BLAIR’S

TONY 50
YEARS OF
George Balanchine’s
Questionable
Connections NUTCRACKER
B E H I N D the S C E N E S
By SARAH ELLISON p . 54
O N STAG E and O F F

CAN the INTERNET

By LAURA JACOBS
p.86
BILLIONAIRE
CONTROL HIS
FIREBRANDS?
By SARAH ELLISON p . 74

A Clint Eastwood
War Drama ... and a High-Stakes

BRADLEY
Broadway Gamble:

COOPERis
N
O
“O
T

FT
TO

ILL BUZZ BISSINGER SAM JONES

EN

By p.44 Photos by
DIE

LASIO TODD S. PURDUM:

THE TE ST of
but TO LIV

EX
—V I T TO R

APE! JA M E S MAUREEN ORTH:

IO

P AT T
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ERSON
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THE
WO R L D ’ S M O S T
G

P OW
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T h e H e n r y Fo r d
of Books ERFUL
p . 80 LEADER
J A N UA RY 2015
I s n’
t Obama or Putin—
PLUS: IT’S ANGELA
JOSEPH E . STIGLITZ on the CHINESE CENTURY p . 3 8
MICHAEL KINSLEY on REPUBLICAN REAGAN LOVE p . 3 6
MERKEL
JAMES WOLCOTT on ELEVATOR- SCANDAL VIDEOS p . 3 2 p.66
 110
JANUARY 2015 No. 653

FEATURES
44 HIS ELEPHANT, HIS WAY By BU Z Z BIS SINGE R
Whether in Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle,
or the current Broadway revival of The Elephant Man,
Bradley Cooper has always been willing to take
risks. But this month’s American Sniper finds him far
outside his comfort zone. Photographs by Sam Jones.

50 BELLES ON WHEELS Spotlight on Broad City’s

Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, as they ride into Season
Two. By Nell Scovell. Photograph by Gavin Bond.

52 THE WORDS OF WAR Spotlight on six veterans

of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan who’ve
turned combat into literature. By Lea Carpenter.
Photograph by Jonas Fredwall Karlsson.

54 THE WHICH BLAIR PROJECT By S A R AH EL L ISON

How did one of the most popular prime ministers
in British history become one of its most despised public
figures, with his lucrative consulting deals overshadowing
his philanthropic efforts? Tony Blair defends the
choices he’s made. Photograph by Jonathan Becker.

60 WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS . . . COMES TO

BROADWAY Spotlight on Broadway’s Honeymoon in
Vegas. By Bruce Handy. Photograph by Ruven Afanador.

62 SOMETHING ABOUT ELLIE By CUR TIS SIT TENFELD

After winning over audiences in ensemble and supporting
roles (The Office, Bridesmaids, etc.), Ellie Kemper is
starring in a show—co-created by Tina Fey—of her own.
Photograph by Claiborne Swanson Frank.

66 ANGELA’S ASSETS By M A UR E E N OR T H PH OTO GRA P HE D BY HE NRY L EUT W Y LE R. P HOTO GR A PH BY A L A STA IR GRA N T/ A .P. I M AGE S
COO PE R P HOTO GRA P HE D BY SA M J O NE S ; T- S HI RT BY R AG & B ON E . T H E NUTCR ACKE R

German chancellor Angela Merkel has wielded greater

power on the global stage than any of her male
predecessors. Yet, as her country achieves new prominence,
( B L A I R) . I LL UST RAT I ON BY RI SKO. F O R DE TA IL S, GO TO VF.CO M /CR ED I TS

the woman known as “Mutti” is still an enigma.

72 AN AFFAIR OF THE ART Spotlight on Glenn

Allen Sims and Linda Celeste Sims, whose pas de
deux shines at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
By Wayne Lawson. Photograph by Bjorn Iooss.

74 THE UNMANAGEABLES By S A R A H E L L ISON

When Pierre Omidyar, eBay billionaire, got the media
bug, he enlisted journalistic mavericks, including Glenn
Greenwald and Laura Poitras (with their Snowden-document
trove). The result has made headlines—if not the kind
Omidyar wanted. Photo illustration by Sean McCabe.
F R O M L E F T : A Nutcracker ballerina (page 86);
Tony Blair (page 54); Bradley Cooper (page 44).
78 PRETTY IN PYNCHON Spotlight on
Sasha Pieterse, getting big-screen time in Inherent Vice.
By Krista Smith. Photograph by Rene & Radka.

12 VAN IT Y FA IR www.vanityfair.com CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 JAN UARY 2 015

 32

JANUARY 2015 No. 653 VANI T Y FAIR .COM

CON TI NUED FROM PAGE 12

80 THE HENRY FORD OF BOOKS

By TODD S. PURDUM The planet’s best-selling author since
2001, James Patterson pumps out books, has TV
shows in the works, and champions causes with a laserlike
focus and unerring instincts. When it comes to what
he knows best, it’s his way or the highway. Photographs
by Gasper Tringale.

86 BALANCHINE’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

By L A UR A J A C OB S Fifty years ago, George Balanchine’s
production of The Nutcracker, the ballet blockbuster
that’s become an American holiday tradition, was
transplanted to its new home at New York City’s Lincoln
Center for the Performing Arts. It all began
with the tree … Photographs by Henry Leutwyler.

FAIRGROUND
30 AROUND THE WORLD, ONE PARTY
AT A TIME Bottega Veneta and L.A.’s Hammer
Museum celebrate “Gala in the Garden.” Seth Meyers
hosts the N.R.D.C.’s comedy night in N.Y.C.

KE MP ER P HOTO GR A PHE D BY CL A I B OR N E SWA NSO N F R A NK; DR E SS BY F E N DI. P I ET E RS E PH OTOG RA P HED BY RE NE & RADK A; DRE SS BY
FENDI. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SEAN M C CABE (OMIDYAR); FOR CREDITS, TURN TO PAGE 76. FOR DETAILS, GO TO VF.COM/CREDITS
COLUMNS
32 BEHIND CLOSING DOORS By J A ME S W OL C O T T
In the year of Jay Z and Solange Knowles’s post-Met-gala
meltdown and Ray Rice’s assault on his fiancée (now wife),
the usually ho-hum elevator ride has provided high drama.

36 THE IRONY AND THE ECSTASY

By MIC H A E L K INSL E Y For G.O.P. presidential contenders,
the apotheosis of the Reagan era is an article of faith.
They should be appalled by the Gipper’s actual record.
Illustrations by Barry Blitt.

38 THE CHINESE CENTURY By JOSEPH E . S TIGLIT Z

In 2014, China overtook the U.S. as the world’s largest
economy. The natural American reaction would
be to “contain” China—and that, says a Nobel-laureate
economist, would be a mistake.

ET CETERA
F R O M L E F T : Sasha Pieterse (page 78); Pierre Omidyar (page 74); 28 EDITOR’S LETTER
Ellie Kemper (page 62). A L L NUMBE R ONE S — SOME W I T H BUL L E T S!

110 PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE D AV ID B Y R NE

16 VAN IT Y FAIR www.vanityfair.com PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. JAN UARY 2 015

 ®

Editor GRAYDON CARTER

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MICHAEL LEWIS, GEORGE LOIS, DAVID MARGOLICK, VICTORIA MATHER (TRAVEL), BRUCE MCCALL, BETHANY MCLEAN, PATRICK MCMULLAN,
ANNE MCNALLY, PIPPA MIDDLETON, SETH MNOOKIN, FREDERIC MORTON, NINA MUNK, ELISE O’SHAUGHNESSY, JAMIE PALLOT, EVGENIA PERETZ,
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In Memoriam CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS (1949–2011), TIM HETHERINGTON (1970–2011), DOMINICK DUNNE (1925–2009),
DAVID HALBERSTAM (1934–2007), MARJORIE WILLIAMS (1958–2005), HELMUT NEWTON (1920–2004), HERB RITTS (1952–2002)

Contributing Photographers
ANNIE LEIBOVITZ
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22 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2015

 EDITOR’S LETTER

ALL NUMBER ONES—SOME WITH BULLETS!

W hen the good people

I
f you live in China, you can be forgiv-

N I GE L PAR RY
of Britain opened en for not hearing the news—curious-
up their Sunday ly, the authorities in Beijing put a lid
Times one morning in November—actu- on the information. But at some point late
ally, they didn’t even have to open it—they in 2014, China surpassed the United States
were treated to what the editors knew as the world’s largest economy. Chinese
was a delicious scoop: the private details leaders have been nervous about this mo-
of former prime minister Tony Blair’s 21- ment. As Nobel laureate and regular V.F.
page consulting contract from 2010 with contributor Joseph E. Stiglitz points out
PetroSaudi, an oil company founded by in “The Chinese Century,” on page 38,
a member of the Saudi royal family. Blair, being number one carries some baggage.
it turns out, had been receiving roughly You’re expected to be an upstanding
$66,000 a month for his services, along global citizen, and to care about nettle-
with an additional 2 percent of any deal some things like global warming, free
that might result from his working his trade, and human rights. You also run the
connections. There’s nothing technically risk of raising questions among your own
wrong with former leaders spinning their Rolodexes to bankroll their re- people—on the order of “If we’re so rich, why am I so poor?”
tirement. What makes Blair’s arrangement noteworthy is the fact that he But there’s another reason the Chinese are skittish about being
was brokering his access on behalf of the Saudis even as he continued to number one, and it’s a legitimate worry. They’re concerned about
be active in the Middle East as the chief representative of the so-called the reaction of number two. The United States has gotten used to
Quartet, the group of four entities (the U.N., the U.S., the European its top-dog status, and too many people in Washington think of the
Union, and Russia) that are working toward peace in the region. The global economy as a zero-sum game: China’s gains can come only at
Sunday Times report had Blair’s critics wondering once again about his America’s expense. That’s not true, but if you think otherwise, your
worldwide business activities and the conflicts of interest they present. reaction will be to promote a euphemistic program of economic “con-
As Sarah Ellison reports in “The Which Blair Project,” on page 54, tainment”—that is to say, make life hard for China no matter what it
the man at the center of the controversy is cheerily unrepentant. For tries to do. So, maybe Beijing wants to foster Third World investment.
her investigation of his very lucrative former-prime-ministership, Ellison Or play a larger role in the World Bank. The response from Wash-
spoke at length with Blair himself and also to many onetime associates ington, all too often, is discouragement or outright hostility. This is a
involved in the shadowy web of companies and foundations that con- shortsighted strategy, Stiglitz argues. The U.S. has no choice but to co-
stitute Blair, Inc. Tony Blair’s view of Tony Blair is, as you might expect, operate with the world’s largest economy—as Britain learned to do a
somewhat forgiving. He sees his business activities—many of them in century ago, when it was overtaken by a boisterous America.
partnership with sketchy countries and their sketchy leaders—as a way

I
of earning money that he can then turn over to his various philanthro- t will be a while before even China can produce a writing machine
pies. (Think of this, perhaps, as the Robin Hood model.) And if one to rival James Patterson’s. One out of every 26 hardcover books
picks up a few scraps for oneself along the way, well, what of it?, Blair of fiction sold in the U.S. in 2013 had his name on the spine. With
might say. The whole business is part of a long pattern of self-dealing about 300 million copies of his books in print, and a team of two doz-
and lack of candor that extends back to his time in office, when Blair en collaborators, Patterson is, to put it bluntly, operating a literary con-
was George W. Bush’s all-too-willing dogsbody in the rush to invade veyor belt. As Todd S. Purdum notes in “The Henry Ford of Books,”
Iraq. Blair may be one of the wealthier former prime ministers in Brit- on page 80, he can be prickly about his standing and his profession.
ish history; he’s certainly one of the least popular. Tony and his wife, He once glared at an interviewer who suggested that Patterson was
Cherie, are living very well—though not, given his schedule, very often “churning” the books out. (He prefers the word “crafting.”)
living well together. Lord only knows how that marriage functions. In some ways Patterson’s a throwback—it’s hard not to recall the
As Ellison notes, Blair is now held in such contempt in his own assembly-line days of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. He writes
country that he canceled a book party when his memoirs came out, while reclining on a sleigh bed. (And, bless him, in the photo on pages
in 2010, for fear of demonstrations. He wasn’t invited to the wedding of 80 and 81, he has a galley of Michael Connelly’s superb new procedural
Prince William and Kate Middleton. And at a restaurant in Shoreditch at his side.) A shelf nearby holds a dozen or more works in progress in
early last year, a waiter tried to perform a citizen’s arrest of Blair for neat stacks. Patterson’s personal story is about the intersection of will-
his alleged complicity in war crimes. It used to be that former prime power and native savvy. He began life in a hardscrabble household in
ministers enjoyed a serene afterlife. They’d retire to the shires to write depressed Newburgh, New York. He rose to become head of the North
their memoirs, serve on boards, and perhaps teach a bit. What they American branch of J. Walter Thompson. Meanwhile, he had begun his
didn’t do was go about cutting deals on behalf of tin-pot potentates writing career. Patterson lives not far from the area he grew up in, al-
with dubious human-rights records. Perhaps more important for Blair though in a bigger home, with a river view. He has a place in Palm Beach
on that Sunday morning in November, they didn’t direct their consider- that he gets to by private jet. Last year, his income was $90 million. It’s a
able charms in the direction of the wives of Sunday-newspaper owners. sum even a former prime minister might envy. — G R A Y D O N C A R T E R
28 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2015
A R O U N D t h e WO R L D, O N E PA RT Y a t a T I M E JANUARY 2015

Los Angeles
Joni mayor
Jim Mitchell Eric Garcetti
Sia Carrey and Rita and Ann Philbin
McBride

Marco
Bizzarri

Elizabeth

PHOTO GRAPHS BY PETER WI NTERSTE LLE R

Banks
and
Tracee
Ellis Ross

Sam
Taylor-
Johnson
Rashida
Jones and
Dianna
Kara Walker
Agron

Orlando
Bloom

PATRONS OF THE ARTS Julia

Roberts,
Rita
Musician Joni Mitchell Wilson,
and artist Mark Bradford were the and Dana
honorees at the Hammer Delany
Museum’s 12th annual “Gala in the
Garden,” in Los Angeles.
The event, which supports the
Demi Moore,
Tony Goldwyn, and institution’s nationally acclaimed
Kate Bosworth exhibitions and free public
programs, was generously supported
by Bottega Veneta.

Will Ferrell
Mark and Jack Black
Bradford
John
Cameron Baldessari
Crowe and and Zoë
30 Jerry Moss Saldana JAN UARY 2015
 The event was held
at 583 Park Avenue, Anna Scott
a landmark Carter and
building in N.Y.C. Frances
Beinecke

Larry
David and
Seth
Meyers

Matt Blank,
Ted Harbert,
and David
Zaslav

Guests mingled
before the
performance.

David
Steinberg
and Amy
Schumer

Lorne
Michaels

Jerry
Seinfeld

Susie
Essman

Hilary
FUNNY BUSINESS
Quinlan and
Bryant
Comedian and host Seth Meyers,
Gumbel along with environmental media
powerhouse Discovery Communications,
presented an evening filled with
laughter as champions and supporters of
P HOTO GR A PHY / GE TT Y I MAGE S (P I N) , BY HA N NA H T HO MSO N ( A L L OTHE R S)
P HOTO GR A PHS BY M AT THE W COH EN ( MI CHA E L S) , F RO M MAYA KOVACHE VA

the Natural Resources Defense

Council came together in New York City
to raise money for environmental
and health initiatives.

Betsy Kenny Lack

and Carey Lowell
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
appeared in
a taped segment.

Guests
snacked on
Alexi Ashe popcorn.
and Claire
Bernard

JANUA RY 2 015 31
 L
JAMES WOLCOTT

ike
most zombie Americans, I tend to zone
out once tucked inside an elevator. For us
introverted chaps, the slide of the closing
doors can be like the lowering of eyelids to
begin meditation, the cue to attend to the
white noise within and without. Or, if one
is in a more sociable frame of mind, it can
be a bitsy opportunity for mindless chit-
chat in which the mouth forms words while
the mind drifts elsewhere. Ideally, an eleva-
tor ride offers brief entry—a bracketed in-
terval between points A and B—into what
the authors Orvar Löfgren and Billy Ehn
called “the secret world of doing nothing,”
which served as the title for their engaging
study of everyday ethnography (2010). It’s
a tiny packet of “me time,” a momentary
prelude when one waits like an actor in the
wings before dispersing into the lobby or
wandering around the hall trying to find
the chiropodist’s office. But today no
captive audience is safe from the info-
and-advertising stream, the panel
screens in so many modern el-
GOING DOWN? evators flashing news, weather,
You might sports, stock-market updates,
think we’re alone
now, but beware the
and photos of office views,
elevator cam. which, unlike the intrusions
in the backs of taxicabs, can’t
be vanquished with an irritable

BEHIND
jab of a thumb. In the Digital Age,
not only does information want to be free,
P HOTO GR A PH F RO M GE TT Y I M AGE S; PHOTO I L LUST RATI O N BY VAN IT Y FA IR

it insists on getting in your face. In the

CLOSING DOORS
post-9/11 panopticon of security cams,
viral Internet videos, and TMZ, not only
is news being piped into the elevator, it’s
exploding out of it and taking down ca-
reers with it. Nothing is safe from the Eye
Once a zombie moment, filled with stilted small of Sauron, and 2014 was, among other
talk and downward gazes, the elevator ride things, the year of the elevator video.
Elevator videos are not a new genre of
now is often another barrage of ads and news. But peekaboo. The boxily confined space—so
suitable for controlled studies of strang-
elevator videos stream both ways—as Jay Z, ers under certain stimuli, so conducive to
Ray Rice, and others can attest—providing some micro-analysis of claustrophobia, panic, and
group behavior—has been a perfect staging
of the year’s top viral obsessions site for pranks and social-psychology tests,
which have often overlapped. In 1962, the
32 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2015
 WOLCOTT
TV show Candid Camera pulled a classic arms and legs like an angry windmill until married. In May, in a decision that will not
stunt called “Face the Rear” in which it had a bodyguard enfolded her in a bear hug, as go down in the annals of Great Moments in
actors standing in the wrong direction in an happens almost every day on Jerry Springer. Damage Control, the Ravens orchestrated a
elevator, facing the back wall, then showed Another speculative theory holds that So- press conference where the somber newly-
how an unsuspecting rider would step into lange was incensed over Jay Z’s getting too weds appeared side by side and made a pub-
the car and, after a momentary bafflement, chummy with designer Rachel Roy, but the lic act of contrition for the harm and turmoil
turn and face the wall too rather than be source of the ignition spark really doesn’t the incident had caused, though it was un-
out of sync with the others. The Candid matter. Considering the exalted position that clear to most onlookers what Palmer, the re-
Camera segment complemented the “Asch Jay Z and Beyoncé hold in the entertainment cipient of a knockout blow, needed to apolo-
Conformity Experiments” performed by firmament, it was as if Pippa Middleton lost gize for. The hollow sham of it all blew open
Gestalt psychologist Solomon Asch, and it after some command performance and when, in late July, N.F.L. commissioner
the shocking obedience-to-authority ex- tried to lay some Tae Kwon Do on Prince Roger Goodell suspended Rice for a mea-
periments conducted by social psychologist William. The incident might have remained sly two games, a punishment that everyone
Stanley Milgram, who had assisted Asch at a private psychodrama had it not been for except the most rabid Ravens fans in their
Harvard. The result might be interpreted the leaking of the CCTV video to TMZ by a purple pajamas thought was a wrist slap. Yet
as a comic parable for the Age of Confor- hotel employee, who was soon identified and the controversy might have trickled away,
mity, except that when a similar stunt was fired. The fracas was spoofed everywhere supplanted by some other football-related,
unscientifically staged in an elevator at the from Saturday Night Live to the CMT Music police-blotter uproar (of which there is sel-
Juilliard School in 2013 on the ABC prime- Awards and predictably inspired a torn-from- dom a shortage), if, in September, TMZ
time show Would You Fall for That? the the-headlines episode of Law & Order: SVU hadn’t obtained and released the hereto-
first two subjects shown under surveillance and now is looked back upon almost fondly, fore unseen Part One of the Ray Rice vid-

{
turned and faced the rear rather than be the a souvenir from the continuing saga that is eo, the prequel in
odd ones out. What lemmings we mortals the Jay-Bey Olympiad. the elevator that @vf.com
be. The elevator-as-laboratory-theater took a No comedy or melodrama was to be showed how Palmer FO R T H E B E S T
E LE VATO R
gruesome turn in 2013 when the marketing wrung from the episode in late August when had been forcibly MO ME N T S IN
agency Thinkmodo hired a pair of actors the C.E.O. of the food-and-beverage cor- put out of commis- T V A N D F ILM ,
and faked a murder in progress to record the poration Centerplate, which services event sion—with a punch GO TO VF.C OM /
JA N 2 01 5 .
reactions of New Yorkers about to board venues and sports arenas across the United that sent her flying
the car. The video of this hoax went viral, States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, backward into the railing, where she hit her
or should I say venereal. The majority of el- was caught mistreating a friend’s one-year- head. Revel closed in September, another
evator vids that go YouTube-crazy, however, old Doberman pinscher puppy in a Van- victim of Atlantic City’s ailing economy, and
are the strictly vérité ones, such as the night- couver elevator. I’ve watched the video only this video will be remembered as part of its
mare incident that could have come from a once, with one eye shut and the other squint- melancholy legacy.
Final Destination film in which a man found ing, because I find any depiction of the mis-

T
himself trapped in a malfunctioning eleva- treatment of animals acutely upsetting, even he most portentous elevator incident
tor that rocketed up 30 floors in 15 seconds in fiction films when we are assured in the fi- of 2014 involved a bit of disruptive
with the doors open and smashed into the nal credits that no animals were harmed dur- behavior that could have been the
roof; fortunately, unlike the ill-fated patsy in ing the production. Rather than dwell on the lead-up to something far worse and, so far,
Final Destination 2, he survived. Harrowing unpleasant particulars, marvel at the speed hasn’t surfaced on video. Zeke J Miller, a po-
as this was, it was a momentary blip com- of the viral vigilante outcry that led to the litical reporter for Time, documented what
pared with big elevator breakers of 2014. C.E.O. (whose name doesn’t need another could have been a history-altering moment:
airing) being forced to resign after social me- “A private contractor at the Centers for Dis-

I
n May, the elevator at the Standard dia went on the warpath and a Change.org ease Control and Prevention in Atlanta
hotel in New York was the site of an petition calling for his firing racked up close boarded the presidential elevator on Sept.16
impromptu steel-cage grudge match be- to 200,000 signatures. Less than two min- and wouldn’t heed orders to stop photo-
tween Jay Z, renowned rapper and husband utes of elevator video lobbed onto the Inter- graphing Obama. Agents pulled the man
of the Queen of the Milky Way, Beyoncé, net and, poof, up in smoke went a career. aside for questioning after Obama left the el-
and her sister, Solange Knowles, who wields Retribution is ours, sayeth the Internet. evator, at which point the man’s supervisor
a mean handbag in close quarters. The al- fired him on the spot for his behavior. It was

A
tercation took place on the night of the Met nd no one knows that better than only then that officers discovered that the
Museum’s Costume Institute Gala, which Ray Rice, the former star running man, who [had been] arrested several times,
is traditionally a pressure-cooker occasion back for the Baltimore Ravens, who was carrying a firearm, officials said.” If a
in Manhattan, a Tom Wolfe–ish spectacu- had a September to remember, for all the presidential elevator isn’t secure, then even
larama of fame, money, and social cachet wrong reasons. Last February, Rice and his us peons had better never lower our atten-
as fraught with intrigue, status jockeying, then fiancée, later wife, Janay Palmer, were tive guard, especially in a gun-promiscuous
and dueling décolletage as an opera ball in arrested for assault and released following a culture like ours. Who knows who might
Balzac, and let no one tell you different. The fight at Revel Casino Hotel, in Atlantic City. step through the sliding doors next? 
animated tussle has been attributed to Jay A few days later TMZ showed a surveil-
Z’s expressed desire to exit solo to attend lance video of Rice dragging Palmer like a
Rihanna’s after-party, and I think we can all limp doll from the elevator, trying to haul her FROM THE ARCHIVE
For these related stories, visit VF.COM/ARCHIVE
agree that a Rihanna after-party would be a to her feet before letting her flop facedown
pretty kicky affair. Allegedly, Solange didn’t while a security person moseys over. The as- • Selfie photography . . . and sex tapes
approve of Jay Z’s unilateral bugout and sault charge against Palmer was dropped (James Wolcott, December 2014, February
2010)
voiced her opinion with perhaps more vigor and the charge against Rice was raised to
• Jay Z, hip-hop icon
than the situation required, and before rea- aggravated assault. The day after the indict- (Lisa Robinson, November 2013)
son could prevail she was flailing at him with ment was issued Rice and Palmer were
34 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2015
 MICHAEL KINSLEY

AND RON SAID . . .

