself.”

Christopher Hitchens’s column on audiobooks (“Jeeves Spoken Here,” March) sent some literary passions rocketing to the surface. “Hitchens should not waste time listening to P. G. Wodehouse read by Martin Jarvis,” declares David Roberts, from London. "There is one definitive reader of the Master and that is Jonathan Cecil. As for T. S. Eliot's “The Waste Land’—the alternative to the poet's own reading of the poem is Paul Scofield's masterly reading.” Jarvis has a defender in Darcy Sullivan, of San Francisco, who praises his recording of Diary of a Nobody, saying, “You can revitalize an entire day just hearing Jarvis pronounce the name Lupin.”

Finally. Dick Lewis, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is “not only bored but disgusted with the material” in V.F. Yikes. What might we do about that? “Bring back the retro style of yesteryear by developing more interest in the cultural and performing arts such as opera, cabaret, puppetry, and musical theater.” Sure. O.K. But it'll probably mean postponing that mime cover yet again.

MICHAEL WESTMORE Hollywood, California

ACLINTON-ESQUE “BEAR”

I LINGERED over James Wolcott’s profile of Alec Baldwin [“Too Big to Fail,” March] and reread it with great pleasure. I have been a fan of Mr. Baldwin’s since his scene-stealing work as the sexy evangelist on Knots Landing. As a Saturday Night Live host, he is one of the few celebrities who never seem to be reading cue cards offstage. I smiled when Mr. Wolcott referred to him as “a straight ‘bear,’” because part of what I find so appealing about Mr. Baldwin is how he has grown more attractive with age. A few lines and a slight paunch reflect an appetite for life and a paucity of vanity. Here’s hoping a savvy producer buys the rights to Bill Clinton’s autobiography and hires Mr. Baldwin to play the smart, sexy, husky, virile Clinton.

STEPHANIE CHASTAIN Phoenix, Arizona

ANIMATED ABOUT DISNEY

IN THE AGE of 3-D everything, I was beginning to feel like a technological leper for deifying, in recent conversations with a colleague, Disney’s old, hand-drawn animated features. Patricia Zohn’s vivid and personal feature [“Coloring the Kingdom,” March] on the ink-and-paint girls who infused their passion (and groundbreaking work ethic) into the films that paved the way for today’s Ups and Avatars provided all the “told you so” validation I needed for my next chin-wag, not to mention the inspiration I needed to continue nurturing my own creative dreams and ambitions. What an incredible group of gals.

NATALYA ANDERSON London, England

I WAS VERY DISAPPOINTED by Patricia Zohn’s article. Overall it was well researched, but it is missing important information about the scarce but very talented girl animators Disney had, such as Retta Scott, Disney’s first female animator, and the multi-talented artist Mary Blair, best known for her stylish, flat technique and for It’s a Small World. I feel that an article concerning women in the Disney animation crew is incomplete if it overlooks these vital facts.

TENISHA O’DEA Brisbane, Australia

PATRICIA ZOHN RESPONDS: Retta Scott and Mary Blair were extremely talented artists. They deserve, and have received, a great deal of praise both for their marvelous work at Disney and for pierdng the celluloid ceiling. However, my article focused on the unsung heroines of Disney’s Ink and Paint department, about whom much less has been written (and many of whom I was able to interview; Blair and Scott died in 1978 and 1990, respectively). I would have loved to have included all of the wonderful Disney women, but some were outside the scope of the story.

LONG MAY SHE RAINER!

WHILE I EVENTUALLY READ every word of Vanity Fair, I’ve made it a long-standing practice to turn to the back page and read the Proust Questionnaire first. Upon seeing Luise Rainer’s name [March], I was surprised that I instantly saw her face—from The Good Earth— in my mind’s eye. I was young when I watched it, on TV, but she made an impact. To read her absolutely eloquent responses (at 100 years old!) moved me to write a note of thanks. Thank you for existing above the mindless fray of flash-in-the-pan tabloid fodder.

CYNTHIA HALL Dallas, Texas

CORRECTIONS: On page 212 of the March issue, the comic-book character Tintin’s nationality was inaccurately stated; he is meant to be Belgian. On page 235, Evan Rachel Wood’s age was incorrectly given; she is 22.

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