Jonathan Becker

“Strangely, it was very comfortable,” contributing photographer Jonathan Becker says of taking what would turn out to be Dennis Hopper’s last portrait (see “The City of Warring Angels,” by Bob Colacello, page 130). “There was a certain groundedness to Dennis’s demeanor.” Becker credits Colacello with the “brilliant” idea to shoot Hopper with his children, and V.F.'s Los Angeles editor, Wendy Stark Morrissey (“an old friend of Dennis’s”), with ensuring that everything went smoothly.

James Reginato

James Reginato had been trying to get an interview with the legendarily private philanthropist and horticulturalist Bunny Mellon for “nearly my entire career,” he says. “It’s almost like the holy grail for journalists who cover society and design.” So he was floored when he got a call from Mellon, who is about to turn 100, offering to have her famous gardens photographed. The resulting piece, “Bunny Mellon’s Secret Garden,” begins on page 150. Reginato was features director at W for more than a decade; this is his first article for V.F.

Judy Balaban and Cari Beauchamp

Collaborating on “Cary in the Sky with Diamonds” (page 142) was a natural choice for Cari Beauchamp (at right) and Judy Balaban. “Judy and I are friends,” Beauchamp explains, “and when I told her I was interested in writing about LSD’s early days, she mentioned that she herself had been given it as a patient.” Balaban’s book The Bridesmaids was excerpted in Vanity Fair in 1989, and Beauchamp’s most recent V.F. story, about Joseph Kennedy’s relationship with Marlene Dietrich, appeared in the March 2009 issue.

Matt Tyrnauer

As special correspondent Matt Tyrnauer notes in “Architecture in the Age of Gehry” (page 156), the results of V.F.'s survey of world architecture since 1980 suggest one conclusion above all: Frank Gehry is the pre-eminent architect of this period. “As a Los Angeles native, I remember friends whose parents, in the 1980s, were building strange houses by an architect named Frank Gehry,” Tyrnauer says. “It seemed daring but completely local.” Tyrnauer’s documentary Valentino: Vie Last Emperor is now out on DVD.

Michael Joseph Gross

Investigating the crime detailed in “Aristocrats and Demons” (page 88) took Michael Joseph Gross to Five cities and towns across France and England. At times, he says, “I felt as if I had wandered into a pulp thriller—sifting through clues, knocking on doors at the ends of dark alleys, and meeting mysterious characters in train stations.” His next book will cover a less sinister topic: the discovery of the world’s great waterfalls.