Ronald Reagan may
be a deity, but Republican
politicians have
created him in their

THE IRONY
own image.

AND THE ECSTASY

Every serious G.O.P. presidential aspirant invokes the glorious era of

P
Ronald Reagan, to which the country must return. Ignore the fact that, for the
likes of Paul Ryan and Rand Paul, Reagan’s actual record—from increased
bureaucracy to higher deficits—should be seen as a complete failure

aul Ryan doesn’t care for “politics or politicians.” He says so in his recent book, The Way
Forward: Renewing the American Idea. He prefers the ordinary folks of his childhood in small-
town Wisconsin. It must have been sheer selflessness that propelled him into Congress at age
28. As chairman of the House Budget Committee (and the Republican vice-presidential nomi-
nee in 2012, who is eyeing 2016), Ryan has to deal with politicians all day long. Yuck!
But there is one politician who escapes Ryan’s censure: “The one exception was Ronald Rea-
gan. I knew about him mostly because my dad thought his story was so inspiring… An Irish
guy who … had overcome a childhood of modest means and adversity and become president of
the United States.” Ryan Sr. “would often see Reagan on the news and nod quietly, approvingly.”
Things were pretty dire when Reagan took office back in 1981, as Ryan remembers it. But Rea-
gan “was not defeated or deterred. Instead, he proposed a plan to get America back on track.”
Well, yes, in his speech to a joint session of Congress shortly after becoming president, Reagan
presented his “plan”—a reasonably detailed discussion of proposed tax cuts and spending cuts,
pursuant to his vision of smaller government. The thing is, almost none of these changes ever
36 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com I L L U STR ATIO NS BY BARRY BLITT JAN UARY 2015
 KINSLEY
happened. The tax cuts went through in 1981 of the Government Accountability Office.
but were partially repealed in 1982. In his Texas governor Rick Perry tries a third ap-
“plan,” Reagan promised to cut two Cabi- proach. He concedes that Reagan deserves
net departments (Energy and Educa- part of the blame for repeated Republican fail-
tion). Instead he added one (Veterans ures to live up to their promises. Neverthe-
Affairs, now the government’s second- less, he maintains in his recent book,
largest). Ryan chooses to remember Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from
the Reagan of 1981, when anything Washington, that Reagan “inspired a
was possible. This allows him to take generation of Americans—including
Reagan’s promises as some kind of real- me—to remember the rugged individu-
ity. Thirty-four years down the road, alism and self-determination that made
it’s too late for that. this country great.” In what way, exactly,
If you’re thinking of run- RE ALIT Y CHECK did Reagan demonstrate “rugged individ-
What would it
ning for president, you need actually mean to “return”
ualism” (except by having his picture taken
to have a book. I don’t mean to being a country on a horse)? Paul Ryan says that “we loved
own one—I mean write one. ruled by the values of President Reagan … because he was one of
Or at least pretend to do so. Ronald Reagan? I could go on. Well, why not? us.” Ryan never says exactly who “us” is. But
You don’t actually have to write Reagan inherited a federal budget if words have meaning at all, it sounds like the
the book, as long as your name is of $599 billion in revenue, $678 bil- opposite of rugged individualism.
on the cover as if you did. The contents lion in spending, and a deficit of $79

B
don’t matter much. They can be your “vi- billion. He left office with a federal budget of ut didn’t Reagan save us from Com-
sion”—lifted in whole or in part from think- $909 billion in revenue, a little less than $1.1 munism? We can argue about that (I’ll
tank research on the Web. They can be your trillion in spending, and a deficit of $155 billion. take the “no” side). But he passed up
life story. If you love your wife or husband, If you’re looking for a good bureaucracy all sorts of military opportunities to which his
mention that here. Ditto if you’ve ever over- slasher, try Bill Clinton. In his eight years, the successors of both parties have succumbed.
come adversity of any kind. Do you like hunt- size of the executive-branch workforce dropped The only war he started was the quickie war
ing? Great! Got any photos of you and an more than 10 percent, from 2.9 million to 2.6 in Grenada. In that sense, the Reagan admin-
animal carcass? million. Plus, Clinton has got a better “over- istration was a golden age of peace.
But the indispensable ingredient of a cam- coming adversity” story than anyone was able If it’s Hillary Clinton versus Rand Paul
paign book, if you are a Republican, is Ronald to concoct for Reagan. Reagan’s life, like his dis- in 2016, it will be a Democratic hawk versus
Reagan. Somewhere in the book, you must in- position, was overwhelmingly sunny. He grew a Republican dove—a complete reversal of
voke the memory of our 40th president and up middle-class in the Midwest, enjoyed rela- the natural order of things since World War
say that we should return to his values of small tively quick success in Hollywood, moved into II. Paul stands accused of trying to distance
government, low taxes, self-reliance, and so politics, and triumphed there too. Clinton had a himself from some of the nuttier views of his
on. I’m sorry, it’s a rule. (Even Arianna has to Southern Gothic upbringing—he famously had father, the Libertarian Godfather, Ron Paul.
obey. “But I am not a Republican, darling,” to stop his stepfather from beating his mother. However, Rand let Ron write the foreword to
she protested. “This is outrageous—I haven’t Nothing that dramatic on Reagan’s résumé. his recent book, Government Bullies, a collec-
been a Republican for over a decade and am In his book A Simple Government, former tion of horror stories about loutish behavior by
not scheduled to become one again, at least Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (who won government agencies. Like many journalists, I
for the moment.”) the door prize in the 2008 election: his own find Rand Paul oddly appealing. It’s mainly
You can usually get a Republican to ad- TV show) praised Reagan’s mastery of the because he’s something new in the tired stew
mit, if you beat him or her with a stick, that economy and the federal budget: “When Pres- of the 2016 campaign so far. But it’s also partly
Reagan’s actual performance in office was ident Reagan cut the top [income tax] rate that he can’t hide his frustration—a trait that he
a bit of a disappointment. But that, you see, from 70% to 28%, revenues went from $517 shares with his father (and that is characteristic
is because the Democrats were so vicious in billion in 1980 to over a trillion in 1990. When of libertarians in general), commonly exhibited
opposing Reagan’s policies. What you can- the Reagan tax cuts took effect in 1983, real when what he and they regard as obviously
not get many Republicans to admit is that the growth (not just inflationary growth) jumped sensible opinions and proposals are challenged.
entire Reaganite golden age is a fantasy—even 7.5% in 1983 and 5.5% in 1984 after no growth I’d bet that both Pauls, Ron and Rand,
if they really think so. Why burst the bubble? in 1981 and 1982. Our GDP grew by a third hold Ronald Reagan in contempt for having
during Reagan’s two terms.” squandered a historic opportunity to do all

W
hat can people possibly mean Well, yes and no (but mostly no). Reagan sorts of unattractive libertarian things. But
when they say they want America wasn’t president for 10 years (it just seemed rules are rules: the first two words in Rand
to “return” to being a country that way). Inflation alone in Reagan’s eight Paul’s book are “Ronald Reagan.” Right after
ruled by the values of Ronald Reagan? When years would have raised the value of $599 bil- the foreword by his dad. 
was this blissful time when thrift and hard lion of revenue to $780 billion, even if the real
work were rewarded and the government economy had flatlined. It’s true that the
knew its place? Certainly not when Reagan G.D.P. grew by a third during Reagan’s two
FROM THE ARCHIVE
For these related stories, visit VF.COM/ARCHIVE
was actually president. Under President Rea- terms. In the two terms that followed (George
gan (1981–89), the size of the federal govern- Bush and Clinton I), it rose by nearly as • Republicans and Democrats switch roles
(Todd S. Purdum, June 2012)
ment increased by any measure. Executive- much, and in Clinton’s last term it soared.
• TheG.O.P.’s presidential contenders
branch civilian employment, which covers The notion that Reagan “had overcome a
channel Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in
almost everything except the uniformed mili- childhood of modest means and adversity” is America” (James Wolcott, June 2011)
tary and the Postal Service, was 2.109 million Ryan’s way of paying obeisance while avoiding • Ronnie, Nancy, and the Reagan legacy
in 1981 and 2.129 million in 1989. Total federal- the facts. Huckabee’s strategy for accomplish- (William F. Buckley Jr., June 1985; Bob
Colacello, July and August 1998, July 2009;
government employment rose during this pe- ing the same thing is to confuse the issue with and Dominick Dunne, September 2004)
riod from 4.9 million to 5.3 million. random statistics that don’t even match those
JANUA RY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 37
 GEOPOLITICS

SOF T POWER
For America, the
best response

THE CHINESE
to China is to put our
own house in
order.

CENTURY
Without fanfare—indeed, with some misgivings about its new
status—China has just overtaken the United States as the world’s largest
economy. This is, and should be, a wake-up call—but not the

© A A RO N J O EL SA N TOS ( BA M BO O F O RE ST ) , A LL F RO M AU RO RA PH OTO S; © GE RRY E L L IS /G LO BI O /

P HOTO GR A PHS © M . GA R FAT /M GP ( F EAT HE R) , © GI N O ’S P RE MI UM I MAGE S ( L EAVE S) , B OT H F RO M

W
kind most Americans might imagine
A L A M Y; © CA RY A N DER SO N ( W IN G) , © MI CHA E L NO L A N/ SP EC IA L I STSTO CK ( E AGL E ’S HE A D) ,

M I NDE N PI CT URE S /COR B IS ( PA NDA A N D GRA S S) ; P HOTO I L LU STR AT IO N BY VAN IT Y FA IR

By J O S E P H E . S T I G L I T Z

hen the history of 2014 is written, it will take note of a large fact that has received little attention:
2014 was the last year in which the United States could claim to be the world’s largest economic
power. China enters 2015 in the top position, where it will likely remain for a very long time, if
not forever. In doing so, it returns to the position it held through most of human history.
Comparing the gross domestic product of different economies is very difficult. Technical
committees come up with estimates, based on the best judgments possible, of what are called
“purchasing-power parities,” which enable the comparison of incomes in various countries.
These shouldn’t be taken as precise numbers, but they do provide a good basis for assessing
the relative size of different economies. Early in 2014, the body that conducts these interna-
tional assessments—the World Bank’s International Comparison Program—came out with
new numbers. (The complexity of the task is such that there have been only three reports in
20 years.) The latest assessment, released last spring, was more contentious and, in some
ways, more momentous than those in previous years. It was more contentious precisely
38 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2015
 GEOPOLITICS
because it was more momentous: the new have obviously occurred before, and as a re- For 45 years after World War II, global
numbers showed that China would become sult we know something about what happens politics was dominated by two superpow-
the world’s largest economy far sooner than when they do. Two hundred years ago, in the ers, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., representing
anyone had expected—it was on track to do aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, Great two very different visions both of how to
so before the end of 2014. Britain emerged as the world’s dominant organize and govern an economy and a so-
power. Its empire spanned a quarter of the ciety and of the relative importance of po-

T
he source of contention would sur- globe. Its currency, the pound sterling, be- litical and economic rights. Ultimately, the
prise many Americans, and it says a came the global reserve currency—as sound Soviet system was to fail, as much because
lot about the differences between as gold itself. Britain, sometimes working in of internal corruption, unchecked by demo-
China and the U.S.—and about the dangers concert with its allies, imposed its own trade cratic processes, as anything else. Its military
of projecting onto the Chinese some of our rules. It could discriminate against importa- power had been formidable; its soft power
own attitudes. Americans want very much to tion of Indian textiles and force India to buy was increasingly a joke. The world was now
be No. 1—we enjoy having that status. In British cloth. Britain and its allies could also dominated by a single superpower, one that
contrast, China is not so eager. According to insist that China keep its markets open to continued to invest heavily in its military.
some reports, the Chinese participants even opium, and when China, knowing the drug’s That said, the U.S. was a superpower not
threatened to walk out of the technical discus- devastating effect, tried to close its borders, just militarily but also economically.
sions. For one thing, China did not want to the allies twice went to war to maintain the The United States then made two critical
stick its head above the parapet—being No. 1 free flow of this product. mistakes. First, it inferred that its triumph
comes with a cost. It means paying more Britain’s dominance was to last a hundred meant a triumph for everything it stood for.
to support international bodies such as the years and continued even after the U.S. sur- But in much of the Third World, concerns
United Nations. It could bring pressure to passed Britain economically, in the 1870s. about poverty—and the economic rights
take an enlightened leadership role on issues There’s always a lag (as there will be with the that had long been advocated by the left—re-
such as climate change. It might very well U.S. and China). The transitional event was mained paramount. The second mistake was
prompt ordinary Chinese to wonder if more World War I, when Britain achieved victory to use the short period of its unilateral domi-
of the country’s wealth should be spent on over Germany only with the assistance of the nance, between the fall of the Berlin Wall
them. (The news about China’s change in sta- United States. After the war, America was as and the fall of Lehman Brothers, to pursue its
tus was in fact blacked out at home.) There reluctant to accept its potential new responsi- own narrow economic interests—or, more ac-
was one more concern, and it was a big one: bilities as Britain was to voluntarily give up its curately, the economic interests of its multi-
China understands full well America’s psy- role. Woodrow Wilson did what he could to nationals, including its big banks—rather
chological preoccupation with being No. 1— construct a postwar world that would make than to create a new, stable world order. The
and was deeply worried about what our reac- another global conflict less likely, but isola- trade regime the U.S. pushed through in
tion would be when we no longer were. tionism at home meant that the U.S. never 1994, creating the World Trade Organization,
Of course, in many ways—for instance, joined the League of Nations. In the eco- was so unbalanced that, five years later, when
in terms of exports and household savings— nomic sphere, America insisted on going its another trade agreement was in the offing,
China long ago surpassed the United States. own way—passing the Smoot-Hawley tariffs the prospect led to riots in Seattle. Talking
With savings and investment making up and bringing to an end an era that had seen a about free and fair trade, while insisting (for
close to 50 percent of G.D.P., the Chinese worldwide boom in trade. Britain maintained instance) on subsidies for its rich farmers, has
worry about having too much savings, just as its empire, but gradually the pound sterling cast the U.S. as hypocritical and self-serving.
Americans worry about having too little. In gave way to the dollar: in the end, economic And Washington never fully grasped the
other areas, such as manufacturing, the Chi- realities dominate. Many American firms be- consequences of so many of its shortsighted
nese overtook the U.S. only within the past came global enterprises, and American cul- actions—intended to extend and strengthen
several years. They still trail America when it ture was clearly ascendant. its dominance but in fact diminishing its
comes to the number of patents awarded, but long-term position. During the East Asia

W
they are closing the gap. orld War II was the next defining crisis, in the 1990s, the U.S. Treasury worked
The areas where the United States remains event. Devastated by the conflict, hard to undermine the so-called Miyazawa
competitive with China are not always ones Britain would soon lose virtually Initiative, Japan’s generous offer of $100 bil-
we’d most want to call attention to. The two all of its colonies. This time the U.S. did as- lion to help jump-start economies that were
countries have comparable levels of inequal- sume the mantle of leadership. It was central sinking into recession and depression. The pol-
ity. (Ours is the highest in the developed in creating the United Nations and in fashion- icies the U.S. pushed on these countries—aus-
world.) China outpaces America in the num- ing the Bretton Woods agreements, which terity and high interest rates, with no bailouts
ber of people executed every year, but the would underlie the new political and eco- for banks in trouble—were just the opposite
U.S. is far ahead when it comes to the propor- nomic order. Even so, the record was uneven. of those that these same Treasury officials
tion of the population in prison (more than Rather than creating a global reserve curren- advocated for the U.S. after the meltdown of
700 per 100,000 people). China overtook the cy, which would have contributed so much to 2008. Even today, a decade and a half after
U.S. in 2007 as the world’s largest polluter, by worldwide economic stability—as John May- the East Asia crisis, the mere mention of the
total volume, though on a per capita basis we nard Keynes had rightly argued—the U.S. put U.S. role can prompt angry accusations and
continue to hold the lead. The United States its own short-term self-interest first, foolish- charges of hypocrisy in Asian capitals.
remains the largest military power, spending ly thinking it would gain by having the dollar

N
more on our armed forces than the next top become the world’s reserve currency. The ow China is the world’s No. 1 eco-
10 nations combined (not that we have always dollar’s status is a mixed blessing: it enables nomic power. Why should we care?
used our military power wisely). But the bed- the U.S. to borrow at a low interest rate, as On one level, we actually shouldn’t.
rock strength of the U.S. has always rested others demand dollars to put into their re- The world economy is not a zero-sum game,
less on hard military power than on “soft serves, but at the same time the value of the where China’s growth must necessarily come
power,” most notably its economic influence. dollar rises (above what it otherwise would at the expense of ours. In fact, its growth is
That is an essential point to remember. have been), creating or exacerbating a trade complementary to ours. If it grows faster, it
Tectonic shifts in global economic power deficit and weakening the economy. will buy more of our goods, and we will pros-
40 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2015
 GEOPOLITICS
created multilateral institutions in which
China would have a large, perhaps domi-
nant role. The need for trillions of dollars of
investment in infrastructure has been widely
recognized—and providing that investment is
well beyond the capacity of the World Bank
and existing multilateral institutions. What
is needed is not only a more inclusive gov-
ernance regime at the World Bank but also
more capital. On both scores, the U.S. Con-
gress has said no. Meanwhile, China is trying
to create an Asian Infrastructure Fund, work-
ing with a large number of other countries in
the region. The U.S. is twisting arms so that
those countries won’t join.

T
he United States is confronted
WHAT NE X T ? with real foreign-policy chal-
Trying to lenges that will prove hard to
“contain” China is resolve: militant Islam; the Palestine
misguided. conflict, which is now in its seventh
We should want to
per. There has always, to be sure, been a little actions will ultimately cooperate.
dec ade; an aggressive Russia, insist-
hype in such claims—just ask workers who prove futile, but will none- ing on asserting its power, at least in its
have lost their manufacturing jobs to China. theless undermine confi- own neighborhood; continuing threats
But that reality has as much to do with our dence in the U.S. and its posi- of nuclear proliferation. We will need the
own economic policies at home as it does tion of leadership. U.S. foreign policy has cooperation of China to address many, if
with the rise of some other country. repeatedly fallen into this trap. Consider the not all, of these problems.
so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pro- We should take this moment, as China be-

O
n another level, the emergence of posed free-trade agreement among the U.S., comes the world’s largest economy, to “pivot”
China into the top spot matters a Japan, and several other Asian countries— our foreign policy away from containment.
great deal, and we need to be aware which excludes China altogether. It is seen by The economic interests of China and the U.S.
of the implications. many as a way to tighten the links between are intricately intertwined. We both have an
First, as noted, America’s real strength lies the U.S. and certain Asian countries, at the interest in seeing a stable and well-functioning
in its soft power—the example it provides to expense of links with China. There is a vast global political and economic order. Given
others and the influence of its ideas, including and dynamic Asia supply chain, with goods historical memories and its own sense of
ideas about economic and political life. The moving around the region during different dignity, China won’t be able to accept the
rise of China to No. 1 brings new prominence stages of production; the Trans-Pacific Part- global system simply as it is, with rules that
to that country’s political and economic mod- nership looks like an attempt to cut China have been set by the West, to benefit the West
el—and to its own forms of soft power. The rise out of this supply chain. and its corporate interests, and that reflect the
of China also shines a harsh spotlight on the Another example: the U.S. looks askance West’s perspectives. We will have to cooper-
American model. That model has not been at China’s incipient efforts to assume global ate, like it or not—and we should want to.
delivering for large portions of its own popula- responsibility in some areas. China wants to In the meantime, the most important thing
tion. The typical American family is worse off take on a larger role in existing international America can do to maintain the value of its
than it was a quarter-century ago, adjusted for institutions, but Congress says, in effect, that soft power is to address its own systemic de-
inflation; the proportion of people in poverty the old club doesn’t like active new members: ficiencies—economic and political practices
has increased. China, too, is marked by high they can continue taking a backseat, but they that are corrupt, to put the matter baldly, and
levels of inequality, but its economy has been can’t have voting rights commensurate with skewed toward the rich and powerful.
doing some good for most of its citizens. China their role in the global economy. When the A new global political and economic or-
moved some 500 million people out of poverty other G-20 nations agree that it is time that der is emerging, the result of new econom-
during the same period that saw America’s the leadership of international economic or- ic realities. We cannot change these eco-
middle class enter a period of stagnation. An ganizations be determined on the basis of nomic realities. But if we respond to them in
P HOTO GR A PH © D. H URST /A L A M Y; P HOTO I L LU STR AT IO N BY VAN IT Y FA IR

economic model that doesn’t serve a majority merit, not nationality, the U.S. insists that the the wrong way, we risk a backlash that will
of its citizens is not going to provide a role old order is good enough—that the World result in either a dysfunctional global sys-
model for others to emulate. America should Bank, for instance, should continue to be tem or a global order that is distinctly not
see the rise of China as a wake-up call to put headed by an American. what we would have wanted. 
our own house in order. Yet another example: when China, to-
Second, if we ponder the rise of China gether with France and other countries—
and then take actions based on the idea that supported by an International Commission FROM THE ARCHIVE
For these related stories, visit VF.COM/ARCHIVE
the world economy is indeed a zero-sum of Experts appointed by the president of the
game—and that we therefore need to boost U.N., which I chaired—suggested that we • Global consequences of the Great
our share and reduce China’s—we will erode finish the work that Keynes had started at Recession (Joseph E. Stiglitz, July 2009)
our soft power even further. This would be Bretton Woods, by creating an international • China on steroids (Charles C. Mann,
May 2007; Kurt Andersen, August 2008;
exactly the wrong kind of wake-up call. If we reserve currency, the U.S. blocked the effort. and Simon Winchester, October 2011)
see China’s gains as coming at our expense, And a final example: the U.S. has sought
• Deng’s dynasty after Tiananmen Square
we will strive for “containment,” taking steps to deter China’s efforts to channel more assis- (T. D. Allman, October 1989)
designed to limit China’s influence. These tance to developing countries through newly
42 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2015
 FO R DE TA IL S, G O TO VF. CO M/C RE D ITS

With Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, Bradley Cooper

earned star status, now on display in the Broadway revival of The Elephant Man.
But with American Sniper, opening this month, Cooper reaches a
whole new dimension, playing navy SEAL Chris Kyle, who was murdered in 2013.
BUZZ BISSINGER discovers what a huge challenge the role represented

HIS ELEPHA
04
040 VA N I T Y FA
A II RR www.vanityfair.com
www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
 TRUNK SHOW
Tai, an Asian elephant,
and Bradley Cooper.
Along with starring in
this month’s American
Sniper, the actor
has made his return to
the Broadway stage
in The Elephant Man.

COOPER WEARS CLOTHING BY

PRADA; BOOTS BY BOSS.

