CONTRIBUTORS

BRUCE WEBER

“Trying to capture somebody who is a different character every three minutes makes you really fast on your shutter speed,” Contributing Photographer Bruce Weber says of Bill Murray, whom he shot in Montauk for “Host of Christmas Present,” on page 152. Weber—pictured here with Murray and writer Mitch Glazer—says that after the shoot wrapped, the pictures kept coming: “It was probably the most selhes I’ve seen requested with the talent on a shoot.”

DEREK BLASBERG

Since his appointment as Our Man on the Street at Vanity Fair, man-about-town Derek Blasberg has hit the sidewalk running. This month, he profiles Business of Fashion founder Imran Amed (“Fashion Forward,” on page 94) and 17-year-old model, heartthrob, and Instagram sensation Lucky Blue Smith (“All by His Selfie,” on page 172). And over at VF.com, it’s Derek on demand: his recent video interviews have featured Michael Kors, Kate Hudson, and Rita Ora.

NED ZEMAN

For “The Bandit Plays On,” on page 166, Contributing Editor Ned Zeman caught up with Burt Reynolds, who was supposedly broke, at the actor’s lavish Florida estate. “Based on all the dire tabloid reports, I was a little afraid I’d find him in very bad condition,” says Zeman. “But he’s still very much Burt Reynolds.” With a new memoir, But Enough About Me, just out, Reynolds is in a reflective mood. “But he doesn’t apologize for much,” Zeman notes. “I think his cowboy boots cost more than my car.”

WILL FRIEDWALD—

“I think this is the most unpredictable period in the whole history of jazz, especially among the younger players,” says Will Friedwald, who writes about music and culture for The Wall Street Journal. In “Jazz on the Loose,” on page 174, he toasts a new generation of jazz talent. “What you can hear is what you can play,” he says. “And now people can hear anything.” Friedwald’s ninth book, The Great Jazz & Pop Vocal Albums (Pantheon), is due out next year.

MARK SELIGER

When Contributing Photographer Mark Seliger began mapping out his portfolio of jazz’s brightest young stars, “Jazz on the Loose,” on page 174, he recalled a conversation he had more than a decade ago with the late jazz photographer William Claxton. “He said it was the light, it was the attitude, it was the passion, it was the creativity—all intersecting at once,”

Seliger recalls. “This portfolio is my interpretation of what being in the moment with these artists was like.”

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"BOB COLACELLO

With this month’s V.F. Portrait, of Agnes Gund, on page 160, and “Astor Country,” on page 184,

Special Correspondent Bob Colacello profiles two women having—and doing—it all. “Both Annabel and Aggie have established themselves very successfully in business and philanthropy, each while raising a batch of children, running several houses beautifully, and always looking rather fabulous,” says Colacello. “Don’t ask me how they do it!”

JAMES REGINATO"

In “The Talk of Mayfair,” on page 130, Writer-at-Large James Reginato reports on the latest dramas—filial, political, sartorial—setting the London neighborhood’s well-to-do on edge. “This is a place jam-packed with colossal fortunes and equally outsize personalities,” Reginato says. In other words: “Catnip for a writer.” Rizzoli will publish a collection of Reginato’s essays on Great Britain in the fall of 2016.

"JONATHAN BECKER

For “Astor Country,” on page 184, Contributing Photographer Jonathan Becker captures the grand life of businesswoman and society fixture (and mother-in-law of Prime Minister David Cameron) Annabel Astor—from her manor house in Oxfordshire to her furniture and decor company’s modern Chelsea store. Becker’s photographic exhibition “A Fashionable Mind,” curated by Andre Leon Talley, runs now through January at the SCAD Museum of Art, in Savannah, Georgia.

MICHAEL KINSLEY"

During the presidential campaign season, Contributing Editor Michael Kinsley is monitoring the news more closely than ever for gaffes, foibles, and general provocations. “I’ve been very lucky that Trump hasn’t done anything so completely crazy that it would look bad if I didn’t even mention it.” This month, Kinsley sizes up another Republican contender, former Hewlett-Packard C.E.O. Carly Fiorina, in “The CornerOffice Delusion,” on page 126.

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—LESLEYM. M. BLUME

It’s possible that Lesley M. M. Blume took a cue from her forthcoming Ernest Hemingway biography.

Everybody Behaves Badly (Eamon Dolan Books, June 2016), in pursuing actor Ralph Fiennes for this month’s “In the Details,” on page 120.

“I was seated next to him at a noisy restaurant, and of course I eavesdropped a little,” she admits. “He was talking quietly and profoundly about acting technique. I wanted to continue the chat—but aboveboard this time.”

DAVID MARGOLICK

In “Case Study in Scandal,” on page 162, Contributing Editor David Margolick returns to Stanford, where he went to law school, and where an affair between the dean and a professor at its Graduate School of Business (widely considered the best business school in the country) has rocked the campus. “As one of the great incubators of Silicon Valley, Stanford’s business school matters,” Margolick says. “And so too, necessarily, does the way it’s being run.”

MARTIN SCHOELLER

When photographer Martin Schoeller visited Burt Reynolds’s sprawling estate for “The Bandit Plays On,” on page 166, he didn’t expect that the shoot would take place in the guesthouse. “It was basically his man cave,” Schoeller says, “a photographer’s dream: red carpet, pool table, a seven-foot stuffed bear. It looked like a movie set.” “Up Close,” an exhibition of Schoeller’s portraits, runs through February at Stockholm’s Fotografiska museum.

DAVID FRIEND

Editor of Creative Development David Friend shepherded this month’s portfolio of emerging jazz virtuosos, “Jazz on the Loose,” on page 174.

“The music’s in my blood,” says Friend, who, as a Chicago-area teen, hung out at jazz radio stations and local clubs—and whose son, Sam Friend, 27, is a New Orleans-based musician. The elder Friend has edited pieces written for Vanity Fair by Wynton

Marsalis, Diana Krall, and Tony Bennett. “Imagine that combo,” he says.