NT, HIS WAY

JANUA
A RR YY 22 00 11 5 P H OTOG R AP HS BY SAM JONES www.vanityfair.com VA NIT Y FAI R 45
E
Whatever the reactions to his latest role, in American Sniper—
directed by Clint Eastwood and opening in New York, Dallas, and
Los Angeles on Christmas Day, before nationwide release on Janu-
ary 16—a lack of seriousness will not be among them. The subject
matter alone, dark and deep and complex, makes that impossible.
But maybe that is the problem. Maybe this particular role is too seri-
ous. Too out of his range.
All actors have a comfort zone. American Sniper is based on
the best-selling book of the same name by navy SEAL Team Three
sniper Chris Kyle, written with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice.
Kyle served four deployments in the Iraq war and is credited with
more confirmed sniper kills than any soldier in American history.
The film is anything but comfortable. Not only does it portray Iraq’s
most dangerous hot zones with Kyle smack in the middle, it also
balances Kyle’s war experiences with his trying to adapt at home
as a father to his two children and husband to his wife, Taya, played
by Sienna Miller.
There is also the tragedy that, in the middle of the development
of the project, Kyle—a national hero and military legend who had
had a bounty placed on him by insurgents—was shot to death on
February 2, 2013, along with another man, on a shooting range
very day before going on near Stephenville, Texas. Kyle had co-founded a nonprofit called
location Bradley Cooper recited the six pages of exercises. They had FITCO Cares Foundation, which supplied at-home fitness equip-
been pieced together by his speech coach, Tim Monich, to further ment for emotionally and physically wounded veterans. He was
reinforce a Texas accent and dialect that Cooper knew, if it didn’t 38 years old. The alleged shooter, an ex-Marine named Eddie Ray
come to him automatically, would rob all credibility. In a film such Routh, who had served several deployments and was said to be
as this, and a role such as this, the most challenging of Bradley Coo- suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, has been charged
per’s career, there was no margin for error. with capital murder. Kyle, according to reports, had taken Routh
Don’t get it right, don’t do the movie. There are many Texas ac- to the range at Rough Creek Lodge as a show of camaraderie. It
cents in Texas. This particular one, because of all the places the real- was something he had done before.
life character once lived, had parts West Texas and country Texas and Cooper had talked to Kyle on the phone, but he never had a
home-on-the-range Texas, a little bit southern, a little bit western, a chance to meet him in person. “The terrible beauty of the story
little bit shitkicker, with idiosyncratic inconsistencies, and yet poetic is how he died and his death,” Cooper tells me. “If you take that
in its truncation. away, it’s a much different story.”
Cooper started with the song “Feelin’ Good Again,” by Texas Cooper knew he had to reach a point where his belief in the
singer Robert Earl Keen. He did several variations of “Peter Piper” role he was playing was absolute. To do that he had to inhabit it;
tongue twisters in dialect as fast as he could, like gargling while learning the accent was only one of the requirements. “I have to
still enunciating. believe it,” Cooper says several weeks before the opening of the
Then the “thing” exercise: There’s nothin’ you can do about inny- film. “If I believe it, then there’s a chance you’ll believe it. If I
thing a cat will or won’t eat. The “pin-pen” exercise: I mean who the don’t believe it, I’m fucked.”

T
fuck does he thenk he is, the fuckin’ Imperor of Kinya? The “are”
exercise: You’ll smoke a few cigars, play a little guitar, and you’ll be he best actors all risk failure. But the risk in Coo-
like Hedy Lamarr. The “git” exercise: Now you git your guitar and per’s case is still enormous. Not in terms of career,
git down to business. which is thriving more than ever before, with not F OR DE TA I LS , GO TO VF.CO M/C RE DI TS
Bradley Cooper has shown remarkable range in his film ca- only American Sniper opening in December but
reer. He has been nominated for two Academy Awards. But also the Broadway revival of the Bernard Pomer-
there has always been something effortless about Cooper’s per- ance play The Elephant Man, in which Cooper
formances, a testament to how good he is, but also the feeling plays the grotesquely disfigured John Merrick. But in terms of
that he never quite bleeds for them. As the director and his close whether he can reach a new dimension in his acting career.
friend David O. Russell observed, Cooper is used to not being Whereas so many of his characters have been outward, manic in
taken seriously. the midst of manic surroundings, this is a role that was almost com-

“HE HAS REALLY LIVED,

BUT HE’S MANAGED TO HOLD ON
TO HIS CHILD-LIKE INNOCENCE,” SAYS SIENNA MILLER.
46 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
 RAIN MAN
Clint Eastwood, who
directs Cooper in
American Sniper, says
of the actor, “I see
a lot of curiosity in him.
I see a lot of my
early self in there.”

COOPER WEARS A COAT BY BRIONI,

SUIT BY CANALI, SHIRT AND TIE
BY GIORGIO ARMANI, SHOES BY
TOD’S; UMBRELLA BY KINGSMAN.
 ESCAPE ARTIST
About portraying Chris
Kyle, the navy-SEAL
sniper who was
murdered in February
2013, the actor says,
“I knew this was sacred
ground that I was on.”

COOPER WEARS A T-SHIRT BY

RAG & BONE.

48 VAN IT Y FA IR www.vanityfair.com JA NUA RY 2 015

 “I’M GOING TO HAVE TO . . . KNOCK

SOME OF THE PRETTY

OFF OF HIM,” CHRIS KYLE SAID OF COOPER.
pletely inward, the tightening of his chin as important sometimes as gnawing restlessness of a career not fulfilled, and the wrenching loss
anything he says. It has to be subtle, textured without histrionics. of his father after his horrible bout with lung cancer. They have given
So maybe he is fucked. him experience and perspective, the equivalent in Hollywood of find-
ing uranium underneath your table at the Ivy as you look for your

B
Philadelphia Story napkin and wait for the egg whites.
radley Cooper turns 40 next month. He doesn’t look it “Losing someone close to me. Going through love and loss …
when you first meet him. There is a disarming boyish- knowing what’s important,” Cooper says. “Realizing that the bottom
ness. There are also those Coral Sea eyes that you try line is that all I got is me, so it’s about time to stop trying to be some-
not to look at, because you know you will be immedi- thing that I think you would want me to be. Or that would give me
ately sucked into the vortex of his eminent and instant what I think I need. As you get older, thank God, your body deterio-
likability. He peppers his sentences, sometimes at the rates, but your soul sort of flourishes.
beginning and sometimes at the end, with the punctuation of “bro” “I see life much more gray as I get older,” he continues. “I was
and “dude” to the point where he should just trademark it. so sort of black-and-white in my late 20s. There’s right and there’s
Although a creature of Hollywood, he spends a significant wrong and that’s it. That’s a tough way to live… It’s rare that I
amount of time in the Philadelphia region where he is from, still judge somebody, really rare. I think people feel that, so it’s sort of
hanging out with friends (he calls them “buddies”) he grew up with easy to get close to somebody if you don’t feel judged by them.”
and went to school with, the home where he was raised in the sub- “Bradley isn’t perfect,” says Todd Phillips, who directed him in
urb of Rydal—across the street from the movie theater—still in pos- the Hangover trilogy, which catapulted him to stardom and a re-
session of the family. He grew up in comfort as the son of a Merrill ported $15 million payday for 2013’s final installment. “What I will
Lynch stockbroker. He went to high school at one of the area’s most say about Bradley is how evolved he is. I think it’s because he’s gone
prestigious private institutions, Germantown Academy. through a lot of stuff and a lot of struggle. People respond to that in
He talks with wonderment about the first time he saw the David different ways. The way he responds to that is by constantly evolving.
Lynch film The Elephant Man, at the age of 12—on a red couch in He internalizes it in a way and turns it into evolution.”
the living room, sobbing and in touch even at that age with the dig- There is an I-still-can’t-really-fucking-believe-it aura that suffuses
nity and humanity of John Merrick—and knew he wanted to be an him. “I think there is a part of him that can’t believe this has quite
actor. He talks with similar passion about the Philadelphia Eagles happened … this boy from Philly,” says Sienna Miller. “He can’t
and motorcycles. (He has five, and if you didn’t nip it in the bud, he quite see himself as the world sees him.
would still be talking about them.) His mind is one of those in a con- “He’s been up and been down,” she goes on. “He has really
stant state of engagement, obsession over there, obsession over here, lived, for sure, but he also has managed to hold on to his child-like
curious about this, curious about that. He loves food. He loves the innocence. There’s something about him that is very pure.”

T
ST Y L ED BY A N NI E P SA LTI R A S; HA I R PRO DUC TS BY V E RB ; GROO M IN G P ROD UCTS BY L A N CÔ ME M E N; GRO O MI NG

combustion of family gatherings, with his mother’s side of the family

BY SY LVI A VI AU- KI STL E R ; TA I T HE E L EP HA NT P ROVI DE D BY HAV E TR UNK W I LL T RAV EL ; SE T DE S IGN BY MATTHE W

Italian and his father’s side Irish. here seems to be nothing about Cooper that remote-
He talks with quiet pain about the death of his father, Charles, at ly reeks of actor imperialism. To get to rehearsal in
the unfair age of 71, in 2011. But also with quiet beauty, the “privi- Times Square for The Elephant Man, he took the
DAVI DS O N; PRO DUCE D ON L O CAT IO N BY TO DD DA NA ; F O R DE TA IL S, GO TO VF.CO M /CR E DI TS

lege” he felt as he cradled him in his arms one final time and felt subway. With the cap on his head ducked down
his last breath. He wears the wedding ring that his father wore and and sunglasses and a backpack containing pumpkin
Cooper never saw him take off. soup, to lose the weight he had gained for American
When asked to describe his mother, he just laughs, the clear sug- Sniper, he looked like a cross between somebody auditioning for a
gestion that she is one of those sui philadelphius characters thinking part on Portlandia and an overqualified courier who has been reading
she is six feet tall when she is only five and tiny next to the frame of Proust since college.
her six-foot-two-inch son. She is a ham. She is a vintage character. He didn’t participate much in drama at either Germantown Acad-
He got those eyes from his father’s Irish roots. He is obviously emy or Georgetown, where he graduated in 1997 with an honors de-
good-looking, but at a certain point in his career he was told after gree in English. Nor did he brim with innate confidence. He played
an audition that those casting the role had found him “not fuckable” high-school basketball and was good at boxing out opponents with his
(only in Hollywood … ). His looks do not exude carnal sex appeal. self-described “big ass.” But he never had the confidence to be the
But, as Russell observed, they have enabled him to “look leading- one to get the ball and take the shot. “I was too fucking nervous,” he
man-ish in a little bit of a Gary Cooper way” but also to “look weird,” says. It did not begin to change until college.
depending on the angle of the shot. Which has made the roles he has He decided to apply to the master’s program at the Actors Studio
gotten, in particular under Russell—Silver Linings Playbook, American Drama School, in New York, almost as a lark. He had to audition,
Hustle—more than one-dimensional hunkfests. so he brought as his acting partner a professor from Georgetown
He has benefited from the considerable miles he traveled before who had no experience. The audition was doomed to imperfection.
stardom, the valley of addiction (he has been sober since 2004), the But James Lipton, who sat in on every applicant audition and was
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 49
 Spotlight
then the dean of the school, was drawn to Cooper’s performance.
“It was imperfect, but I recognized something within him,” Lipton
says. “Something discernible … a kind of accessibility to himself.”
As well as a willingness to dare. “What do you like in an actor? My
BELLES ON
answer is one word: risk.”
When Cooper, for his master’s thesis, performed four scenes from WHEELS
The Elephant Man for a week, his mother took Lipton aside at one point.
“What do you think? Is he going to be all right?” she asked.
“ ‘He’s going to go all the way,’ ” Lipton responded. “I never pre-
dicted that for any other student.”

H
e had no problems getting jobs after drama
school. He had a recurring role on J. J. Abrams’s
Alias, played a gay camp counselor in the cult

A
classic Wet Hot American Summer, and had a
scene-stealing supporting role in 2005’s Wedding
Crashers. But something was not right in his late
20s. He devolved into alcohol and drugs. His friends would find

{
him just waking up at two in the afternoon.
@vf.com
He ignored his dogs when they needed to
TO WATCH VID E O
be walked. When he went out to dinner he FROM THE PH OTO
talked only about himself. In August of 2004 S HOOT, GO TO
VF. COM/JA N 2 01 5 .
he became sober, and he has stayed sober; in
the physical transformation for American Sniper he refused to use any
stimulants. “I did it naturally because I’ve been sober for 10 years and
didn’t want to do anything,” he tells me. “I had a realistic conversa-
tion. Can I do this in three months naturally? Can I gain 30 pounds
of fucking muscle? I didn’t know if I would be able to do it or not.
Thank God—luckily—my fucking body reacted fast.” lbert Brooks.

ST Y L ED BY A L IC IA L O MB A RDI NI ; HA I R PRO DUCTS BY SCHWA R ZKO P F ; M A KE UP P RO DUC TS BY VI NC E NT LO NGO ; NAI L ENAME L BY LO NDO NTOWN; HAI R BY PATRI CK
In 2006 he appeared in Three Days of Rain on Broadway with Ju- Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Larry David. The best comedic actors
lia Roberts and Paul Rudd. It was “an amazing opportunity” and also play broad and real simultaneously, coming across as

M ELVI L L E; MA K EU P BY VIN CE NT L O NG O; M A NI CUR E BY R ACHE L SH IM ; S E T DE SI GN BY S HAWN PAT RI CK ANDE RSO N; FO R DE TAI LS, GO TO VF.CO M/C RE DI TS
a pivotal point in his career. “If this doesn’t work, then I’m not sup- both larger than life and all too human. Abbi Jacobson
posed to do this for a living,” he told himself. He contemplated going and Ilana Glazer pull off this same magic trick every week
back to school and getting a Ph.D. in English and teaching literature. in Broad City, which returns for a 10-episode second sea-
Roberts was the marquee, and the play did not get particularly son on Comedy Central in January. Broad City’s first season
good reviews. But Cooper had a sizable role that included a roughly is full of moments that are insane . . . and yet make total
10-minute monologue. It sustained and energized him. A few years sense. In one episode, Ilana whips off her shirt and bra to
later came the same nagging sensation of lack of fulfillment. encourage onlookers to take out their cameras so Abbi
“I always knew I wanted to be in the trenches with a director mak- can find her stolen phone. The shot of Ilana doing a weird
ing the movie,” he says. “I always felt that’s what I’m supposed to be topless dance in Central Park is “pause the screen” funny.
doing. I always knew deep down that if I’m not going to do that then Thanks to their creators, Jacobson and Glazer, the
I’m not too long for this business.” characters Abbi and Ilana are believable and consistent.
He turned to the theater again, this time in Williamstown, Massa- And what about offscreen—has success changed the two?
chusetts, starring in The Understudy. On the second-to-last day in Wil- Jacobson: “Ilana has become pretty much a diva. She
liamstown, he and other potential cast members got an e-mail from has a lot of assistants, but she doesn’t know their names. . . .
Todd Phillips. Six months earlier they had talked about a movie project She never takes the subway anymore. She won’t take the
stairs. Not even an escalator. . . .

{
called The Hangover. But then Cooper heard nothing. Until the e-mail.
“Let’s do this already, bitches.” And when someone doesn’t recog- @vf.com
TO SE E A N
The role of Phil, dissolute and cool and careless but fundamentally nize Ilana? She lets them have it.” IN T E RVIE W W I T H
a good man, launched him. Cooper also got his chance to be part of Glazer: “Abbi has changed. ILA N A A ND A B B I ,
the process far beyond his own role, diving into the editing room; he She has those sneakers with the GO TO VF. C O M /
JA N 2 01 5 .
displayed a willingness to drop a scene, no matter how good he had wheels on the heels and now she
been, if he thought it slowed down the narrative. “It’s why he is going only slides places. . . . And she also wears wigs. She shaved
to be a great filmmaker,” says Phillips, and Cooper told me that the her head and she doesn’t want to give that to America.”
next stage of his career will be to direct. For the latest batch of episodes, Jacobson and Glazer
Eastwood saw the same thing during the shooting of American helmed the writers’ room and kept the focus on “day in the
Sniper. “He loves to participate,” he told me. “He loves to know every- life” plots. The new season has “no big arc,” says Jacob-
thing that is going on. He likes the whole process. I see a lot of curios- son, “but definitely some bigger stories and awesome
ity in him. I see a lot of my early self in there.” guest stars.” So, expect Abbi to screw up and Ilana to
“He’d be brilliant, but he’d be a nightmare [as a director],” said Si- rant, and somehow it will all work out fine because they
enna Miller, with the kind of laugh that doesn’t C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 9 9 have each other. — NELL SCOVELL

50 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com PH OTO GRA PH BY GAVIN BOND

 Ilana Glazer and
Abbi Jacobson,
photographed in
New York City.

GLAZER WEARS
A SWIMSUIT BY MALIA
MILLS; SHOES BY
PAUL ANDREW. JACOBSON
WEARS A SWIMSUIT
BY TORI PRAVER
SWIMWEAR; SHOES BY
NICHOLAS KIRKWOOD.
BOTH WEAR EARRINGS
FROM HOUSE
OF LAVANDE.

JANUARY 2 015 VAN IT Y FAIR 51

 Spotlight

The WORDS of WAR

‘N
 
ever such innocence again,” Philip Larkin wrote in tale,” though of course it only takes a writer with God-given gifts. Here
“MCMXIV,” his iconic poem about World War I. The are six. They know one another. They know the canon to which they are
Great War changed many things and left legacies such as contributing. And they respect, but don’t mimic, their stylistic elders,
indirect fire, automatic weapons, a renewed German will. from Wilfred Owen to Ernest Hemingway to Michael Herr. Though, as
It also changed literary tradition, leaving modernism rising in its wake. one of them, Elliot Ackerman, slyly puts it, “it might have been better to
A select set of writers who emerged from that conflict became celebrat- be part of the Lost Generation than the lost part of a generation.”
ed for their gift of turning slaughter into poetry and prose. Now, a cen- Kevin Powers served with the U.S. Army in Iraq. Tom Wolfe called
tury on, there’s an elegant echo: a new literature emerging from a new his debut novel, The Yellow Birds, an “All Quiet on the Western Front of
fight. Like their predecessors, these men are veterans, some having America’s Arab wars,” and his first poetry collection was published this
served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan over multiple years. They spring. Brandon Willitts, a navy veteran, co-founded Words After War to
grew up in war, so it’s no shock they’ve decided to try to understand link veteran and civilian writers working on the topic of conflict. Matt Gal-
what it means. Homer said of war that “it would take a god to tell the lagher’s memoir, Kaboom, chronicled his time in the armored cavalry in
52 VAN IT Y FA IR P H OTOG R AP H BY JONAS FREDWALL KARLSSON JA NUA RY 2 015
 Maurice Decaul, Phil Klay,
Elliot Ackerman, Kevin Powers,
Brandon Willitts, and Matt
Gallagher, at the White Horse
Tavern, in Greenwich Village.

DECAUL WEARS JEANS BY LEVI’S.

KLAY AND ACKERMAN WEAR SHIRTS BY
RAG & BONE. POWERS WEARS A
SWEATER BY RAG & BONE; JEANS BY LEVI’S.
WILLITTS WEARS A SWEATER AND
SHIRT BY RAG & BONE; JEANS BY GAP.
GALLAGHER WEARS A SHIRT
BY RAG & BONE; JEANS BY GAP;
SHOES BY CONVERSE.

Iraq, and Atria will publish his novel, Young Blood, in 2016. Maurice De-
ST Y LE D BY A L L A N K E N NE DY; G ROOMI N G BY ROBE RT

caul enlisted in the Marines at 17 and is a poet, essayist, and playwright.

ME F FOR D ; FOR D E TA IL S, GO TO V F. CO M/C R E D ITS

Ackerman served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine spe-

cial operator, was awarded a Silver Star, and writes about the Syrian
civil war from Istanbul; his first novel, Green on Blue, will be published in
2015. And Phil Klay, a Marine public-affairs officer, published his debut
story collection, Redeployment, last spring; war correspondent Dexter
Filkins described it as “the best thing written so far on what the war did
to people’s souls.” On November 19, it won the National Book Award.
A desire to write, like a desire to serve, is idealistic. Desires and
ideals are worn lightly in this group, yet the guys are confident; they
don’t need their armor anymore. — LE A C ARPENTER

www.vanityfair.com VA NIT Y FAI R 53

 THE

WHICH
BLAIR
PROJECT
Once one of the most popular prime ministers in Britain’s history,
Tony Blair is now reviled at home for his role in the Iraq war and the
lucrative consulting career he’s built since leaving office.
Delving into the byzantine world of Blair, Inc., which includes several
philanthropic foundations, SARAH ELLISON sits down with
the globe-trotting 61-year-old to discover how he reconciles his work
for dubious regimes and big corporations with his
aspirations to global leadership

54 VA NIT Y FAI R www.vanityfair.com P H OTOG R AP H BY JONATHAN BECKER JA NUA RY 2 015

 THE AFTERLIFE
Former British
prime minister
Tony Blair
during a visit to
Los Angeles, 2014.

www.vanityfair.com VA NIT Y FAI R 55

T
I. The Pitch

WORLDWIDE WEB
(1) President George W. Bush
and Blair after a 2001 press
conference. (2) South Pavilion—
Tony and Cherie Blair’s country
home, in Buckinghamshire—
once owned by Sir John Gielgud.
(3) The Blairs’ home in
London, on Connaught Square.
he citizens of Kazakhstan cele- (4) King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz,
brated the 20th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union, of Saudi Arabia, left, with
which had been achieved in 1991, in a variety of ways. In December Tony Blair at Buckingham Palace,
2011, the country’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, unveiled a model 2007. (5) Blair meets with Libya’s
Muammar Qaddafi, 2007,
of the Arc de Triomphe in the Kazakh capital, Astana. At around the shortly before resigning as prime
same time, but in a different spirit, oil workers occupied the central minister. (6) Blair with
square in the western city of Zhanaozen, where they had been on Henry Kissinger—one of “my
role models.”
strike for months to protest for higher wages and better working con-
ditions. Kazakh police fired on the unarmed demonstrators, killing at 3
least 15 and injuring scores of others.
Nazarbayev, with his authoritarian tastes, has been the president
of Kazakhstan for as long as his country has been a country. His un-
interrupted run has much to do with the fact that he has never held
an election that met even the most forgiving international standards.
To memorialize Kazakhstan’s independence, in 2012 Nazarbayev
appeared in a documentary. The 67-minute video, In the Stirrups
of Time, opens with shots of Nazarbayev greeting his people inter-
spersed with scenes of the sun rising over iconic Kazakh locales.
Harp and piano play in the background.
The first recognizable person to appear on-camera, after Nazar-
bayev, is, to the uninitiated, an unlikely one. Two minutes into the
documentary, former British prime minister Tony Blair materializes
on the screen in suit and tie, against the backdrop of a white fireplace.
Blair had been hired as a consultant to Nazarbayev two months be-
fore the Zhanaozen massacre, and during the first two years of his
contract, according to the Kazakh media, he would be paid $40 mil- 5
lion. The British press speculated that part of Blair’s role was to help
the Kazakh president secure the Nobel Peace Prize—an unlikely pros- Communications, a firm run by his former media adviser, Tim Al-
P HOTO GR A PHS : C LO CKWI S E F RO M TO P LE F T, BY MA R I O

pect. Blair’s office has denied that Blair was involved in an attempt lan. Alastair Campbell, Blair’s former press secretary, works for
TA MA / A F P/ GE TT Y I MAGES , J USTI N L E IGH TON / UPPA /
P HOTO S HOT /NE W SCOM , DAV ID W IM SE T T/U PPA /

to secure a Nobel Prize for Nazarbayev; it has also said that the con- Portland as an adviser. Blair also facilitated a meeting in the sum-
tract figures were wrong, and that the fees were used to fund Blair’s mer of 2013 between Nazarbayev and the current British prime min-
charities. In the documentary, in what are clearly cherry-picked sound ister, David Cameron.
bites, Blair says that Kazakhstan “is almost unique, I would say, in Watching Blair in Nazarbayev’s documentary, one is reminded
its cultural diversity, in the way it brings different faiths together and of a pitchman in a late-night infomercial. “If you look back over 20
cultures together.” He finds the people of Kazakhstan to be “smart” years,” Blair says at one point, “you have to say the progress is re-
and “capable” and “very proud” of their country. Other politicians markable.” Looking back over the past few years, you have to won-
appear in the film, but the camera returns to Blair again and again. der how Blair the pitchman would assess his own progress. Various
In the years since his movie appearance, Blair has continued to former associates cited a famous observation by the British politician
work for Nazarbayev. To help with the work, Blair hired Portland Enoch Powell, that “all political lives, unless they are cut off in mid-
56 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
 to avoid the inevitable protests. Blair wasn’t invited to the wedding of
Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011. Last January, a London
waiter attempted a citizen’s arrest of Blair for alleged war crimes aris-
ing from the invasion of Iraq.
Tony Blair was the youngest prime minister since Lord Liverpool
in 1812. Unlike in America, where ex-presidents such as Jimmy Carter
and Bill Clinton have pursued prominent second acts after leaving of-
fice, in Britain, former prime ministers are expected to recede quietly
into history. Margaret Thatcher and John Major both profited from
consulting and speaking tours after they stepped down as prime
minister, but neither made repeated pronouncements about public
policy, as Blair routinely does. After he left office, Winston Churchill
remained in Parliament as an ordinary backbencher until a year be-
2
fore his death, in 1965. Blair sees himself as pioneering something new:
being the first prime minister who behaves like an American-style ex-
president. In his pursuit of this role he has continued to weigh in on
topics such as global terrorism and Iraqi politics. He has established a
variety of philanthropic foundations. And, like Bill Clinton, he has set
out to make some money, in his case aggressively pursuing business
deals with autocratic governments around the world. Blair’s view of this
is that one must be pragmatic—better to engage with unsavory regimes,
and maybe improve them a little, than not to do so at all. Better to take
whatever money you can get with one hand, as long as you do good
with the other. If you believe his motivations are pure, then he is try-
ing to save the world by playing the role of a geopolitical Robin Hood.

I
t is an understatement to say that not everyone believes his
motivations are pure. One man who does, however, is Tony
Blair. I recently met with him in his office overlooking Lon-
don’s Grosvenor Square. The brick-and-stone town house is
4 the same building John Adams occupied when he served
as the first American ambassador to the Court of St. James’s.
When Blair introduced himself to me, his blue eyes and wide smile
seemed to precede the rest of him. Everything else about the man has
faded with age: the hair, the skin, and probably even the fabled torso,
which once, while he was in office, was featured in a British magazine.
Blair wanted to put his years since leaving office into perspective,
starting with what it’s like to be suddenly out on the street. “You leave
with nothing,” he said. “The first thing you miss, I always say to lead-
ers who are going out of office, the first thing you miss is the infra-
structure… You have to build it. You have to build that network of
connections, and you have to work at it very, very hard. But then you
have to have money to support it.”
But support what? How would he sum up the current purpose
of his life? He was silent for a full 10 seconds. Then he said, “Es-
sentially, I’m trying to build an organization that is able to make a
difference on the issues I care about.” Those issues are faith and
6 religious tolerance, plus good governance, particularly in develop-
ing countries in Africa. “Radical Islam is the key challenge we face
stream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature today,” Blair said, “and we don’t yet understand its breadth and its
P HOTO S HOT /NE W SCOM , TOB I A S KL EI N SCHMI DT /MS C,

of politics and of human affairs.” It’s hard to imagine a politician who depth and how dangerous it is. And one vital aspect of countering
P ET E R MAC DIA R MI D/ EPA /N E WS CO M, GA R E TH GAY/

personifies Powell’s statement more acutely than Tony Blair, who has this threat is to educate people at an early age to respect the Other.”
gone from being one of the most popular prime ministers in Great He went on to talk about his Faith Foundation, and his Africa Gov-
Britain’s history to being one of the most reviled figures in British ernance Initiative. He said he spent roughly two-thirds of his time
public life. A man with aspirations to global leadership—even to global on his charities and on his work involving the so-called Quartet,
moral leadership—is now regarded by many of his countrymen as a which is a joint effort by the U.S., the European Union, Russia, and
Z UMA PR ES S /NE W SCOM

shill for big corporations and deep-pocketed and dubious regimes. In the U.N. to ease tensions between Israel and Palestine. The rest of
terms of personal wealth, Blair is said to be worth an estimated £100 his time was spent making money to pay for it all.
million ($150 million), a figure he denies. Today, Blair rarely makes I asked Blair about the litany of criticism he faces, particularly in his
public appearances in London. In 2010, he canceled a book party to own country, and especially about his business deals. Our conversa-
celebrate the publication of his memoir, A Journey: My Political Life, tion took place just a month before The Sunday Times in a front-page
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 57
 story revealed the details of a secret Blair contract with the oil com- ready faced one inquiry, the Butler Review, which looked into the
pany PetroSaudi International, prompting even more criticism. Blair intelligence used to justify the Iraq war. (The review found some of
responded with a sigh that was meant to suggest resigned amusement the intelligence “seriously flawed.”) Another, more thorough inves-
and didn’t quite succeed. “First of all, you know, I actually did win tigation, the Chilcot Inquiry, named after its chairman, the Right
three elections, not lose them. I won the last election with a majority, Honorable Sir John Chilcot, has been under way since Gordon
even after Iraq.” The criticisms of him, he said, are overstated by Brit- Brown authorized it in 2009. Its much-delayed report, already called
ish newspapers. He observed that what he had long felt to be one of a “whitewash” by critics, will likely be released in 2015.
his positive qualities had often led to a negative result: “I have always Harris told me that he got the idea for The Ghost while at a dinner
been a centrist politician and I remain a centrist politician. And the at No. 10 in 2003 as he listened to Cherie Blair complain that Jacques
center, in my view, still has the true governing constituency of the coun- Chirac, then the president of France, was behaving abysmally by not
try but not the governing constituency of the media. The right don’t supporting the invasion of Iraq with sufficient enthusiasm. “Tony cut
like it because you used to win elections, and the left don’t like it be- in and said, ‘Now, darling, don’t let’s talk about the war.’ ” Harris says
cause they think you sold out… It’s multiplied because of the legacy he later learned that Cherie had been calling members of Parliament,
of Iraq.” He has heard all the criticisms before. If they bother him, as urging them to vote for the pro-war resolution. She was “potentially
some of his former associates have said is the case, he betrayed no sign more belligerent” on the topic than Harris had realized, and she was
of it in our meeting. He was personable and without airs. As he threw quite influential with her husband. What finished Blair off with re-
one arm around the back of an armchair, settling in, he was clearly un- spect to his own party, Harris said, was the Israeli invasion of Leba-
apologetic. “Whatever criticisms people have of me,” he said, “they’ve non, in 2006, when Bush and Blair were the only prominent interna-
seldom thought of me as politically stupid.” tional voices supporting Israel’s actions.
Harris credits Cherie with boosting Blair’s rise in the Labour

R
II. “Now, Darling . . . ” Party: “He would never have become Labour Party leader without
obert Harris lives in a Victorian vicarage in the town her.” Cherie’s father, Tony Booth, was a well-known actor, whose
of Kintbury, in Berkshire. In the early 19th century, first wife, Gale Howard, was Cherie’s mother. After their divorce,
the vicarage was owned by a man whose son was Tony’s longtime companion was Pat Phoenix, the star of the British
engaged to Jane Austen’s sister. A former journalist, soap opera Coronation Street. Booth and Phoenix were both royalty
Harris is now a best-selling novelist and something in the Labour Party. “When Tony the son-in-law came looking for a
of an expert on empires. He is at work on the third seat, that certainly helped him a lot,” Harris explained. Blair’s own
novel of a trilogy about ancient Rome. He is also something of an father, by contrast, was very much on the other side of the political
expert on Tony Blair and would agree that Blair is not stupid. Harris divide. “One of the key things about Tony is that, in essence, he’s a
is one of the best-known of Blair’s former friends—a circle of disaffec- conservative,” Harris observed. He ticked off the evidence: Blair’s
tion that is quite large, and whose ranks include his former chancellor religious conversion (to Catholicism); his views of the role of the
of the Exchequer and successor as prime minister, Gordon Brown; state (limited); his belief in interventionism (the Iraq war).
his former deputy prime minister, John Prescott; and the chairman The 1999 NATO action against then Yugoslav president Slobodan
of News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, whose newspapers helped deliver Milošević’s Serb forces in Kosovo, which Blair supported, made
Blair to 10 Downing Street in the first place. Harris had written favor- him a hero among ethnic Albanians, many of whom were being
ably about Blair in the years leading up to the 1997 campaign, dur- forced from their homes and even killed en masse. Blair was the
ing which he was given unique, behind-the-scenes access, but then he most outspoken advocate of NATO action, even as then president Bill
broke with Blair over his handling of—his enabling of, some would Clinton, along with other world leaders, remained reluctant to com-
say—the Iraq war. Harris’s novel The Ghost was made into the Roman mit troops. (Albanian women did not forget, and in 2010, on a trip
Polanski film The Ghost Writer. It depicts a British prime minister—a to Kosovo, Blair met a group of youngsters who had all been given
thinly veiled Tony Blair—after he leaves office and hires a ghostwriter the name “Tonibler.”) Blair’s support for Bush and the American ef-
to collaborate on his memoirs. In due course, it is revealed that a co- fort in Iraq won him a Congressional Gold Medal—and he delivered
vert C.I.A. spy in the household had manipulated the prime minister what was effectively an acceptance speech before a joint session of
into doing the American government’s bidding while in power. Of Congress in July 2003. He received a standing ovation.

B
Blair’s overall career trajectory, Harris says, “I have a sense of tragedy
about the whole thing—almost in a classic Greek sense of someone ut that was in Washington. In 2004, Blair traveled
who is brought down in a way by their own talents, their own quality, to Libya for his famous “deal in the desert” with
that subtly sets in process their destruction.” the country’s longtime dictator, Muammar Qaddafi.
In 1997, Tony Blair, then 43, was swept into No. 10 Downing Street The deal sparked outrage among the families of vic-
in an election landslide by winning the largest majority of any party tims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, perpetrated
since 1935. In his 2010 memoir, Blair characterized his time in office by a Libyan terrorist who placed explosives on a
as a love affair between himself and the British electorate. In those commercial airliner and blew it up over Scotland, killing all 259
years Bill Clinton was always calling. The Murdoch papers adored people aboard and 11 people on the ground. Following Qaddafi’s
him. The young “New Labour” leader, with his lawyer wife, Cherie, renouncing weapons of mass destruction and support for terrorism,
ushered in the era of Cool Britannia. It was Blair in 2003 who made Blair agreed to normalize relations between the two countries. The
the case for war in Iraq with an eloquence that a tongue-tied President negotiations eventually led to the release back to Libya of the man
George W. Bush could not muster. A Time magazine story called convicted for complicity in the Lockerbie bombing.
Blair “the American Prime Minister.” As the 2005 election in Britain approached, and with Blair’s popu-
As Iraq collapsed, so did Blair’s stature. He had become known larity declining, he and Cherie granted an exclusive interview to The
as “Bush’s poodle” and, owing to statements by Blair that were at Sun, arguably the most influential among Rupert Murdoch’s publica-
variance with what the truth turned out to be, “Bliar.” He has al- tions there. Murdoch’s support had always been crucial to Blair, but this
58 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
 “WHATEVER CRITICISMS
PEOPLE HAVE OF ME,” BLAIR SAYS, “THEY’VE
SELDOM THOUGHT OF ME AS
POLITICALLY STUPID.”
interview in particular was seen as a bald attempt to help Blair shore Blair’s for-profit businesses exist under eight separate corporate
up votes. The three-page feature prompted derision for its discussion of entities, linked together in ways that require little disclosure about ba-
the Blairs’ personal lives. Cherie Blair at one point told her husband sic matters such as how much money they generate and how much
to “strip off” to demonstrate his upper physique. When asked by The money they spend. His for-profit work, which occurs largely through
Sun photographer if he was in good shape, Blair responded, “Very!” Tony Blair Associates, is financed through two main umbrella enti-
The photographer asked, “What, five times a night?” And Blair said, ties: Windrush Ventures and Firerush Ventures. Within those there
“At least.” He added, “I can do it more depending how I feel.” are a total of six “structures,” many of which do not report any
Blair won a third term in office in 2005, albeit with his smallest meaningful financial information. From 2007 to early 2013, accord-
majority. Shortly after he was elected, Blair acknowledged that Iraq ing to Bloomberg, these businesses took in about $90 million. But
had been “deeply divisive” but said that he felt Britain was ready to because of patchy disclosure requirements, these figures likely don’t
move on. The country did move on, very quickly—to the “cash for come close to encompassing the full revenue picture.
honours” scandal. (Several Labour supporters had been nominated Since the Blairs moved out of Downing Street, their London
to life peerages in the House of Lords, allegedly in return for large residence has been a dark-brick town house with a mews house in
donations or loans to the Labour Party. No evidence was found to back, on Connaught Square. Armed guards were milling around
file charges.) It was a good time to depart and maybe try that ex- outside the day I walked by, as in fact they do every day. One neigh-
president thing. Blair resigned in June 2007 and left the government bor joked, after the Blairs moved in, that the good news was that,
in the hands of Gordon Brown. given the security patrol, no one in the neighborhood would ever be
He did not return to Parliament, as most 20th-century prime mugged again; the bad news was that they might get bombed. The
ministers have. “One of the great paradoxes about Tony,” Jack Blairs’ country house, South Pavilion, a Queen Anne mansion in
Straw, who served as Blair’s home secretary until 2001 and then as Buckinghamshire, was once the home of Sir John Gielgud.
his foreign secretary, told me, “is that he was extremely effective in The sources and extent of Blair’s income are impossible to nail
the House of Commons, but never much liked the place. He was down. The directors’ reports and financial accounts published on his
always clear that the moment he ceased to be prime minister, he’d Web site show only the financial statements of the two umbrella com-
cease to be in the House of Commons.” panies through which the operating costs of his global activities are
paid. “They do not represent his earnings or the earnings or the profit

A
III. Complexity and Secrecy of his businesses and are not referable to them,” the Web site states.
Sunday Telegraph analysis of Tony Blair’s travels, “They do not represent either the accounts of his charities or his do-
compiled from public accounts of his movements nations to them.” Blair recently told a gathering of supporters in Lon-
and published in 2012, showed that, during a single don that “reports of my wealth have been greatly exaggerated. Just for
12-month period, Blair made 61 overseas trips total- the record, I read that I’m supposed to be worth £100 million. Cherie
ing almost 224,000 miles—the equivalent, the news- is asking where it is,” he said, to warm laughter. He added that he
paper noted, of traveling to the moon. In addition to wasn’t worth “a half of that, a third of that, a quarter of that, a fifth of
working for Kazakhstan, Blair has reportedly established working rela- that. I could go on.” This is a surprising claim, since the Blair family’s
tionships in Mongolia, China, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Ku- real-estate holdings alone are reportedly worth about $47 million and
wait, Colombia, Brazil, Albania, Peru, South Korea, and Azerbaijan. encompass at least nine homes, including one each for Blair’s three
“Politicians are people who crave relevance,” a former Blair associ- adult children. (A Blair spokesperson says that Blair’s net worth is
ate told me. “You can’t be a global superstar without money.” Still, “roughly equal to what he has given away”: about $15 million.)

T
several former associates told me that it isn’t an obsession with money
per se that drives Blair. Rather, one said, his motivation is a compul- he corporate structure of Blair, Inc., is complicated by
sion for “doing stuff.” Since leaving office, Blair has set up a formi- design. Blair set it up with the help of KPMG, a tax-
dable array of business and philanthropic ventures. Tony Blair Associ- and-auditing firm, and of Robert Barnett, his Wash-
ates, housed in that Grosvenor Square office, handles a wide variety ington, D.C., lawyer and literary agent. Blair wanted
of government advisory contracts and investment deals. As noted, confidentiality from certain forms of scrutiny—spe-
Blair also runs a number of charities. The Africa Governance Initia- cifically from the media. The complex structure of
tive—which receives funding from the Gates Foundation—and the the limited partnerships that house Blair’s various for-profit businesses
Faith Foundation are both based in Marble Arch Tower, overlooking is “clearly not intended by British law, but it is possible under British
Hyde Park. The smaller and humbler Tony Blair Sports Foundation law,” according to Richard Murphy, an influential tax-and-accounting
is based in Newcastle. Blair has also helped establish an organization expert who runs his own consultancy, Tax Research LLP, in Norfolk,
focused on global warming, called Breaking the Climate Deadlock. England. Blair’s structure achieves “close to the secrecy he would have
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 59
 Spotlight
achieved if he was outside the U.K. in a tax haven.” As a result of these
arrangements, no baseline public accounting exists that would outline
how much money Blair’s for-profit work generates. It is known that, tak-
en as a whole, Blair’s various operations employ roughly 200 people.
WHAT HAPPENS
His most significant client is JPMorgan Chase, which reportedly
pays Blair about $3 million a year. Blair appears at multiple cor-
IN VEGAS . . .
porate events for JPMorgan and acts as the head of the company’s
International Council, which means that he is essentially on call for
COMES
high-level advice about global affairs wherever JPMorgan does busi-
ness. “He will drop anything for them,” one former Blair associate
TO BROADWAY
says. Blair does consulting work for Zurich Insurance Group, for
which he receives an estimated $750,000 a year. He is also an adviser
to Abu Dhabi’s investment fund, Mubadala Development Company,
which reportedly pays him about $1.5 million a year. Blair is current-

B
ly looking to open an office in Abu Dhabi.

B
lair had proved himself a skilled broker before leaving of-
fice. In 2007, when he was still prime minister, he made
a trip to Libya in the company of Peter Sutherland, then
the chairman of BP. At the time, officials traveling with
Blair explained that BP had signed a nearly $900 mil-
lion agreement to drill 17 oil wells in Libya. In advance
of another of Blair’s trips to Libya, in 2009, according to an e-mail ob-
tained by The Telegraph, JPMorgan vice-chairman Lord Renwick, at-
tempting to broker a deal between the Libyan Investment Authority and
a Russian aluminum provider, encouraged an L.I.A. vice-chairman to
come to London for a meeting “before Mr. Blair’s visit to Tripoli.”
Blair has repeatedly said that, upon leaving office, all he had were
three employees and a few cell phones. The Blair political machine roadway, Hollywood,

ST Y LE D BY F RE DDI E L E I BA ; CO ST UME S BY B RI A N C. HE M ES AT H ( B US BY, J O S EF S B E RG ); HA I R P RO DUC TS BY O RI BE (DANZA, M C C LURE); MAKE UP PRO DUC TS BY EDWARD
B E S S; NA I L E NA M EL BY NA R S; GROO M I NG PRO DUCTS BY CAUDA LI E ; WI GS BY CHA RL E S G. L A PO I NTE (BUSBY, JO SEFSBE RG, O ’MALLE Y); MAKE UP BY JOANNE GAI R;
at 10 Downing Street had been feared and formidable. But the most and Las Vegas have been cross-pollinating for decades, so
talented and experienced members of that team did not join Blair in a show with roots in all three camps was probably inevi-
his new ventures. His famous spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, and his table—thus Honeymoon in Vegas, a new musical based on
chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, struck out on their own. the 1992 film comedy about a young couple whose wed-

MA N I CUR E BY E L IS A F E RR I ; GRO O MI NG BY S A RA H A PP L EBY; S E T DE SI GN BY S HAWN PAT RI CK A N DE R SO N; FO R DE TAI LS, GO TO VF.CO M/C REDI TS
For his first big consulting job, Blair turned to Kuwait. Blair had met ding plans are waylaid by a lovelorn gangster. The show
the emir of Kuwait in 2007 and received him as a guest at 10 Downing opens in New York this month with Rob McClure, Brynn
Street. In 2009, Tony Blair Associates won a four-year contract with the O’Malley, and Tony Danza re-creating roles played on-
Kuwaiti government worth a reported $40 million—this according to screen by Nicolas Cage, Sarah Jessica Parker, and James
Jonathan Cook, a British journalist who has published a lengthy analy- Caan. The book is by Andrew Bergman, who also wrote
sis of Blair’s Middle East dealings in the Journal of Palestine Studies. the movie, while Jason Robert Brown (Parade, The Bridges
The firm’s government advisory work is to consult on “political and of Madison County) contributes songs that aim to find the
economic trends and governmental reform.” Blair hired a team of sweet spot between vintage musical-comedy tunefulness
consultants to live and work in Kuwait. They produced a report called and Rat Pack–style ring-a-ding-ding.
Kuwait Vision 2035, outlining basic goals in areas such as health and This all sounds nice. But what both you and I really want
education. But the price tag (which Blair’s office said was overstated, to know is: how does the stage show re-create the movie’s
without providing details) drew criticism in Kuwait from opposition most famous scene, where Cage’s character, Jack, jumps
ministers, academics, and newspapers. So did a report that Blair earned out of a plane with a troupe of skydiving Elvis imperson-
$1.5 million advising the royal family on various private matters. ators? “Well, I don’t want to give it away,” says the musi-
Blair made headlines in the business press in 2012 for joining Qa- cal’s director, Gary Griffin, who then gives it halfway
tari prime minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, a major away: “We found a stage trick for it, because we obviously
shareholder in the mining giant Xsastra, and Glencore chief executive can’t literally do what’s in the movie, so what we try to do is
Ivan Glasenberg in an emergency meeting less than 24 hours ahead have some comic fun with your perspective. You really do
of a crucial shareholder vote that paved the way for a $66 billion see Jack jump out of the plane, and you do see him in the
merger between the two companies. Al Thani’s vote of his Xsastra air a bit. The way they land is a trick we devised that uses
shares was crucial in allowing the deal to move forward. Blair report- our set. We thought, Why not have some fun with the fact
edly made $1 million for three hours’ work. Blair also tried to inter- that you’re in a theater?” So it’s not a Spider-Man: Turn Off
vene on the Qatari prime minister’s behalf to make a deal with Paddy the Dark situation, with the show’s seven Elvises flying out
McKillen, the Irish property developer, to buy the hotel group that over the orchestra seats, breaking their necks, and drop-
owns Claridge’s. The Barclay brothers, who own the Telegraph Media ping on audience members? No, no, Griffin insists, none of
Group, eventually won control of the hotels. that, though the Elvises’ role has been expanded from the
Blair signed on in July 2014 to be a member of the Southern film, with their own musical number. That’s the real magic
Corridor Advisory Panel, which includes C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 0 1 of Broadway. – BRUC E HANDY

60 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com PH OTO GRA PH BY RUVEN AFANADOR

 Honeymoon in Vegas
co-stars Tony Danza,
Brynn O’Malley,
and Rob McClure,
flanked by Elvis
impersonators David
Josefsberg and
Barry Busby.

DANZA AND M C CLURE

WEAR CLOTHING
BY MOSCHINO; SHOES BY
SALVATORE FERRAGAMO.
O’MALLEY WEARS
A DRESS BY OSCAR
DE LA RENTA; SHOES
BY JIMMY CHOO;
BRACELET BY KENNETH
JAY LANE.

J ANUARY 2 015 VA NIT Y FAI R 61

62
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JAN UARY
2 015
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 Something
ABOUT
ELLIE
After charming the world in The Office, Bridesmaids,
and 21 Jump Street (not to mention as
the first-ever guest host of The Ellen DeGeneres Show),
Ellie Kemper has scored her own sitcom,
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, created for her
by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock.
CURTIS SITTENFELD, who has known Kemper
since college, reveals what
lies behind that adorable image
A N D A N NE D ITT ME IE R , OF THE SHOWPL AC E A N TIQ U E
& D E SI G N C E N TE R ; PA IN TI N G BY K ATHRYN LYN CH;
F OR D E TA ILS , G O TO V F. COM/ C R E D ITS

Ellie Kemper,
photographed in
New York City.

KEMPER WEARS
A DRESS BY
MIU MIU; BOOTS
BY STUART
WEITZMAN.

JANUARY 2 015 P H OTO G R A P H BY CL AIBORNE SWANSON FRANK 63

E
pression was That girl’s funny, but maybe she’s too pretty to be on The
Office,” Fey says. “But she grew on me because she’s good at down-
playing her prettiness.” When NBC Entertainment chairman Robert
Greenblatt floated the idea of developing a show for Kemper, Fey and
Carlock were intrigued. (The show moved from NBC to Netflix, with
a two-season commitment, in November.)
A few months later—a stretch during which, Fey says, “my job
was to think about Ellie, and it was a lovely job”—a pilot script
existed. Kemper says with a laugh, “In my eyes, it happened
very quickly and seamlessly, because I wasn’t the one writing it.”
Though Kemper has risen to prominence playing versions of her
warm and impeccably polite self, she’s much savvier than her pub-
lic image or any of her roles so far—which I can say with confidence
because (full disclosure) I’ve known her since the late 90s, when she
and my sister Jo became college roommates. I wholeheartedly agree
that Kemper is adorable: she refers to Tina Fey as T.F. instead of
Tina because she doesn’t want to seem name-droppy, she avidly shops
llie Kemper is having a at T. J. Maxx and Marshalls (and chided me for not complimenting
moment. her on the $860 Kate Spade coat she got for around $100), she says
Back in her hometown of St. Louis, on the swank campus of the she regularly wets her pants from laughing too hard, and she bears a
John Burroughs School, where Kemper attended grades 7 through 12 striking resemblance to Strawberry Shortcake. But if I were to pinpoint
before graduating in 1998, the famously adorable actress is receiving a Kemper’s most marked characteristic, I’d say it’s her awareness of
tour of the new performing-arts center from the headmaster. Most of others, her precise attunement to their personalities and moods. And
the tour proceeds calmly—a few current students eye Kemper without you don’t have to have slept on a futon in her dorm room in 2001
comment—but eventually a girl in cowboy boots, a North Face coat, (though I did) to figure out she has an edge, of the good variety—
and a retainer approaches to apologetically announce what a huge fan Google either “Some Relatively Recent College Grads Discuss
she is. Kemper cheerfully engages the girl—“one redhead to another,” Their Maids,” which is a scathing class takedown she wrote for the
as Kemper puts it—and soon the actress has been swarmed, mostly by McSweeney’s Web site in 2007, or a 2013 TEDx talk she gave in St.
bright-eyed, long-haired girls in leggings. “Hi, you’re awesome,” one Louis, in which she likened the question of whether women can be
says. “Are you and Channing Tatum friends?” asks another. A third funny to the distractingly “hot, sour, stale” bad breath of a co-worker
simply declares, “I love you!” at a cocktail party. “Yes, some women are funny,” she said, and “no,
There’s a way of being pleasant but not encouraging, and this isn’t some women aren’t funny. It’s similar to how some women are tall
the tack Kemper takes. Chatting with the teens, she goes well beyond and, you know, some women are short.”
mere politeness—she listens, she asks them questions, and she pretty According to Fey, Kimmy Schmidt will highlight Kemper’s gifts
much implies there’s nowhere she’d rather be than right here. But Kem- beyond sheer adorability: physical comedy, timing, acting skills.
per might need to learn to move things along a bit, because she appears “What she has is this natural sunniness and up energy and pleas-
to be on the cusp of having many more versions of just such moments. ant nature, but you also know that there’s a strength and intelligence
After several years endearing herself to viewers in ensemble or sup- behind it,” Fey says. “We haven’t seen her carry a show yet, and I
porting roles—spending five seasons on NBC’s The Office as bubbly re- think she’s very well equipped to.”

A
ceptionist Erin Hannon; yukking it up as one of the Bridesmaids brides-
maids and then as a teacher in 21 Jump Street (for the record, Channing lthough Kimmy and Kemper share a midwestern
Tatum “couldn’t be nicer”); and subbing in January 2014 as the first charm, there are some rather significant differences,
guest host in the 10-year history of The Ellen DeGeneres Show—Kemper, too. Kemper is the second of four children of a
34, is now stepping into the spotlight. For the new sitcom Unbreakable bank-chairman-and-C.E.O. father and a Princeton
Kimmy Schmidt, which is slated to debut on Netflix in March, Tina Fey University graduate turned stay-at-home mother, both
and her writing and producing partner Robert Carlock tapped Kemper of whom happen to be very funny. Born in Kansas
to be the titular Kimmy: a woman who emerges from 15 years in an un- City, Kemper moved to St. Louis with her family when she was five.
derground bunker (and an Indiana doomsday cult), learns that the world Kemper thrived at Burroughs, and, in one of those magical coinci-
has not, in fact, ended, and embarks on a new life in New York City. dences almost too delightful to be true, as a ninth-grader she took an
Fey and Carlock created the character of Kimmy around Kemper, improv class with Burroughs alum and then recent college grad Jon
whom Fey was familiar with from watching The Office. “My first im- Hamm. Though Kemper allows that Hamm “wasn’t ugly,” she says

TO BE AS ADORABLE AS ELLIE KEMPER

ACTUALLY REQUIRES
A LOT OF EFFORT.
64 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
 she didn’t have a crush on him, because she was 14
and he, at age 23, seemed old. “He wasn’t in Mad Men
at the time, so it wasn’t like anyone was starstruck,”
she says. “I remember him being very serious about
teaching.” Returning the praise, Hamm wrote in an
e-mail that Kemper “was a preternaturally confident
and prepared student. She was easily one of the
youngest (and smallest) in the class, but on stage was
clearly miles ahead in confidence and ability.”
While the advantages of a charmed childhood are
undeniable, Kemper also has long shown a capacity
for hard work. Soon after graduating from Prince-
ton with a degree in English, she settled in New
York and spent her 20s paying her professional FUNNY GIRL
dues: interning for Late Night with Conan O’Brien; Left, Kemper,
aged three, at home
appearing in commercials (including for Wendy’s in Kansas City,
and Kmart); participating several nights a week Missouri. Above,
in improv shows; and writing, sometimes with a partner, her own is three years with Ed Helms in
Season Nine of
shows, humor pieces for McSweeney’s, and headlines that she’d older—and had

image tk
The Office. Right,
submit to The Onion. (She sent in about a hundred before making been friends in the upcoming
The Onion’s front page—and $100—with GRAPES BIG HIT AT AREA first. “There was NBC comedy
PICNIC. Another success was DOG IN PURSE STARES LONGINGLY AT a part of me Unbreakable Kimmy
Schmidt.
DOG IN YARD.) that was like No
Kemper’s acting break came with what was intended to be a time for love! ”
four-episode arc on The Office in the spring of 2009. By that June, Kemper recalls. “I have to focus on my
she’d signed a contract to be a regular for the following season career!” When they did have a conver-
and soon moved from New York to L.A. (With Kimmy Schmidt sation about whether they should be a
filming in New York, Kemper now divides her time between an couple (Kemper claims not to remem-
apartment in the West Village and a house in Los Feliz.) ber who was arguing for which side), it
“It definitely felt like The next stage has started,” Kemper says of resulted in two months of silence be-
that first sitcom job. “The idea of watching The Office and then be- tween them. Then Kemper received an
ing on it felt like a huge leap.” When Will Ferrell guest-starred as e-mail from her mother asking, “Is Michael O.K.?” Koman had
Steve Carell was leaving the show, Kemper had a scene in which the called in sick to work, and Conan O’Brien had, as part of his show,
men gave her character conflicting orders about how to answer done a sketch that involved visiting Koman’s apartment to see if he
the phone. “I had to look from Steve Carell’s eyes to Will Ferrell’s really was under the weather. “Let’s be hon-

{
eyes, back and forth, to determine who I should listen to,” Kemper est,” Kemper says. “I think he probably had @vf.com
says. “I was like, Oh my gosh, what is happening? These are two of a sore throat. But it prompted me to call.” TO SE E VID EO
F RO M T H E S ET,
the funniest men on the planet—and this is a job?” A practicing Catholic, Kemper mar- GO TO VF. CO M /
In 2010, Kemper’s younger sister Carrie became an Office staff ried Koman at New York’s Church of the JA N 2 01 5 .
writer. Carrie now writes for HBO’s Silicon Valley, but during their Blessed Sacrament—and, yes, she invited
Office days the two often ate lunch together. In an e-mail, Kemper the other Bridesmaids actresses. Kristen Wiig and Rose Byrne at-
recalled, “Sometimes she would beat me to my trailer for lunch, and tended, and they all sent gifts from her Williams-Sonoma registry:
our security guard, Joseph, would warn me: ‘Your sister is in there, “There were some wineglasses in there and, like, All-Clad pans.”

J
don’t be scared!’ ”
More female bonding occurred with Bridesmaids, though Kemper ust as the enchantment of a wedding rests, as anybody
says she had no idea that it would become the phenomenon it ulti- who has ever planned one knows, on a foundation of
BY CHR I S HA STO N/ NB CU PHOTO B A NK/ GE T T Y IM AGE S , E RI C L IE B OW IT Z/ NB C
P HOTO GR A PHS : C LO CKWI S E F RO M L EF T, COURTE SY O F THE KE MP ER FA MI LY,

mately did. At the Los Angeles mansion where the bridal-shower logistical grunt work, to be as adorable as Ellie Kemper
scene occurred, the actresses—Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Melissa actually requires a lot of effort. Fey remembers being im-
McCarthy, Rose Byrne, and Wendi McLendon-Covey—spent their pressed with Kemper’s discipline during the shooting of
downtime sitting on a lawn, drinking Diet Sunkist in the heat, and the pilot. In a flashback, Kemper confronts the cult leader
chatting about “nothing of any grave importance,” Kemper says. with evidence contradicting his claim that everything in the world has
“People would do funny voices, but not in an obnoxious way. I kept died except them: a rat she found while cleaning out an air filter.
thinking, When are Maya and Kristen gonna pull out the S.N.L. sto- “I think it was about two o’clock in the morning when we shot it,”
ries? But there really was not much of that.” The shoot, she adds, Fey recalls. “To go in there having to deal with playing the scene, deal-
“was so lovely because there was no ego and everyone was coopera- ing with a rat wrangler, and holding a rat, she had this very specific
tive.” Released in May 2011, Bridesmaids achieved its juggernaut sta- stillness and calm between takes. A lot of people would have been like
tus gradually and ultimately grossed $288 million worldwide. [whiny voice], I don’t like it! Or made a big show of how great they were
The success of Bridesmaids lent a meta aspect to Kemper’s plan- doing handling the rat. And she was just so precise and all-business
ning of her own wedding, to comedy writer Michael Koman, in 2012. take after take. Her calmness made the rat calm.” Fey, who, it’s safe
Kemper and Koman had met on the set of Conan O’Brien—“I was to assume, knows a little something about how much work can go into
an old intern, and he was a young writer,” she says of Koman, who entertaining people, laughed. “It was extremely professional.” 
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 65
 She may be the world’s most powerful woman,
but German chancellor Angela Merkel has governed with the utmost
caution—one of several contradictions that make her an enigma P HOTOG R A PH BY J O CK F IST ICK

at home and abroad. After a year that forced Merkel into

confrontations with Putin and Obama, MAUREEN ORTH explores
how a once frumpy physicist has led her reluctant country
to new prominence on the global stage

66
ANGELA’
VAN IT Y FA IR www.vanityfair.com JA NUA RY 2 015
 DEEP FOCUS
Angela Merkel
shares a moment
with then
French president
Nicolas Sarkozy
during a European
Council meeting,
in Brussels,
March 13, 2008.

S ASSETS
J ANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VV A N I T Y F A I R 67
A
age all these things? She’s not really a woman you can love—ad-
mire and be proud of, yes. But you always feel her killer instinct.”
“She governs by silence,” says Dirk Kurbjuweit of Der Spiegel,
who wrote a 2009 biography of Merkel. “It’s her biggest advantage
and disadvantage. She never says something fast. She waits and waits
to see where the train is going and then she jumps on the train. Part
of this she learned in the G.D.R. [Communist East Germany]. She
knew she had to watch her words—there’s nobody better at [vague]
words than Angela Merkel.”
She is often referred to as the world’s most powerful woman, al-
though those in Merkel’s immediate circle will fix you with looks of
utter disdain for even bringing up such a concept. “That’s done for
media lists—it has no meaning,” an official close to her told me. In
fact, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germans instinctively
recoil at the idea of being powerful because that presumes responsibil-
ity on a global scale that they do not yet seem ready to take. The older
generation still remembers the ravages of Hitler and the Third Reich,
and the younger generation has grown up under the defense umbrella
of the U.S. and NATO, which has been in place for nearly 70 years.
“Germans are just coming out of a phase where they didn’t see
the world the way it was—now they are half in and half out,” former
s the old Market U.S. ambassador to Germany John Kornblum, who has lived in Ger-
Church bells tolled in Hannover last October 3 on German Unity Day, many for more than 40 years, told me. “Merkel is very smart and she

PH OTO GR A PHS : C L OCKW IS E F RO M TOP, © DAVI D B ANK /JAI /CO RBI S, BY UTE GRABOWSKY/PHOTOTHEK/GETT Y I MAGES, © MARC US BRANDT/
commemorating Germany’s re-unification, Angela Merkel walked is trying to manage these illusions while not losing elections.”
briskly over the cobblestones and paused at the entryway of the church In Germany’s parliamentary system, Merkel is head of the center-
to greet a few members of a children’s choir, dressed untraditionally right Christian Democratic Union party (C.D.U.). A year into her
in red sweatshirts and black pants. She herself was in her chancellor- third term, she governs in a grand coalition with the center-left So-

DPA / CO RB I S, © A N DRE A S M ÜHE /AGE NTU R F O C US/CO NTAC T PRE SS I MAGES, FRO M I MAGO /CO MMO N LE NS/NE WSCO M
of-Germany uniform: a brightly colored jacket, simple necklace, black cial Democratic Party (S.P.D.), many of whose programs she has
pants, and low heels. She had TV pancake makeup on, but her appropriated as her own, outflanking them at every turn and leav-
sensible-matron look—cropped, softly colored blond hair, little lip- ing little to debate. “We are a democracy,” Kurbjuweit says. “Gov-
stick—is always carefully calibrated to appear as if she were wearing no ernment needs fights and arguments. We have none anymore.”
makeup at all. Only a couple of security guards could be seen any- Der Spiegel recently revealed that between 2009 and 2013 Merkel
where in the church; there was no fanfare like the playing of “Hail to commissioned 600 secret public-opinion polls on the German elec-
the Chief,” and, going up the aisle, she did not pause to shake hands torate’s feelings. These are what often guide her actions.
with any of the congregation of 1,200 religious leaders, dignitaries, and Merkel has the added advantage that her predecessor, Gerhard
diplomats. To think that only 25 years ago Angela Merkel was a di- Schröder, instituted a number of unpopular structural reforms of
vorced 35-year-old East German physicist specializing in quantum the welfare state—giving management more leeway in laying off em-
chemistry, who was not allowed to set foot in West Berlin and had ployees and streamlining various government benefits—that prob-
never uttered a political opinion in public, was a striking affirmation of ably cost Schröder the 2005 election that saw Merkel come to pow-
both the ability of Germany to recover and her own ability to succeed. er. Ironically, these reforms now allow Merkel to lecture other E.U.
After nine years of her rule, however, many Germans still see her countries about their structural lassitude: the E.U. has only 7 per-
as from the East, not really one of them. They understand that as cent of the world’s population but 50 percent of the world’s social
Merkel plays an ever enlarging role in the world—going head-to-head spending. “All the reforms she has demanded from Greece, Italy,
with Putin, charming China, exasperating and infuriating her Euro- and Spain, she would never, ever, ever ask the German people to do,
pean Union partners with her unyielding demands—she, who wants not remotely,” says Mariam Lau, another Merkel biographer, who is
nothing to do with being seen as a “female” leader, has become The a political correspondent for Die Zeit. “I asked her, ‘How do you
Man striding across the global stage. But, even so, Germans seem imagine the German voter out there?’ She always said, ‘People are
puzzled by Angela Merkel. afraid—the economy might not hold, their jobs might not be there.’
“She came as an outsider and she stayed an outsider,” Ines Pohl, She thinks of her voters as risk-averse, anxious, and nervous.”
editor of the Berlin alternative daily, Die Tageszeitung, commonly Two recent polls illuminate this. In one, 60 percent of the Ger-
known as Taz, told me. “She’s spooky, because how can she man- man people said that Germany should continue to exercise restraint

“YOU ALWAYS FEEL HER

KILLER INSTINCT,”
ONE BERLIN EDITOR SAYS.
68 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
1
2

SHE’S THE MAN

(1) The Chancellery
building, Berlin. (2) Merkel
meets Koni, Vladimir Putin’s
dog, in Sochi, 2007.
(3) Merkel, then secretary-
general of the C.D.U.,
in Bonn, 1999. (4) Merkel’s
office at the Chancellery.
(5) Merkel and German
president Joachim Gauck
cheer Germany’s
World Cup–final victory
over Argentina in Rio de
Janeiro, 2014.

3
5

J ANUARY 2 015 4 VA NIT Y FAI R 69

 in foreign policy. In another, 43 percent said if they ever had to buy Portugal, Spain, Italy—and Ireland. She made few friends along the
anything on credit they’d be embarrassed. way. The Greeks even waved placards of her with a Hitler mustache.
“She’s very popular among the German people, but she doesn’t ap- But the German economy, the richest in the Eurozone, seemed to be
preciate the German people so much. She doesn’t have much trust in purring, if not exactly roaring. During her 2013 campaign, Merkel
them,” says another biographer, Ralph Bollmann, of Frankfurter Allge- said that by 2015 Germany would have a balanced budget—“black
meine Zeitung, the leading conservative daily. “She had an enthusias- zeros”—for the first time since 1969, and even today she still insists
tic image of the state of West Germany, that the people were very dy- she will not back down from that pledge; she will not go into deficit
namic there, were oriented to compete; it was a long and hard process spending to stimulate the German economy despite two consecutive
to learn that Germans are not like that.” According to Bollmann, the flat quarters of growth in 2014 and ominous warnings of recession
chancellor treats the German electorate—which recently gave Merkel a and stagnation in Europe. Germany’s recalcitrance with regard to
74 percent approval rating—“as if they were children.” Her nickname stimulating its own economy has been a continuing thorn in the side—
in Germany is Mutti, or Mommy. (A sticker on a litter can outside my if not a source of outright rage—to markets worldwide.
Berlin hotel said, “Be careful. Mutti is watching you.”) On the security front, when the Iraq war began, in 2003, Germa-
Thus, her mantras: There are no problems, but rather “tasks” to ny refused to be part of the Coalition of the Willing. It also markedly
be resolved using the scientific method of imagining every possible abstained from voting in the U.N. Security Council to join the U.S. in
outcome. Take small steps. Explain very little. “For me, it is always its late bid to intervene in Libya in 2011. It did, however, send 3,000
important that I go through all the possible options for a deci- troops to Afghanistan, where about 800 will remain. For years,
sion,” Merkel said in a TV interview last summer. The process is though, the euro crisis, with Merkel ultimately calling the shots for
rigorous. Merkel, adept at rapid texting, sits in Germany’s Parlia- all 28 member nations, was the major international story for Ger-
ment, the Bundestag, say observers, and frequently texts to an ex- many: America’s relationship with Germany had shifted from being
clusive network of informal advisers who feed her information dur- a security-based relationship to a largely economic one.
ing the proceedings. (Her tight inner circle is led by two women, But 2014, the year Merkel turned 60, changed all that. It brought
known as the “girls’ camp.”) After meticulously making a deci- the crisis in Ukraine, which saw Merkel—not Barack Obama—be-
sion, Merkel then must decide how much “reality” she can spoon come the point person in the transatlantic alliance for dealing with
out at a time to her ever wary country. Putin; the continued diplomatic fallout from the National Security
After the Unity Day church ceremony, the diplomats and reli- Agency’s infamous tapping of Merkel’s cell phone, followed by the
gious heads boarded buses to Hannover’s Neues Rathaus (New revelation that the C.I.A. was attempting to recruit spies in the Ger-
City Hall) to watch a nationally televised commemoration devoted man government; and the war in Gaza, which sparked incidents of
to diversity and the voices of immigrants—a hot topic, since a few German anti-Semitism, causing Merkel to send police to guard syn-
days previously smartphone pictures and videos had emerged of agogues. By early fall Germany had to contend with the news that
two asylum seekers who were abused in a German refugee center. an estimated 500 ISIS jihadists had grown up in Germany. For the
Merkel’s speech was far more direct than usual, observers told me. first time in its postwar history, Germany pledged to send weapons
I thought it might have even been stirring had she not raced through to a foreign country, in this case to Kurdistan in order to help the
its delivery in a monotone, but it sounded as if she was laying the Kurds fight ISIS on the Syrian border.
groundwork for Germany to become more involved in the world. Merkel’s Unity Day speech gave voice to these examples of Ger-
Barely looking up from the page and not using a teleprompter, many’s broadening engagement all over the world. But she omitted
Merkel said the threat of terrorism was “a challenge to the entire the embarrassing fact that the first shipment of weapons—symbols
world—not just the U.S.A., not just the Arab states of the region,” and of the country’s willingness to demonstrate its military prepared-
the battle against it was in “Germany’s interest. Jihadists threaten our ness and to take on greater challenges—had been delayed when the
security here as well. That is why we take up our responsibility, together military plane scheduled to transport it broke down, leading to
with our partners and allies.” Merkel mentioned that the German mili- further reports describing the “shocking state of disrepair of Ger-
tary is involved in 17 different international missions, including humani- many’s military hardware.”
tarian. To an American audience used to exalted talk of making the

T
world safe for democracy and global leadership, the speech would have Back in the G.D.R.
sounded like complete boilerplate, but to the Merkel tea-leaf readers at wenty-five years ago, when the Berlin Wall fell, on No-
the diplomatic reception afterward, there was a definite buzz in the air, vember 9, 1989, Merkel took her regular Thursday-
as if the chancellor had just given Germany the go-ahead to wake up— night sauna. She did not immediately accompany
slowly, cautiously, meticulously—after seven decades of slumber. the elated throngs of East Germans tearing down
“Did you just hear what I heard?” a high-ranking staff member the wall and breaking through. “When I came back
of the German government asked the current U.S. ambassador, out with my sauna bag,” Merkel recently told a
John Emerson. “The times they are a-changing.” group of high-school students in Frankfurt, “I saw how people were

I
running along the street. What happened then I will never forget;
n her Unity Day speech Merkel had quoted a German it was perhaps half past 10 or 11 at night—I just started following
newspaper calling 2014 “a year of pestilence, war, and the crowd. Grandparents were dragging their grandchildren, and the
terror.” Indeed, the past year has hit Merkel like a ton of grandchildren did not even know what was happening to them.”
bricks. For someone who prefers to rule by baby bites, She and a small group landed in a nearby apartment on the other
Merkel has had a great deal on her plate. side of the wall. After phoning an aunt who lived in West Germany
By the time she had won her third term, in September and drinking one beer—“I remember it came in a can which was not
2013, Merkel had already stubbornly maneuvered the euro crisis to familiar to me”—she called it a night, even though it was such an
Germany’s will, demanding, in exchange for not overly generous historic one. “I had to work again early the next morning and was
bailouts, painful structural reforms of the spendthrift South—Greece, an orderly person,” Merkel explained.
70 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
 THE PAST YEAR

HAS HIT MERKEL

LIKE A TON OF BRICKS.
Merkel was also an insatiably curious person and a secretly avid thing but gym and singing,” Wolf Donath, her math teacher for
follower of West German politics. She often fantasized about the four years and principal of the high school, told me.
West. She and her mother, Herlind Kasner, had a pact that if they Merkel’s notorious caution had already manifested itself. During
could ever freely travel to West Berlin they would go to the famous swimming class one day, she stood at the edge of the high diving
Kempinski hotel and eat oysters. “Back then I knew exactly what board at the Templin pool looking down for 45 minutes, until just
I was going to do at 60—go to the police station here in the West. before the class bell rang. Then she finally took the plunge. That
That’s where you gave them your G.D.R. passport, get a West Ger- hesitation was not unlike her waiting, in 2008, until 15 minutes be-
man one, and then you could travel to America. That was my clear fore the markets opened in Tokyo to rescue an ailing German bank
plan. But then it all came to pass a little earlier.” in order to avoid a domino effect that could have been catastrophic
Angela Merkel’s father, Horst Kasner (nicknamed “Red” for his to the German economy.

A
political beliefs), raised his and Herlind’s three children to be very
tight-lipped. “Her father frequently said, ‘Don’t tell your colleagues fter the collapse of the East German regime,
or your teachers at school what is spoken at our table,’ ” says Dirk in 1989, Merkel joined one of the political civic
Kurbjuweit. A Lutheran minister with lifelong anti-capitalist views, groups forming in the East, Democratic Awak-
Kasner had brought his wife and the two-year-old Angela from the ening, then volunteered for the campaign of Lo-
West to live in East Germany. “He was a striking character, very thar de Maizière, who became the G.D.R.’s only
opinionated but also open-minded,” says his longtime neighbor Wer- democratically elected prime minister, in 1990.
ner Foth, who taught English at the high school Angela graduated After college, Merkel had been the secretary for agitprop in the
from in 1972 before heading to Leipzig University to study physics, Free German Youth, a post she claims was basically about or-
eventually earning a doctorate in 1978. “He loved discussions and ganizing events. At any rate, she soon became de Maizière’s depu-
arguing.” Kasner was the head of a seminary that trained minis- ty government spokeswoman. After de Maizière signed the unifica-
ters to be administrators and also educated 200 mentally and physi- tion treaty, on May 18, 1990, which would put Helmut Kohl—who
cally handicapped people who boarded at Waldhof, the compound had served since 1982 as West Germany’s chancellor—in charge
where Angela grew up, outside the small rural town of Templin, 44 of the entire country, he joined Kohl’s right-of-center Christian
miles north of Berlin. She has a younger brother, Marcus, and sis- Democratic Union and took Merkel with him. De Maizière was
ter, Irene, the baby of the family. Her widowed mother, now 86, still soon forced to resign from the C.D.U., after reports surfaced that
lives in Templin and gives adult English classes; she was not allowed he had been a Stasi informer.
to teach under the Communists. In the conservative C.D.U., Merkel was certainly an outlier. She
Templin today is picturesque and immaculately kept, with large had abruptly divorced her first husband—a fellow physics student,
pieces of the original city walls, constructed in the year 1300, still Ulrich Merkel—in 1982, after five years of marriage. She became in-
intact. Only a few unrestored houses suggest how dreary and ugly volved with another scientist, Joachim Sauer, the father of two sons,
it must have been during the 41 years Templin was part of East who got a divorce from his wife of 16 years. The C.D.U. was heavily
Germany and everyone was constantly looking over his or her Catholic, and many of its members expected women to stay home
shoulder in fear of the regime and its henchmen, the Stasi. In ad- and care for the kids; they often considered women who worked as
dition, thousands of the Soviet Union’s Red Army soldiers were sta- Rabenmütter, after the female raven, who abandons her chicks in the
tioned at a nearby base. Religious families like the Kasners were nest, and they frowned on cohabitation before marriage. Neverthe-
automatically suspect under an atheistic government, yet Angela’s less, in 1990, the C.D.U. found a safe seat in the Bundestag for the
intellectual father was determined his three children should have divorced, childless, Lutheran, East German Merkel, and she holds it
university educations. That was not going to be easy unless one got to this day. Back then, old-school pol Kohl, big and effusive, famous-
along with those in power. ly referred to Merkel as mein Mädchen, “my girl.” It didn’t take
“Kasner made his arrangements with the state so that his chil- much to notice her brilliance. It was the intensity of her ambition
dren could get ahead,” charges Ulrich Schöneich, the former these men later found surprising.
mayor of Templin. Schöneich was also the child of a minister, Thanks to Kohl’s patronage, Merkel rose through the C.D.U.
but he was not allowed to attend a pre-college high school, as ranks. Kohl appointed her minister of women and youth in 1991, af-
Angela and her brother were. According to Schöneich and other ter taking her aside at a reception and asking her if she got along with
sources, Angela joined the official Communist youth organization women. Recently released confidential tapes of Kohl reveal his saying
Free German Youth. Marcus, at age 14, went as far as to undergo that in the beginning Merkel “couldn’t eat properly with a knife or
the Jugendweihe (“youth consecration ceremony”), a kind of fork” and “loitered around” state dinners. Nevertheless, Kohl brought
Communist Bar Mitzvah meant to be the “atheist replacement” her to the United States, where she got to meet her girlhood hero,
of Lutheran confirmation, an act that, Schöneich said, shocked Ronald Reagan. As an East German, Merkel had loved his tough
their religious community. Angela—well liked for helping other talk on the Soviet Union. An American official who got to know her
students—and Marcus both got straight A’s. “She could do every- well during that time found her to be warm, C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 0 7
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 71
 Spotlight

Alvin Ailey dancers—

and husband and
wife—Linda Celeste Sims
and Glenn Allen Sims,
at the Ailey Studios,
New York City.

ALL CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR

BY BOTTEGA VENETA.

72 VA N I T Y FA
A II RR PHOTOGRAPH BY BJORN IOOSS JAN UARY 2 015
 An AFFAIR of the ART

C
ome Christmas, New York dance-lovers have three traditional choices: the Rock-
ettes, George Balanchine’s Nutcracker, or Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
About 70 percent of the Ailey programs include Revelations, the late chore-
ographer’s gospel masterpiece, of which a high point is “Fix Me, Jesus,” the pas
de deux danced most frequently by Glenn Allen Sims and his wife, Linda Celeste Sims.
Linda, a New Yorker, joined the 32-member company in 1996; Glenn, from New Jersey,
started a year later; and they were married in 2001, on January 5, Ailey’s birthday. They
have performed “Fix Me, Jesus” nearly 2,000 times, and they have been cast in some 130
P ROD U C TS BY I MA N ; HA I R, MA K E U P, A N D G ROO M IN G BY MARTI N -

of the troupe’s 250 other ballets—as a couple in about 40 of those. Among Us, the last
ST Y LE D BY J U LI E R AG OLI A ; HA I R P RO DU C TS BY AVE DA; MAK E U P

CHRI STOP HE R HA RP ER ; FO R DE TA I L S, G O TO VF.COM/C R E DI TS

work choreographed by Judith Jamison, that giantess among dancers—who took over the
company after Ailey’s death, in 1989, and was succeeded, in 2011, by Robert Battle—
contains a stunning duet for the Simses. (In November, President Obama announced a
posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom for Ailey.) Ailey dancers rehearse and per-
form 43 weeks a year, and they have toured 71 countries. Asked how the Simses stay
fresh in pieces they do so often, Linda says, “Alvin’s work is elegant but also down to earth,
so it’s endlessly fulfilling. You are constantly exploring every part of yourself.” Glenn adds,
“Every new work allows you to be self-investigating. Every night I get to wear four different
hats. That allows me to be a chameleon.” Is “Fix Me, Jesus” their favorite work? “No, I’d
put Alvin’s Night Creature and The River first,” says Linda. Glenn chooses Festa Barocca,
created by Mauro Bigonzetti, with a wonderful section in it for them. The couple’s one
great regret: not to have known Alvin Ailey in person. —WAYNE L AWSON

J ANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VA NIT Y FAI R 73

 The Unma
When a crusading but conflict-averse billionaire bankrolls several of
hard-nosed investigative news organization, it’s a recipe for turmoil. eBay founder
press. Two top hires are out the door. SARAH ELLISON asks whether
74 VAN IT Y FA IR JAN UARY 2 015
 ROCK Y START
From left: First Look
Media founder
Pierre Omidyar and
three of his
most publicized hires—
Glenn Greenwald,
Matt Taibbi (now gone),
and Laura Poitras.

nageables
journalism’s most prominent mavericks to create a
Pierre Omidyar’s differences with First Look Media staff have been all over the
First Look Media can make headlines that aren’t about itself
J ANUARY 2 015 P H OTO I LLU ST RAT I ON BY SEAN M C CABE VA NIT Y FAI R 75
P
“Sanity Returned” when they haven’t bought into the vision, the help of individuals who have made their
it’s really difficult and it’s actually a little bit careers eschewing—when not mocking—news
draining. It’s not something I look forward to organizations of all stripes.
dealing with in the morning. I thought about When the news of Taibbi’s departure
myself actually in the role of leading a cultural broke in New York, four of those individuals—
transformation—that would mean dealing with Poitras, Greenwald, Scahill, and Cook—wrote
talented people who fundamentally disagreed a detailed retrospective on the goings-on at
with me in some cases.” When he imagined First Look, and then dared to publish it on
that scenario, he realized that he wanted to The Intercept. The article located the dispute
avoid it. “I said, O.K., fine, that’s maybe not a with Taibbi within a larger one: the journal-
great idea.” He indulged a small laugh. “Ulti- ists who joined First Look thought they were
mately I think sanity returned.” getting something “free-wheeling” but instead
Don Graham ended up selling the Post had been met with “a confounding array of
and some affiliated publications to Ama- rules, structures, and systems imposed by
zon founder Jeff Bezos for $250 million. Omidyar and other First Look managers.”
But the discussions with Graham had so- The article was journalistic independence
lidified Omidyar’s resolve to dive deeper into as performance art, an act of self-conscious
the world of journalism. Soon afterward, insubordination to defend a fallen comrade—
Omidyar pledged to start his own news or- Taibbi—and salvage the autonomy, or at least
ganization and match Bezos’s investment in the appearance of it, that the entire venture
the Post. He enlisted two of the journalists had been founded on. It was also a kind
who had reported on the Snowden docu- of test for Omidyar. That the four of them
ments: Glenn Greenwald, an aggressive and weren’t disciplined or fired reveals something
sometimes strident columnist and former fundamental about the strange standoff at the
lawyer, who had been writing a column for heart of the enterprise.
ierre Omidyar’s office The Guardian’s U.S. edition, and Laura First Look began in the fall of 2013, amid
in Honolulu occupies the second floor of a Poitras, an Academy Award–nominated a flurry of enthusiasm over the Snowden rev-
low-slung and unassuming commercial build- documentary-film maker, who had been elations, and amid intense pressure to keep
ing, across from a park and a school. Down the first journalist to take Snowden seriously, publishing stories based on his vast cache of
the street is a row of simple restaurants, and and who did the most to bring his revelations documents. An early rush to hire staff—less
when Omidyar is in town, the billionaire to light. They were joined by Jeremy Sca- than two dozen all told—was quickly fol-

PAGE S 74– 75 : P HOTO GRA P HS F RO M T HE B E NN E T GROUP / A .P. I MAGE S ( O MI DYA R ) , BY A DA M BE RRY /G ETT Y I MAGE S (PO I TRAS), FRO M I MAGE SO URC E/R EX USA
( SKY L I NE ) , BY UE SL E I MA RCE L IN O /R EU TE R S/CO RB I S ( GR EE N WA L D) , R I CHA R D RE N A LD I ( TA I B B I ). O PP O SI TE : PHOTO GRAPHS BY JAY L. C LENDENI N/ LOS ANGE LE S
founder of eBay often walks from his office hill, another Academy Award–nominated lowed by a period of caution and circumspec-
to his favorite lunch spot, a place that he documentary-film maker and a writer for tion as Omidyar began to think afresh about

T I M ES / CO NTO UR /GE T T Y I MAGE S ( S CA HI L L) , CHRI STI A N J UN GE B L ODT /L A I F /R E DUX ( O MI DYA R ) , HI RO KO MASUI K E / T HE NE W YOR K T IM E S /REDUX (CO O K )
prefers not to have named, partly because The Nation, who had also cultivated an ag- how he wanted his new journalism venture
he loves it and partly for reasons of security. gressive persona and strong relationships with to look: the kind of thinking that everyone
One morning in June 2013, just days after national-security whistle-blowers. Omidyar agrees would have been helpful to work out
the first stories based on Edward Snowden’s announced that the new endeavor would earlier. The problems at First Look are many,
classified-document trove started appearing have a “core mission around supporting and including an essential culture clash between
in The Guardian and The Washington Post, empowering independent journalists across people who appear to have antithetical opin-
Omidyar received a call there from the Wash- many sectors and beats.” ions about everything from management style
ington Post Company’s chairman and C.E.O., As Omidyar has by now discovered, start- to subject matter to seating arrangements to
Don Graham, who wanted to talk to him ing an organization from scratch was hardly whether journalists should have landlines.
about buying the newspaper. The two had re- a safeguard against dealing with people who Disagreements over “process” have been at
cently exchanged messages about the Post but fundamentally disagreed with him. First Look once petty and paralyzing.
had never before spoken directly. Omidyar Media, as Omidyar’s enterprise has come to be Here’s the basic recipe: Combine two types
was intrigued by Graham’s passionate pitch called, is beset by staff turmoil and dissatis- of strong-willed visionary—one cool and ana-
for the kind of public-service journalism the faction. One of its most high-profile journal- lytical, the other fervent and outspoken. Add
Post produces. The two men continued to ists, former Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi, a dash of messianic outlook to the ingredients.
correspond over the summer. During those left last October after clashing with Omidyar Heat under pressure. Could the result have
months, Omidyar read the autobiography of and his deputies, amid allegations of insub- turned out any other way?
Graham’s mother, Katharine Graham, who ordination and possibly gender-based hostil-

I
had been the publisher of the Post when the ity on Taibbi’s part. John Cook, editor in chief Looking for a Business
newspaper ran its stories on Watergate and of what is so far First Look’s only publica- first met with Omidyar, who is 47,
the Pentagon Papers. As a memoir reader, he tion, The Intercept, is leaving the site at the end in September, in a small conference
was all business: “I tried to skim through some of 2014 to return to his former employer, the room in his Honolulu office. He did
of the personal stories, just focus on the news- gossip-and-news site Gawker. These departures not exactly look strong-willed or vi-
paper ones,” Omidyar told me when I visited have laid bare how Omidyar’s process-driven sionary. He wore a blue polo shirt,
him in Hawaii last fall. “I got excited about it.” approach to management clashed with the jeans, a red woven necklace, and
But it was not to be. In the end, Graham ways of the independent-minded journalists he a wooden beaded bracelet. His dark hair,
named a price that Omidyar thought too high. hired. In many respects, the current turmoil was which he once wore in a ponytail, was cut
There was a larger issue, too. Omidyar is ad- entirely predictable. “He hired a newsroom of short, a streak of gray above his forehead.
mittedly conflict-averse, and when considering unmanageables,” one veteran newspaper edi- He is a fan of Battlestar Galactica and occa-
the Post, “I just remembered instances in my tor told me. More specifically, Omidyar is at- sionally referees his children’s soccer games.
history where when people aren’t fully aligned, tempting to create a news organization with The laid-back effect gives no hint of his drive
76 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
or his fixity of purpose. Omidyar told me
that early on in his professional life he wanted
to be removed from Silicon Valley in order to TURNOVER
“have space to think” and to get away from Clockwise from right:
eBay’s Omidyar
the Valley’s increasing focus “on money and with company C.E.O.
wealth.” In 2006 he moved to Hawaii, where Meg Whitman,
both he and his wife, Pam, had spent parts 2001; John Cook,
of their childhood. The couple bought a editor in chief of The
home in the upscale Kahala neighborhood Intercept, who has
now returned to
of Honolulu. Omidyar also reportedly owns Gawker; First Look’s
a 640-acre ranch in Montana, a place that Jeremy Scahill.
could serve as his solar-powered
safe house. He keeps two private
jets in Hawaii. This is a man
with a worldview and opinions
about the future.
Pierre Morad Omidyar was
born in Paris in 1967 to well-
to-do Iranian immigrants who
had gone to France for universi-
ty. His mother, a linguist, would
eventually earn her Ph.D. at
the Sorbonne. His father at-
tended medical school. When
Omidyar was six years old, the
family moved to Washington,
D.C., so his father could begin
a residency at Johns Hopkins.
His parents separated when
he was young. According to
the book The Perfect Store:
Inside eBay, in seventh grade,
Omidyar would sneak out of
gym class to play around on his
science teacher’s Radio Shack
TRS-80. He taught himself
BASIC programming. The next year, in eighth job, and he took a semester off
grade, Omidyar and his mother moved to from school to keep it. Omidyar
Hawaii so his mother could pursue field- finished up college at Berkeley.

A
work. He attended the prestigious Punahou Labor Day weekend in 1995 when, in the ex-
School (Barack Obama’s alma mater— fter graduation, Omidyar tra bedroom of his town house, he created a
Obama had graduated the year before); found work for a short time clunky auction site that allowed Internet us-
completed high school at St. Andrew’s at an Apple subsidiary ers to buy goods from one another. He called
Episcopal School, in Potomac, Maryland; called Claris. From Claris, it AuctionWeb—an early iteration of eBay.
and went on to college at Tufts, where he he launched a start-up (for Two years earlier Omidyar had met a
met Pam, who was studying biology (she pen-based computing, later Stanford business-school graduate, Jeff Skoll,
went on to get a master’s in plant molecu- popularized by Palm), which was eventually now chairman of Participant Media, who
lar genetics from U.C. Santa Cruz). The bought by Microsoft, making Omidyar a mil- was working at the time for Knight Rid-
summer of his junior year, Omidyar got an lionaire before he was 30. Omidyar was one der, attempting to develop the company’s
internship as a Macintosh programmer in of the many programmers of that era looking Internet strategy. Skoll was initially skeptical
Silicon Valley. The internship turned into a for a new business idea, and he found it over about eBay, but he eventually went to work for

AT FIRST LOOK,
IT WAS HARD TO KNOW WHO WAS
RUNNING THE SHOW—
OR EVEN WHAT THE SHOW WAS.
JA NUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 77
 Spotlight
Omidyar as eBay’s first employee. Skoll talked
to me about how revolutionary (and counter-
intuitive) the idea behind eBay—allowing total
strangers to exchange goods—seemed in the PRETTY
1990s. “It was a time when nobody trusted
the Internet,” he recalls. Omidyar’s key in- in PYNCHON
sight was that “people are generally good and
if they have information they’ll act on it.”
eBay went public in 1998, making Omidyar
a billionaire. Omidyar is conscious of his rapid
rise to wealth: “I created the company in Sep-
tember of 1995… It was public in September
of ’98. I mean, you are talking three years of
operation, right? I mean, it’s insane.” He is
worth roughly $8 billion today. Omidyar gave
up day-to-day responsibilities at eBay in 1999
(though he remains the company’s chairman).

I
He and Pam spent the next 15 years devoted
to building a number of philanthropic endeav-

‘
ors that became the Omidyar Group. They
have dedicated $1.5 billion to these causes and
other public-service ventures.
Then, like billionaires before him, Pierre
Omidyar caught the media bug.

O
The Arianna Factor
midyar recalls that, even be-
fore the Snowden revelations,
a series of aggressive moves
by the Justice Department
had gotten his attention. The
federal government, in 2012,
am pretty sure I will
had wiretapped Associated Press reporters in
never get a better character name than Japonica Fenway,”
search of the source of an A.P. story. Two years
earlier, the Justice Department had named Fox says Sasha Pieterse of her role in director Paul Thomas An-
reporter James Rosen as a “co-conspirator” derson’s Inherent Vice, based on the 2009 Thomas Pynchon
in a leak case. Both episodes became public in novel. “She is super off-the-wall and basically very dam-
the spring of 2013 and alarmed Omidyar. aged on the inside—she’s a runaway and a cocaine addict.”
Then he spent the summer talking to Don The 18-year-old actress grew up under brighter circum-
Graham, and watching the Snowden revela- stances, as the only child of acrobatic dancers. “My dad
tions unfold. “I think Don Graham sort of threw my mom around for a living,” she says. Born in Johan-
ended up getting a ‘two for one’ as far as the nesburg, Pieterse (pronounced Pee-tur-suh) moved with her

ST Y L E D BY DEB O RA H A F SH A NI ; HA I R PROD UCTS BY B UM B LE A N D B UMB L E ; M A KE UP P RO DUC TS BY L A NC Ô ME;

industry goes, right?,” Omidyar says now. parents to Las Vegas when she was three. By the time she

DE BB I E L EAVI T T; P RO DUC E D O N L OCATI O N BY M A RY J E A N RI B A S; F O R DE TA I LS , GO TO V F.CO M /CR E DI TS

NA I L E NA M EL BY SH ES WA I L ACQ UE R; HA I R BY MA K IKO NA R A ; MA KE UP BY KATHY J EU NG; M A NI C URE BY
“Because he did the right thing for the pa- was five she was working consistently as an actress. Best
per, he got some new capital and a commit- known for her work on ABC Family’s long-running teenage
ted owner. And he got me thinking seriously drama series Pretty Little Liars, Pieterse says, “I grew up on
about journalism and what I could contrib- that show and it has given me such a great platform.”
ute to that in the context of buying his paper. Inherent Vice, due out December 12 from Warner Bros.,
But then our tracks diverged.” launches Pieterse into the acting stratosphere, alongside
Omidyar’s track led him to Arianna Huf- Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Larry “Doc” Sportello (think Bo-
fington, who in early September 2013 had gart’s Sam Spade as a stoner), Reese Witherspoon, Martin
flown to Hawaii to launch Huffington Post
Short, Owen Wilson, Josh Brolin, and others in a sprawling
Hawaii in partnership with Omidyar’s own
cast. It’s set in Los Angeles at the end of the 1960s, after the
Honolulu Civil Beat, an online investigative
Manson murders, and follows Doc as he attempts to crack
news organization established in 2010. Civil
Beat was created to provide an alternative to the disappearance of a real-estate mogul while navigating a
what some saw as the relaxed “aloha spirit” of city of burnouts, beach bums, and loan sharks.
Hawaiian journalism. The co-founder, Randy Pieterse, despite her age, was already well versed
Ching, is a former eBay executive, and the in Anderson’s films when she got the call. “The first one I
first editor was John Temple, who had been saw was There Will Be Blood and I fell in love with it, and
the editor and publisher of Denver’s Rocky I just kept going, with Boogie Nights and The Master,” she
Mountain News and a top editor at The Wash- says. “I don’t think there is any other director except Paul
ington Post. (Both men would figure promi- who could pull this off. He and Pynchon tend to tell stories
nently in First Look C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 0 4 in the same way.” — KRISTA SMITH

78 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com PH OTO GRA PH BY RENE & RADKA

 Sasha Pieterse,
photographed
in Altadena,
California.

PIETERSE WEARS
CLOTHING BY
FENDI; JEWELRY
BY VAN CLEEF
& ARPELS.

J ANUARY 2 015 VA NIT Y FAI R 79

 The planet’s best-selling author since 2001, James Patterson
has more than 300 million copies of his books in print, an army of co-writers,
several TV deals in the works, and an estimated income of $90 million
last year alone. But where’s the respect? Exploring the contradictions of this
one-man publishing conglomerate, TODD S. PURDUM learns how Patterson’s
childhood and advertising career made him the ultimate storyteller

The HENRY FO
80 VAN IT Y FA IR www.vanityfair.com JA NUA RY 2 015
 AUTHOR,
AUTHOR!
The prolific
novelist James
Patterson, on
the writing bed at
his home in
Briarcliff Manor,
New York.
G ROOMI NG BY C A ND I CE F OR NE S S

RD of BOOKS J ANUARY 2 015 P H OTOG R AP H S BY G A S P E R T R I N G A L E VA NIT Y FAI R 81

 I
Works in Progress print worldwide, Patterson is the great white readers—across a sea of genres, accounting,
shark of novelists, a relentless writing ma- by his own estimate, for about 30 percent of
chine who has to keep swimming forward in Little, Brown’s total revenues. He is intimately
order to feed, and who, together with his involved in designing his books and devising
army of about two dozen credited co-writers, their marketing and advertising campaigns,
has been the planet’s best-selling author with the help of a special in-house unit of half
since 2001 (ahead of J. K. Rowling, Nora a dozen staffers at Little, Brown dedicated
Roberts, Dr. Seuss, and John Grisham). Of solely to serving the Patterson empire.
all the hardcover fiction sold in the U.S. in “I’m sure there’s no publishing relationship
2013, books by Patterson accounted for one like it,” Michael Pietsch—Patterson’s former
out of every 26. Altogether, he has produced editor who is now C.E.O. of Hachette Book
more than 130 separate works—the “books Group (Little, Brown’s parent company)—
by” page in his latest novels actually takes up told me recently. “Jim is the smartest person
three full pages. Forbes estimates his income I’ve ever worked with, across a vast landscape
for the year ending last June at $90 million. of things you can be brilliant about—sus-
When I had a chance to ask Patterson about pense, emotions, and readers’ expectations
that figure, he at first said, “I don’t know,” and how to work them.” Pietsch said Pat-
and then followed up with “Yeah, probably.” terson had built “a kind of studio system in
The first 25 years of Patterson’s career which he can imagine these stories into being,
were spent in advertising, culminating with then work with co-authors so that these sto-
his tenure as C.E.O. of the North American ries come into the world.”
t seems some- branch of J. Walter Thompson, the giant in- Indeed, Patterson is to publishing what
how fitting that James Patterson, the adver- ternational agency, where he was also creative Thomas Kinkade was to painting, or the tele-
tising Mad Man turned impresario of the director and led the “Aren’t You Hungry?” vision producer John Wells was to a series like
global thriller industry, spends his summers campaign for Burger King, while writing fic- E.R. He is not a tortured artist in a garret but
perched high above the Hudson River in tion on the side. His first novel, The Thomas rather presides over an atelier that produces
Westchester County, halfway between Don Berryman Number, about a Nashville newspa- mass popular entertainment on an astonishing
Draper’s Ossining and Washington Irving’s perman on a murderer’s trail, was rejected by scale. He once said of his work, in a profile a
Sleepy Hollow, where the Headless Horse- 31 publishers before Little, Brown published decade ago, “I look at it the way Henry Ford
man once roamed the roads by night. Per- it, in 1976. It won the Edgar Award for best would look at it.” The remark has gained cur-
haps no author in literary history has more first novel from the Mystery Writers of Amer- rency. Patterson today is busier than ever, in the
seamlessly melded commerce and creepiness ica, but sold only about 10,000 copies. Since midst of his current 24-book contract, prepar-
to create an international brand, one that has then—and especially since 1996, when he quit ing to launch a TV series based on his thriller
transformed a wide swath of the publish- advertising to write full-time—Patterson has Zoo, and cam-
ing industry and given Patterson not only a proved that his readers have insatiable appe- paigning with
MAKING IT
Rockefeller’s river view but a Rockefeller’s tites. He has produced a slew of books—detec- personal appear- From left: Patterson
bank account to boot. tive series, stand-alone romances, illustrated ances and his in the mid-1970s, early
With 305 million copies of his books in novels for young adults and for middle-school deep pockets in in his career at
J. Walter Thompson.
The family home
in Palm Beach—“kind
of obnoxious,”
Patterson says. The
view over the
Hudson from the
Patterson house
in Briarcliff Manor.

82 VAN IT Y FA IR
 WHEN AN INTERVIEWER
ASKED PATTERSON ABOUT HIS PROCESS OF
“CHURNING OUT” BOOKS, HE SAID,
“YOU MEAN CRAFTING?”

T
support of young-adult literacy and indepen- here have been blockbuster Roughan: “Nora and Gordon continue their
dent bookstores. He has also been outspoken, authors for years, from a quick banter, funny and loving. We like them.
loudly and prominently, on the subject of the smashing one-off such as They’re good together—and not just when
long dispute—settled in November—between Margaret Mitchell to peren- they’re standing up. A minute later the two
Amazon and Hachette Book Group, in the nial favorites such as Dean engage in some terrific, earth-moving sex. It
course of which the online retailer had penal- Koontz and Dan Brown. makes us feel great, horny, and envious.”
ized Hachette writers. Because Patterson is a The Stratemeyer Syndicate deployed a battal- I caught up with Patterson as he was
Little, Brown author, many of his own books ion of ghostwriters to produce Nancy Drew, about to make his annual fall migration from
felt the pinch—they were often not in stock, or Hardy Boys, and Bobbsey Twins stories for his summer place in Briarcliff Manor, New
were unavailable for pre-order. (Books of Pat- generations of readers. But even his detractors York—a roomy fieldstone house done in
terson’s on Amazon’s Top 100 list, like anyone agree that Patterson is in a class by himself. tasteful blue-and-white shades with a pool
else’s on that list, tended not to be affected.) One secret to his success: outlines of up to and terrace straight off the cover of a Front-
CO URTESY O F THE J. WALTE R THO MPSO N ARCHI VES (PATTE RSO N)

Speaking to BookExpo America last spring, 80 pages for each book, in which Patterson gate catalogue—to his primary residence, a
PHOTO GRAPHS © JESSI C A KLEWI CKI GLYNN (PALM BE ACH),

Patterson told the audience of publishers and alone sketches virtually all the action in de- 20,000-square-foot oceanfront home in Palm
booksellers, “If Amazon is the new American tail, in a brisk and breezy tone that mirrors Beach that he was quick to say is “pretty
way, then maybe it has to be changed.” the finished books. For the novels on which fucking … kind of obnoxious.” Chipper and
Not surprisingly, his published output has he works with co-authors (some recruited cheery at 67, with a ruddy face, twinkling blue
drawn its share of detractors. Stephen King from his days at J. Walter Thompson, some eyes, and sandy hair gone to gray, and dressed
once dismissed Patterson as a “terrible writ- recommended by other writers, one a former in the soft lamb’s-wool sweater, polo shirt, and
er” who is “very, very successful.” The head New York City doorman), Patterson sends moccasins of the retired executive he is, Pat-
of one rival publishing house said to me of his collaborator an outline, then revises the re- terson received me in a light-filled workspace
Patterson’s method, “It’s a little disrespectful sulting manuscript multiple times. Here is an whose dominant feature is a big sleigh bed,
to say it’s paint by numbers, but it is a little excerpt from the first-chapter outline for Hon- where he writes longhand on old-fashioned
bit paint by numbers. Does that make him eymoon, a 2005 thriller about a black-widow yellow pads, with the silver ribbon of the Hud-
bad? No, I think it makes him smart.” killer, which Patterson co-wrote with Howard son below him and framed New York Times

J ANUARY 2 015 VA NIT Y FAI R 83

 best-seller lists and posters from the movie ver- TV “show-runner,” who sets a series in motion blockbuster success, in 1993, is by now the
sions of his books filling the walls. All around and guides its tone and pace, no matter who stuff of publishing-industry lore. Patterson
us are thick stacks of manuscripts in prog- else might write individual episodes. “And believed the surest path to success was to
ress, each topped by a light-blue cover page. they don’t take shit like I do,” he says of some- use television advertising, a strategy then all
A folder is emblazoned in bold type: IDEAS. one such as Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking but unheard of in publishing because of the
Glittering honors dot the shelves. “I honestly Bad. “They go, ‘Gilligan! This guy’s great!’ ” high cost. Little, Brown balked, but Patter-
don’t know,” Patterson said when I asked son knew the tricks of his trade: he created

F
him to identify one statuette. “I think this is a “My Way or the Highway” and shot his own commercial. After seeing
Clio”—advertising’s highest award. The deco- or someone who says he “nev- the finished product, the publisher agreed
rating is the work of his wife, Sue, a former er cared for” the ad game, to share the cost of broadcasting it in three
J. Walter Thompson art director, whom he Patterson was awfully good markets—New York, Chicago, and Washing-
met at work and married 17 years ago. at it. He insists today that his ton—cities where (Patterson had determined)
Patterson is the undisputed king of the first profession has limited rel- thrillers sold briskly. The book started out at
digital publishing age, but he remains an ana- evance to his second, but the No. 9 on the New York Times best-seller list,
log kind of guy. A small Lucite frame on his record strongly suggests otherwise. eventually climbing to No. 2 in paperback.
office table holds this instruction: “How to In the 1930s, J. Walter Thompson wrote With more than five million copies in print, it
Google: Press Safari icon at bottom of your the ads that made the grilled-cheese sand- is still Patterson’s single most successful work.
iPad.” He speaks in stop-and-start sentences, wich into a national staple, all to boost the Patterson built the Cross franchise into a
as if racing to keep pace with his own thoughts. sales of its client, Kraft Foods, a maker of successful series, then branched out into stand-
And he can be touchy about his reputation processed cheese. Patterson has done some- alone books. In 1996, he proposed trying
for mass production. When an interviewer for thing similar: he has built a powerhouse something more radical: publishing multiple
the Catholic-themed Eternal Word Television brand, then spread it wider and wider. The titles a year. Little, Brown objected, fearing
Network asked him last spring about his pro- story behind Along Came a Spider, the tale that Patterson would diminish his overall sales,
cess of “churning out” books, he interrupted of Alex Cross, a widowed, jazz-playing, but he prevailed: sales soared.
with a steely glint in his eye, saying, “You African-American detective with a degree in When Patterson’s only son, Jack, now 16
mean crafting?” His work is akin to that of a forensic psychology, which became his first and a student at Hotchkiss, was in grade

PATTERSON’S PREFERRED OBITUARY: “HE WAS

SLOWING DOWN
AT 101, AND HAD ONLY
FINISHED FOUR NOVELS THAT YEAR.”
84 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
 COMING SOON
An assembly line of
James Patterson
works in progress,
written from detailed
outlines with a school and prov- Bill, did you recently write an international with candor about things he doesn’t like,
team of collaborators. ing to be a reluc- best-seller that I’m not aware of?’ ” which is a rarity for an author in the pub-
tant reader, Pat- Patterson’s formula is brutally simple. lishing business.”
terson decided to take aim at a new His books have lots of periods in the para- And Patterson is emphatically in busi-
demographic. As he put it when we spoke, graphs, lots of paragraphs per page, and ness. A few years ago, he dropped his long-
“I can write for these little creeps.” Patter- very few pages per chapter—as few as three time agency, William Morris, in favor of the
son launched a multi-series line of young- or four. Each chapter begins with a quick Washington superlawyer Robert Barnett.
adult and children’s novels—“Maximum reminder of people and events in the prior (Disclosure: Barnett also happens to be my
Ride,” “Witch & Wizard,” “Treasure Hunt- one (to refresh the memory of any sleepy agent.) His former agent, Jennifer Rudolph
ers,” and “I Funny”—that fill not only the reader who put the book down the night Walsh, maintains there are no hard feelings.
shelves of every Barnes & Noble but those before), and most books end with a bonus “He didn’t cost us tens of millions of dol-
of your local grocery store too. Now Pat- “free preview” chapter of another book in lars,” she told me. “He made us tens of mil-
terson produces a dozen titles a year, and Patterson’s voluminous oeuvre. lions of dollars.”
there seems to be no upward limit to his It is no insult to say that the prose is of-

P
overall sales. ten bad, as in this example from Unlucky A Devil Inside Him?

O
13—the latest installment in Patterson’s atterson’s self-presentation is
ver time, Patterson has “Women’s Murder Club” series, co-authored remarkably sunny. His mid-
built a reputation for not with Maxine Paetro—describing a terrorist day tipple of choice is a bottle
suffering fools, and for de- who has hijacked a luxury cruise ship: of Stewart’s Orange ’n Cream
manding from Little, “The sight of the man, the way he walked, soda, and midway through
Brown’s marketing team his hardy-har attitude, and the random mur- our talk, Patterson’s wife
more rigorous research ders were so crazy-making, she felt this brought in a plate of freshly baked chocolate-
and analysis of the sort he was used to on close to going bug-fuck.” And here is the chip cookies, a signature gesture of Sue’s hos-
Madison Avenue. He works publicists hard scene on the ship: “A gas lamp that had pitality that I have seen mentioned by others
on book tours. In a “What I’ve Learned” been placed on top of the piano threw a who have met with Patterson.
video he recorded for the Literary Guild, dim light over the formerly elegant room, But Patterson’s stories can be raw, with
Patterson declared, “I know what I want in which now looked debased, like a used-up more than their share of sexual sadism—
all my books. It’s my way or the highway. I exotic dancer turning tricks on the street.” sliced breasts, sodomy by snake—and socio-
know who my readers are and how to en- The buzz in publishing circles is that suc- pathic killers. “I’m inside all of you!” the
gage them, how to scare them, how to get cess may have mellowed Patterson some- murderer in Invisible, one of Patterson’s lat-
people to feel for the characters, how to what, that he is no longer so insistent and est thrillers, declares. “The only difference
make my readers laugh.” Bill Robinson, demanding. “I always thought he was a to- is I don’t hide behind some mask, driving
co-president at James Patterson Entertain- tal dick,” one non–Little, Brown executive my SUV and sipping Starbucks at my kid’s
ment, the company dedicated to promot- told me. “I think that’s not fair now.” soccer game.”
ing Patterson’s efforts for film and televi- Pietsch, who is not only Patterson’s ultimate Is there a devil inside James Patterson?, I
sion, recounted an exchange with his boss. boss but a friend and neighbor in Westches- asked. “Not a murderer!” he said with a laugh.
“The other day we were discussing notes on ter, says diplomatically, “Having run a big “Or if there was, I’m not telling Vanity Fair.”
a project, and I suggested something con- corporation in a talent-based industry gave But there is darkness. James Brendan Pat-
trary to his impulse, and he said, ‘I’m sorry, him a great deal of confidence in speaking terson grew up in C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 0 0
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 85
 Balanchine’s
CHRISTMA
86 VAN IT Y FA IR www.vanityfair.com P H OTOG R AP H S BY H E N RY L E U T W Y L E R JA NUA RY 2 015
 FLOWER POWER
“Waltz of the
Flowers,” featuring
Dewdrop, from
a 2013 performance
of the New York
City Ballet’s
The Nutcracker.

Fifty years ago, George Balanchine finally staged the Nutcracker of his
dreams, a triumph for the New York City Ballet in its then new Lincoln Center
home. LAURA JACOBS tells how Balanchine’s childhood Christmases,
his youth in St. Petersburg (dancing multiple roles in The Nutcracker himself),
and his 41-foot tree sparked an American holiday tradition

S MIRACLE
J ANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VA NIT Y FAI R 87
‘P
ter that came the December 11 transplant of In the middle of Nutcracker it’s kind of un-
The Nutcracker, Balanchine’s stunningly suc- usual to have one or two more bows.”
cessful achievement of 1954. Allegra Kent, who was just returning
The first of his five full-length ballets, this from the birth of her second child when she
was the Nutcracker that launched the hun- danced the Sugarplum Fairy, recalls, “It was
dreds of Nutcracker ballets that now domi- thrilling! Bigger stage, farther to run, farther
nate America’s Decembers. Act One centers to jump, more expansive, more magic, more
on a little girl named Marie, who through exultation in your blood.”
the conjuring of her godfather, Herr Dros- Down in the orchestra pit, the timpanist
selmeier, encounters a nutcracker doll who Arnold Goldberg was positioned, as always,
becomes a prince, a Christmas tree that to see Balanchine in his usual place, down-
grows like Jack’s beanstalk, toy soldiers bat- stage right. What Goldberg hasn’t forgotten
tling mice, and a blizzard. Act Two alights in five decades of State Theater Nutcrackers
in the Land of Sweets, where the Sugarplum is the first time the Christmas tree—this one
Fairy reigns. In preparation for its State The- bigger, better, and more beautiful than be-
ater debut, The Nutcracker was given the fore—began its inexorable growth upward. It
Emerald City treatment—new sets, new cos- wasn’t the 4:45 performance but the dress
tumes, a few revisions, and a gloriously soar- rehearsal, and Goldberg was watching not
ing scale. For 16 years, since the beginning of the tree but Balanchine. “He’s standing
N.Y.C.B., Balanchine had been thinking big with his hands in his jeans pockets, looking
but had to execute it all on a small stage and around,” says Goldberg. “And it came up.
a shoestring, training his dancers to move as He was breathless. It was priceless, the joy
erformance a big if there were no limits even as they smacked of watching Mr. B.’s face … I mean, he’d
big success,” wrote the great American danc- into stagehands while careening into the dreamt about it. He had the stage built so
er Jacques d’Amboise in his journal entry of wings. For 40 years, since leaving Russia in that the tree could be one piece. That tree
December 11, 1964. “Karinska’s costumes— 1924, he’d recalled with longing the lavishly meant everything to The Nutcracker.”

I
Rouben’s set—production a tremendous outfitted stage of St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky
triumph. Mrs. Kennedy and John John and Theatre, upon which he came of age. t was always about the tree. Bal-
Caroline there—Allegra [Kent] danced pas de Finally, on December 11, 1964, at 4:45 in anchine never pretended other-
deux very well—Balanchine after said it was the afternoon, reality caught up with his vision. wise. His Mariinsky history, carried
the best dancing I had done—Karinska said “I recall sitting in the chair right before lightly yet lovingly, was often be-
a friend asked her what was in the costume the curtain going up,” says Jean-Pierre Froh- hind the decisions he made about
that made me stay in the air—‘Love.’ ” lich, who 50 years ago danced the role of this or that ballet—especially in the
It was a big big year, 1964—a trium- bratty little boy Fritz in that afternoon’s years from 1948 to 1964, when the young
phant year for George Balanchine, Lincoln performance. “It’s strange to explain, but company was dancing at the former Mecca
Kirstein, and the company they’d founded in the overture you’re between the angel Temple, a theater of Moorish design on West
in 1948, the New York City Ballet. Janu- curtain and the scrim, and for some reason 55th Street. Run by the New York City Cen-
ary sailed in with a momentous windfall: in that angel drop was moving forward, moving ter of Music and Drama, Inc.—and therefore
mid-December of ’63 the Ford Foundation forward, moving forward—because of all the called “City Center”—the theater had a stage
had announced that nearly $6 million of air. There’s a lot of air in that theater.” that was unpleasantly cramped, with no frills
its $7.7 million dance budget would go to “It was very exciting,” says Gloria Govrin, to speak of. The St. Petersburg theater Bal-
N.Y.C.B. and its School of American Ballet who that day unveiled a sinuous new version anchine had grown up in was all frills, with
(S.A.B.), a show of Establishment support of the Arabian Coffee dance in Act Two. A all manner of special effects made possible
that crowned the company first among its “mini-Salome,” Balanchine called it. Previ- by a large stage with traps, wings, and a high
peers in American dance. On April 23, the ously the piece had been for a man with a fly space, not to mention the deep pockets
N.Y.C.B. profile rose still higher. In a nation- hookah and four little-girl parrots. But Bal- of the czar. When it came to Tchaikovsky’s
ally televised broadcast the company was anchine decided, “We’re going to wake up big three—the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleep-
welcomed into the New York State Theater, the fathers,” and so for glamorous Govrin, all ing Beauty, and The Nutcracker—Balanchine
one of the brand-new venues that made up five feet ten of her, he fashioned a seductive had seen them ideally produced on their na-
Manhattan’s campus of culture, the Lincoln solo of Georgian Orientalism. “I remember tive ground. He never attempted The Sleeping
Center for the Performing Arts. In his diary, the reception of doing it,” says Govrin, “be- Beauty, even at the State Theater, because ev-
Kirstein called it “the best theater for dance cause nobody knew there was going to be a ery time he wanted to do it—first for Suzanne
in America (the world?).” Eight months af- change. It got a huge ovation, several bows. Farrell, then for Gelsey Kirkland, then for

“FOR ME CHRISTMAS WAS SOMETHING

EXTRAORDINARY,”
SAID BALANCHINE.
88 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
 Darci Kistler—he hit up against the
same problem. “There’s not enough
traps for the traveling effects,” he told
the choreographer John Clifford. “If
we can’t do it with the right scenery
and sets then I don’t want to do it.”
As for Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Bal-
anchine thought the story was non-
sense. In 1951 he put his own spin on
it at City Center, distilling four acts
into a vertiginous one-act fantasia.

B
From Russia with Love
ut with The Nut-
cracker, the connec-
tion was emotional.
Balanchine had
gone from boy to
man in this ballet.
As a youth on that imperial stage
in St. Petersburg he had danced the
roles of a mouse, the Nutcracker/
Little Prince, and the Mouse King.
As a young adult he was dazzling
as the jester with a hoop, chore-
ography he would lift straight into
his 1954 production and rename
Candy Cane. Not only was he
exacting about how his dancers
should move through the hoop
(“It’s complicated,” says the
Carolina Ballet artistic director,
Robert Weiss, who danced Candy
Cane for many years; “the hoop
goes over and you jump into the
over-ness of it”), he remained
proprietary about the
role itself. “Not bad,
dear,” Balanchine once
LINCOLN’S
CENTER
told Clifford as he came N.Y.C.B. co-founders
offstage—his “not bad” Lincoln Kirstein
was high praise—“but and George Balanchine,
you know I did it faster.” conferring in a
New York City dance
When, in the early 50s, studio, circa 1960.
Morton Baum, then tree had a wonderful scent, and the the tree.” It was a line he would repeat, with
chairman of City Cen- candles gave off their own aroma variations, throughout the rest of his life.
ter’s finance committee and a guardian angel of wax.” As Elizabeth Kendall reveals in her The City Center Nutcracker ended up cost-
to N.Y.C.B., asked Balanchine to choreo- fascinating recent book about Balanchine’s ing a total of $80,000, and its tree stands at
graph the Nutcracker Suite, a popular abridg- first 20 years, Balanchine & the Lost Muse, a pivotal moment in N.Y.C.B. history. “The
ment of Tchaikovsky’s score, Balanchine an- the family was constantly far-flung, with one City Ballet audience at City Center,” says
swered, “If I do anything, it will be full-length or the other parent often away or the children the critic Nancy Goldner, “was part of a
and expensive.” off in separate schools. Balanchine himself larger, middle-class audience that was inter-
He was not just reaching back to the was “stuck” (his word) in ballet school when ested in high-quality art (opera, theater) at
Mariinsky Nutcracker—which in Russia is he was nine. Those happy Christmases low prices. There was also a component of
performed throughout the year—but calling when the family was together—always in artists and writers who were especially inter-
up the Christmases of his childhood, the the foreground of his memory—seem to have ested in Balanchine.” While a growing num-
sense of warmth and plenty that was embod- fused with The Nutcracker and its tree. ber in this audience recognized Balanchine’s
F RO M THE GRA N GE R CO LL E CT IO N

ied in a tree brimming with fruits and choco- “So Baum gave me $40,000,” Balanchine genius and relished the deeply poetic, unique-
lates, glittering with tinsel and paper angels. explained to the writer Nancy Reynolds. “We ly plotless, modestly decorated ballets he was
“For me Christmas was something extraor- studied how the tree could grow both up making, the company did not have the kind of
dinary,” Balanchine told the writer Solomon and also out, like an umbrella. The tree cost mainstream following that fills a house. “In
Volkov. “On Christmas night we had only the $25,000, and Baum was angry. ‘George,’ those days at City Center,” recalls Kay Maz-
family at home: mother, auntie, and the chil- he said, ‘can’t you do it without the tree?’ ” zo, the co-chairman of faculty at S.A.B., “it
dren. And, of course, the Christmas tree. The “The Nutcracker,” Balanchine stated, “is sometimes seemed there were more people
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 89
 SOMETIMES YOU
FEEL LIKE A
NUTCRACKER
Above, Mother Ginger
and a pair of
Polichinelles; below,
Act I characters
Drosselmeier, his
nephew (the
Nutcracker), party
hosts and guests,
the Mouse King
and mice, toy soldiers,
windup dolls
Columbine and
Harlequin,
and Snowflakes.

90 VAN IT Y FA IR www.vanityfair.com JA NUA RY 2 015

 “THE NUTCRACKER,” GEORGE
BALANCHINE SAID THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE,
“IS THE TREE.”
onstage in Western Symphony than were sit- and the tree were nothing short of totemic— in the State Theater basement. “The box that
ting out in the audience.” The Nutcracker, a Balanchine marking his territory. the tree lives in,” say Marquerite Mehler,
family entertainment that was accessible to It’s important to understand that when N.Y.C.B. director of production, “always
all, was an invitation to the ballet, appealing Balanchine, Kirstein, and company moved lives here. We keep it close.”
to young and old alike. Within a year it was to the State Theater, in April 1964, they did “Lives,” she says, as if the tree were dor-
a holiday blockbuster. In 1957 and again in not know if they would be able to stay there mant beneath the theater, where it stays un-
1958, Balanchine’s Nutcracker, somewhat beyond a prescribed two-year period. The til awakened by Tchaikovsky, that thrilling,
trimmed, was broadcast nationally on CBS. theater had been built with public funds to climbing theme—tumescence mixed with
be part of the New York World’s Fair. After transcendence—hung like garland after gar-

S
A Tree Grows in Midtown the Fair it was to become the property of the land as the tree grows higher and wider, tak-
till, that tree was not Balan- city of New York, which would then lease ing the little girl Marie through fear, sleep,
chine’s be-all and end-all. To the theater to Lincoln Center for the Perform- and snow into a realm of unreality, a heav-
begin with, it wasn’t even one ing Arts, Inc. There was a continuing behind- enly pleasure dome of sweetness and light.
tree but two. A tree of normal the-scenes battle over who should manage the “What I remember most,” says Suki Schor-
scale sat upstage right in a cozy State Theater: the more patrician Lincoln er, an S.A.B. faculty member who danced the
drawing room, while a bottom Center, Inc., or the plebeian City Center of Marzipan Shepherdess on that December
section lay flat on the floor in front of it, folded Music and Drama, Inc. Balanchine and afternoon of 1964, “was how really excited
like an accordion and hidden by a pile of pres- Kirstein were terrified that if Lincoln Center Balanchine was to finally have a big tree. He
ents. For the tree to grow, both sections had won, they’d be asked to leave, or to sublease talked about it, how as a young boy he would
to be timed so that they appeared to be one. the theater at huge expense. Balanchine look up at this immense tree. He wanted Ma-
The tree would shake, stutter, spark, and snag. made his desire clear during the April 23 rie to have that same feeling of looking up.”
Sometimes a space would show between the telecast. When asked if the State Theater

‘O
two parts. While there are those who remem- suited his purposes, he said, “I think that Stage Might

 
ber this wheezy tree fondly, Balanchine did we have to stay a very, very long time here ur format was now irrevo-
not. The tree of his dreams—a single tree, not to use everything that is possible.” Kirstein, cably on a grand scale,”
two halves stuttering and snagging—required meanwhile, was having all the company’s Kirstein would write of the
the theater of his dreams. With a trap. scenery remade—scaled upward—so that it move to the State Theater.
So added to the size of its stage, the roomi- wouldn’t fit in City Center. The battle ended “In some eyes, it was the
ness of its wings, the height of its proscenium in January of 1965 when, after four months Big Time.” In all eyes, actu-
(which kept the balcony views unobstructed) of negotiations, an agreement was reached. ally. And it wasn’t just the tree, now weighing
and its fly was the generous depth beneath City Center was made a Lincoln Center con- approximately 2,200 pounds, that was bigger.
the State Theater stage. The monumental stituent and the State Theater was officially The production that was loaded into the State
tree that was conceived for the 1964 trans- home to the New York City Ballet. Theater in December 1964 contained “a lot
plant begins the ballet measuring 18 feet tall “The tree is the ballerina,” says N.Y.C.B. of air,” horizontally and vertically, and the
P RODU CTS BY N A RS ; HA I R BY H ER VE A N D S HI NYA N A KAG AWA ; M A KE UP BY H IRO MI A N DO

and projecting two feet at the base. This part technical director Perry Silvey, quoting Bal- dancers had to fill it.
CO ST U M E S BY K A R I N S K A ; H A I R P RO D U C TS BY DAV I N E S A N D K É R A STA S E PA R I S ; M A K E U P

A N D Y U M I L E E ; W I G S ST Y L E D BY S U Z Y A LVA R E Z ; F O R D E TA I L S , G O TO V F. CO M / C R E D I TS

of the tree is rigid. But nestled six feet under anchine. “A high-maintenance ballerina in “It was a major, major adjustment,” says
the stage is more tree—23 feet more. This this case. And of course we think of our- Edward Villella, a City Ballet star and found-
increasingly wide and thick strata of branch- selves as her partner.” Silvey has been with er of the Miami City Ballet. “Now we had
es is built on a series of graduated oval pipe the company for 38 years and knows the long diagonals, large circles to get through.
rings that fit one on top of the other and State Theater and its tree like the back of his It changed not only the look of the compa-
are connected by short chains that allow hand. He estimates that to replace the tree ny but the way we danced. There’s nothing
the rings to collapse or expand like an ac- would cost at least $250,000. The branches, worse than holding back. Once you get go-
cordion. When the accordion is completely lights, and ornaments have been refurbished ing you want to sail, to just let that momen-
open and the tree reaches its full height of twice since 1964—and in 2011 the ornaments tum carry you. I loved it.”
41 feet, it is also, at the base, 23 feet wide were repainted for a Live from Lincoln Cen- “The curiosity for the new building and
with a projection of 4 feet six inches. The ter broadcast of The Nutcracker—but happily the new theater and the new productions
trap that was constructed specifically for this the original skeletal framework is still going was huge,” recalls Mimi Paul, who on
moment in this ballet—oddly shaped and strong. Before every performance this balle- that opening weekend of ’64 danced Dew-
oddly placed at the back of the stage—has rina is shaken to see what’s loose, her bulbs drop, the glittering solo that Balanchine
no other purpose during the rest of the are checked and garlands arranged. When suspended inside the Waltz of the Flowers.
year. New York City Opera, which for 45 years the ballet finishes its annual run of 47 perfor- “Bigger everything had to be. Dewdrop—all
shared the State Theater with N.Y.C.B., used mances, the tree is not stored in New Jersey of a sudden, in that space, I could feel it.”
it but once. Today we can see that the trap with many of the ballet’s other props but “More plié, higher relevé, higher legs,”
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 91
 1

7
5
6

10

92 VAN IT Y FA IR www.vanityfair.com
 2

BACKSTAGE L ASSES
(1) Lee Radziwill and Jacqueline
Kennedy with their daughters,
Tina and Caroline, after a 1965
Nutcracker performance, greeted by
Balanchine, press agent Robert
Larkin, and dancers Allegra Kent and
Jacques d’Amboise. (2) The Little
Prince and Princess arrive
in the Land of Sweets, 2010.
(3) The majestic Christmas tree.
(4) Costumes backstage. (5) Macaulay
Culkin as Fritz, 1989. (6) Heather
Watts as Dewdrop in the 1,000th
performance of The Nutcracker—
Peter Martins’s farewell
performance—December 6, 1983.
(7) The Sugarplum Fairy meets
the Little Prince and Princess.
(8) Wendy Whelan as the Sugarplum
Fairy and Damian Woetzel
as her Cavalier, 1998. (9) Tea.
(10) Karinska’s costume sketches.
P HOTOG R A PHS BY HE N RY L E UT WYL E R ( 4, 7, 9 ) ; F ROM T HE N E W YOR K P UBL IC LI BR A RY F OR T HE P ER F OR MING ARTS,
J E ROME ROBBI NS DAN C E DI VI SI ON ( 10 ); BY MA RT HA SWOPE / N E W YOR K P UBL IC LI BR A RY F OR T HE PER F OR MING
A RTS , BI LLY ROSE THE AT RE DI VI S ION ( 1 ) ; © P E TE R KOL NI K ( A LL OT HE R S ) ; FO R DE TA IL S, G O TO VF. COM/ CR ED ITS

J ANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VA NIT Y FAI R 93

 says Schorer. “I remember Balanchine tell- candy and all that. They could always tell best exemplified in Dewdrop’s translucent
ing dancers in Dewdrop just to be big and when we were doing Nutcracker because we torsolette. “Two layers of stretch net,” says
free, not worry if your knee was totally pulled so much power.” N.Y.C.B. director of costumes Marc Happel.
straight, not calculate.” “It’s a beautiful little costume but also kind

M
“I remember him rehearsing the Waltz of Let It Snow of scandalous.” This was Karinska’s favorite
the Flowers,” says Frohlich, “and just telling ore mysterious was the among all her designs, and every ballerina
them to ‘move big, you’re young, move … ’ ” set for Snow, which who wears it loves it—just as they all love
Even Tchaikovsky’s music had to be big- comes at the end of Act dancing Dewdrop, a role of rapturous aban-
ger. “As far as the orchestra was concerned,” One. This forest of white, don. At the State Theater, Dewdrop’s small
says timpanist Goldberg, “Balanchine would visited by the world’s flutter of tutu became a spray of pleats.

T
come down and say, especially to me, ‘A lit- most ingénue blizzard
tle bit louder.’ I’d say, but it says pianissimo. (“Snowflakes,” Balanchine ballerina Merrill he most interesting costume
He’d say, ‘Play a little louder.’ ” Ashley still hears Mr. B. saying, “run bet- change was Sugarplum’s. At
All this unleashed energy was framed in ter, run beautifully”), is the frozen terrain City Center she wore a white-
looming new sets by Rouben Ter-Arutunian, through which Marie and the Little Prince and-pink tutu with an edging
which replaced the more ethereal vision must pass. Armistead’s snowy wood was re- like ribbon candy. At the State
of Horace Armistead’s lightly drawn living placed with a towering forest primeval. Here Theater she was given two
room for Act One and his colonnade of is the untouched world to which the Christ- tutus: the first was knee-length, cotton-candy
cloud spirals in Act Two, a Versailles in the mas tree grows. These firs are her sisters. Let pink, for her solo of welcome at the act’s be-
sky. Ter-Arutunian’s Act One was bourgeois us not forget that Balanchine’s family had a ginning; the second was a short classical tutu
Biedermeier, with a feeling of financial secu- dacha in Finland—and they lived there year- of mint green, as Fabergé enamel as it is con-
rity (as N.Y.C.B., for a moment, was feeling), round from when he was age five to nine. “A fectionary. “It gives the second act another
but it of course contained the same elements Finland winter,” explains Elizabeth Kendall, level of costume,” says Happel. Indeed, she’s
in the same places: the tree and presents, who visited the site, “in a forest with snow, a fashion-conscious fairy. The pink whispers to
the paned-and-draped window, the love seat it’s many many tall tall trees and not much the lullaby tones of the celesta (this is a dream,
upon which Marie falls asleep and dreams. on the ground. You look into one of these after all) and focuses the solo’s delicate pointe
The new Act Two was a surreal kingdom northern forests and it’s so infinite, so not work. The green honors the magisterial pas de
of tortes, bombes, and charlottes linked by human, that it has to mark you.” There were deux that is the Act Two climax, its grandeur
chocolate stairways. “I think it was a little critics who bemoaned Ter-Arutunian’s “gi- answering the Act One climb of the Christmas
too saccharine,” says Barbara Horgan, Bal- ant sequoias,” but Balanchine knew what tree. Sugarplum is the most precious orna-
anchine’s longtime assistant and a trustee of he was doing. There is no other image in ment in these boughs—poetry and matriarchy
the George Balanchine Trust. “I must con- theater today that is as blessedly primal—as balanced in one ballerina.
fess that even Balanchine thought it was too omnisciently old as it is newborn. No complete costume from 1954 exists
sweet.” In 1977, this backdrop was removed When it came to the costumes, Karinska today, but the Grandmother’s cape in Act
and Ter-Arutunian provided a Victorian tweaked and freshened her originals, most One is original, dating back to the first Nut-
Gothic colonnade made of candy sticks and noticeably in the Land of Sweets, adding cracker at City Center. And miraculously, in
white lace doilies, very airy, which floated in some stripes here, pom-poms there, refig- Act Two, the embroidered appliqués on the
front of a pink cyclorama. Still sweet, this de- ured necklines, and new satin pajamas for tunics of the two women in Chinese Tea—
licious set never fails to win gasps of delight Candy Cane. But the essence remained, clouds, dragonflies, pagodas—are also origi-
from the audience. In 1993, for further nu- because it’s hard to improve on the divine nal, though smokier now. They have lasted
ance, lighting designer Mark Stanley imbued Karinska—her lambent colors, her designs because this dance is not strenuous and has
each divertissement with its own saturated a marriage of invention and precision, cos- no partnering. The newest costume is Dros-
color—from ballet pink (Sugarplum’s solo) tume and couture. Wonderful is the way her selmeier’s, which was revised in 2011. “He
to deep coral (Spanish Hot Chocolate) to Nutcracker palette moves from the muted should be elegant and slightly ominous,”
ultraviolet (Arabian Coffee) to peach (Marzi- William Morris tonalities of Act One to the says Happel, “so we let him have this beau-
F O R DE TA I L S , G O TO VF. CO M/ CR E DITS
pan Shepherdess) to lilac (Waltz of the Flow- Ladurée pastels of Act Two, something akin tiful top hat, and a nice brocade vest and
ers) to Balanchine Blue (Sugarplum pas de to The Wizard of Oz’s leap from sepia to breeches.”
deux)—the milky midnight blue of a St. Pe- Technicolor. Karinska makes a leap in spirit “Another thing that was very important to
tersburg White Night. as well—from decorous restraint to luminous Balanchine were the faces on the mice,” says
“When we first lit it at the State Theater sensuality. The Victorian corsetry that would Rosemary Dunleavy, N.Y.C.B. ballet mistress.
we had a call from Con Edison on the West have been worn under Act One’s somber “We re-did them. They would bring the head
Side,” says Horgan. “There seemed to be a party gowns is laid bare in the fantasy tutus to Balanchine and say, O.K., is this it? No,
surge consistent with our performances—the of Act Two, all those sheer, boned bodices— nose too long. No, eyes not big. He didn’t

THE NUTCRACKER WAS AN INVITATION

TO THE BALLET,
APPEALING TO YOUNG AND OLD ALIKE.
94 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
 WINTER’S TAIL
Above, a trio of
Snowflakes. Below,
the Mouse King and
the Nutcracker
do battle surrounded
by the Bunny,
mice, Marie, and
toy soldiers.

VA NIT Y FAI R 95
 SWEETS DREAM
Characters from the
Land of Sweets:
Tea, Hot Chocolate,
Marzipan Shepherdess,
Flowers, Dewdrop,
the Sugarplum Fairy and
her Cavalier, an angel,
ballet master in
chief Peter Martins,
Coffee, Candy Canes,
Mother Ginger and
her Polichinelles,
the Little Prince and
Princess.

F OR D E TAI LS , G O TO VF. COM/ C R E D ITS

96 VAN IT Y FA IR www.vanityfair.com JA NUARY 2 015

 ACT TWO ALIGHTS IN

THE LAND OF SWEETS,

WHERE THE SUGARPLUM FAIRY REIGNS.

JA NUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VA NIT Y FA IR 97

 want over-exaggeration—the nose too project- The word “audition” is verboten, because it hearse in the evenings, each role requiring about
ed, the eyes to overtake the face. He wanted implies a competition when in fact it is the size two rehearsals a week. As November pulls on,
it in proportion.” He wanted the mice “fright- of the costumes and the height requirements of they are integrated into full-company rehears-
ening yet not ferocious,” says Balanchine bal- each dance that decide who will be cast, als, and the narrative comes together. Clarity
lerina Patricia Wilde, “more like busybodies.” though certainly the students need to be able to of steps, open faces, spacing, timing, energy,
“He used to love to rehearse the mice,” handle the steps. On this day two alternating and, on top of all that, spontaneity: it’s a lot to
says Govrin. “There were always his pet pieces casts of 63 children each will be chosen for the master. “When we want them in a line, they’re
in a ballet, parts he was constantly either tin- season’s run of The Nutcracker. (When possi- not,” Higgins has noticed. “When we don’t
kering with or just in there doing it with peo- ble, best friends are put into the same cast.) In want them in a line, perfect lines.” It’s details
ple.” Also, says Barbara Horgan, “the dancers 2013, the morning began with the roles for the and more details. At a late-November rehearsal,
were holding back because they felt silly doing oldest kids—the eight girls of Candy Cane—and for instance, the children are expressing through
little mice steps.” worked backward, descending in age and size pantomime what Christmas presents they hope
Finally, a seemingly small but intensely down through the Little Prince and Marie, the to receive, and all the boys mime guns. “You
charming change was made at the very begin- eight Polichinelles (a highly coveted role be- don’t all want guns,” exclaims Abergel. “How
ning of Act Two. The angels were no longer cause of its demanding choreography), the 13 about books, musical instruments?” And as the
eight big girls who stand at the back; they were children of the party scene (this involves skip- children dance and play at the party, she says,
now 12 little girls who opened the act with a cer- ping, marching, and pantomime), and the an- “Remember that the audience is part of your
emony of celestial gliding. In their stiff little cos- gels and toy soldiers. The Bunny is always the world. The stars and the moon are out there.”
tumes of white and gold, each holding a tiny smallest child in the cast. An S.A.B. triumph of
branch of fir, they suggest the footless paper recent years has been the growing enrollment Christmas Cheer
angels that graced Balanchine’s childhood
tree. In yet another instance of his genius, he
tailored his choreography to their inexperience.
of boys; in 2013 they numbered 107 out of 416
in the children’s division. For decades, girls
simply tucked their hair under hats and caps
T he Nutcracker traditionally opens the Fri-
day night after Thanksgiving, so the
load-in of sets and props, which takes three
“The angels have no steps,” says Dena Abergel, and, except for Fritz and the Nutcracker/Little days, begins the Monday before: electrical
the children’s ballet master. “They have skim- Prince, danced most male roles. pipes and lighting on day one; the special rig-
ming and formations. Balanchine is teaching When it comes to casting Marie and the Lit- ging and counterweight for the tree, scenic bor-
them how to stay in line, how to make a diago- tle Prince, Abergel and the assistant children’s ders, and backdrops on day two; and lighting
nal, how to count to music. Once they’ve ballet master, Arch Higgins, have a general idea focus on day three. Up in the rafters there will
learned angels, they’re set up to do the next level of who might be right for these parts. As S.A.B. be three snow bags that run the width of the
of choreography.” With crisscrossing paths, a teachers they’ve been watching the children all stage. These bags, full of tiny holes, are turned
simplified echo of the windblown crossings of year. On casting day they stand the prospective by hand to create the snowfall that becomes a
the Snowflakes, these angels—newly fledged— pairs together to see if their sizes are right— blizzard. (Stagehands sometimes come down
consecrate the stage for the dancing to come. the Prince a little taller than Marie—and how to see who the conductor is, just to know what
“Balanchine used to talk about children’s they look as couples. Of the four children who the tempo will be.) The snow, 50 pounds of it,
ballets all the time,” says Peter Martins, danced these leads in 2013—Rommie Toma- is made of flame-retardant paper, and most of
N.Y.C.B. ballet master in chief since 1989 (he sini, 10, and Maximilian Brooking Landegger, it is recycled through the run of the show. Post-
shared the title with Jerome Robbins from 11, Clare Hanson Simon, 11, and Lleyton Ho, performance, big magnets on rollers are used to
1983 to 1989). “Each child brings four people: 13—only Simon wasn’t a repeat from the previ- pull the fallen hairpins out.
mom, dad, sister, and aunt. Multiply this by ous year. At the costume fitting she had no clue On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and
all the children in the ballet and you have an she was being considered for Marie. Abergel the Friday after, each cast of children has a dress
audience. How brilliant and how pragmatic. asked her to walk side by side with Ho, and the rehearsal. It all proceeds smoothly, no histrion-
And look what happened. Not only did he do grace of them together was compelling. Toma- ics, no hurry-up-and-wait. The children are fa-
it but he did the best Nutcracker that you have sini and Landegger, as bright as new pennies; miliarized with the surrounding sets and with
ever seen, sublime from beginning to end.” Simon and Ho, more glowing and yearning— their marks onstage, tempos are noted, spot-
“He also felt it was very important,” says all four dream of joining the company one day. lights adjusted. Any number of Dewdrops, Sug-
Suki Schorer, “that young students, young And they all wish to please George Balanchine, arplums, Cavaliers, and Candy Canes will have
children, dance on the stage. That’s why many even though he died in 1983, when their parents a chance to zip through their solos onstage. “It
of his big ballets have children.” were probably still children. comes together seamlessly because everybody is
“What I heard him say a number of “I think about him a lot,” says Landegger, prepared,” says Martins, whose first time danc-
times,” says Wilde, “aside from his own rec- “and also I read about him.” Tomasini says, “I ing with the company in New York was in 1967
ollections of being a child in The Nutcracker think about him when I dance, because he’s as the Cavalier in The Nutcracker. “Balanchine,
and how much he loved it, he was thinking my boss.” Ho: “I think about how he’d like he was enormously engaged, particularly in Act
of it as a gift to American children. A lovely things to be.” And Simon: “He taught a lot One. It was like a Swiss watch. He would take
Christmas experience.” of my teachers and they pass on what he said. his jacket off, roll up his sleeves, and he would
“What makes his Nutcracker so fantas- I sometimes think about if he, I don’t know, be there, telling people how to act, how to be-
tic for children,” says Robert Weiss, “is it’s would like me.” Fifty years and Balanchine’s have. I was just off the boat. I was watching this,
about them.” primacy hasn’t changed. “What I remember,” and I thought, My God, this guy knows what
says Merrill Ashley, who in 1964 danced the he is doing. His authority, his insight.”
Angels’ Guardians lead girl in Candy Cane, “is that first stage re- From a technical standpoint the production

‘D on’t look down,” cries Abergel. “Things

that fly are up in the air.” She’s watching
S.A.B. girls, row after row, perform the floor-
hearsal. Balanchine took me by the hand and
said, ‘This is where you are supposed to go.’
And I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It
can be intimidating. Says Silvey, “There are
several moments that are fraught with techni-
cal peril, where things have to be able to move
brushing jetés that launch the high-flying Can- was like he was a god. Certainly everybody at together. But we have a crew that’s been doing
dy Cane number. Every year, in late September, the school had this opinion. He was the most this for so many years.” On the flip side, some
students who want to take part in The Nutcrack- important person in the ballet world, period.” of the production’s most magical moments are
er come to what’s called a “costume fitting.” For the next two months the children re- the result of old-fashioned stagecraft, like the
98 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
blizzard shaken by hand from above. Marie’s generated just over $13 million, which accounted
wandering bed, the Sugarplum Fairy’s motion- for roughly 18 percent of N.Y.C.B.’s total annual ON THE
less glide in arabesque—the mechanics of these
mysteries are carefully guarded. As Balanchine
budget for the 2014 fiscal year. “I used to have
conversations with Beverly Sills and her succes- COVER
Bradley Cooper
once said, “Don’t spoil the magic.” sors at City Opera,” recalls Martins. “They used wears clothing by
For N.Y.C.B. corps dancers and soloists, The to say to me all the time, ‘God, you’re so lucky. Ralph Lauren Black
Nutcracker means debuts, and it’s in the Land We have La Bohème, but we can’t do 40 perfor- Label. Hair products
by Verb. Grooming
of Sweets, with its sparkling divertissements, mances of Bohème. You have The Nutcracker.’ ” products by Lancôme
where they often get their first taste of the spot- It ends with Marie and the Little Prince Men. Grooming by
light. “For me the most exciting thing,” says drawn up and away in a sleigh harnessed to Sylvia Viau-Kistler.
Set design by Matthew
Martins, “is a month and a half before, when I flying reindeer. This flourish was yet another Davidson. Produced on location by Todd Dana.
take my roster out and say, O.K., who should of the changes instituted in 1964, another that Styled by Annie Psaltiras. Photographed exclusively
for V.F. by Sam Jones on the back lot at
learn what? Who should I teach Sugarplum to? took pride and pleasure in the height of the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California.
Who should I teach the Dewdrop? This started proscenium space; at City Center the two sim-
with Balanchine. He gave people debuts in all ply took leave in a walnut-shell boat. “They
the various roles, even important roles. It’s a try- didn’t have reindeer at the Mariinsky,” Bal-
out for the next generation.” As for the children, anchine told Volkov. “That’s my idea, that. The FROM THE ARCHIVE
For these related stories, visit VF.COM/ARCHIVE
“after two or three performances,” Silvey says, audience loves it.” True, but the more profound
“it’s like they own the place.” leave-taking comes at the end of Act One, in • George Balanchine’s life and work
The boughs, garlands, and glitter of Bal- the ancient forest of white. Turning their backs (Robert Gottlieb, December 1998)

anchine’s Nutcracker poke, weave, and gleam to the audience, Marie and the Little Prince • Theballet academy that launched
Balanchine’s career
through the history of both N.Y.C.B. and bal- walk together into the deep and secret darkness (Mikhail Baryshnikov, September 2006)
let in this country. Monetarily, what it brings in of the unconscious, the only pathway to art’s • Backstage access at the N.Y.C.B.
during its five weeks of sold-out performances firmament. Their footprints are in the snow. (Henry Leutwyler, VF.com, December 2012)
is impressive: last year’s run of The Nutcracker And the way is lit by a single star—love. 

Bradley Cooper for love but looking in all the wrong places. It
was by far his most multifaceted role.
Texas, near Dallas, to meet Kyle’s wife, Taya,
his parents, Wayne and Deby, and his brother
“They really took a chance, a big chance,” Jeff and sister-in-law Amy. Taya Kyle was
says Cooper. It resulted in his first Academy open and generous, willing to give Cooper
Award nomination, for best actor, in 2013. anything and everything of Chris’s to make
Following that came another collaboration the film as accurate as possible. Wayne Kyle
with Russell, on American Hustle, and another was friendly, but he was also guarded. Accord-
Academy Award nomination, in 2014, this one ing to Eastwood, “He was a little bit reticent.
for best supporting actor, in the role of F.B.I. I just don’t know whether he knew what to
agent Richie DiMaso, beating up his boss one make of it all, kind of going, ‘Who are these
day and wearing hair curlers the next. Hollywood assholes.’ ”
He had mastered his artistic niche, a lit- They also could not have picked a worse
tle bit comedic, a little bit terrifying, a little time, since it coincided with the first anniver-
C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 5 0 conceal truth. bit off- center. Then he decided to orbit the sary of Chris’s death. “It’s a year after his son
“He won’t let anyone get away with anything.” earth twice. was murdered, and two guys from Hollywood
Good roles with wonderful actors came show up and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to make a
in after The Hangover. Limitless, with Robert Tragic Twist movie about your son,’ ” Cooper remembers.
De Niro. The Words, with Jeremy Irons. The
Place Beyond the Pines, with Ryan Gosling.
Then, in 2011, David O. Russell, a director as
C ooper loved the American Sniper proj-
ect when it was pitched to him by the
screenwriter Jason Hall. Warner Bros. had
“What the fuck? How surreal is that?”
Typical of Wayne Kyle, a former telecom-
munications manager with Southwestern
quirky as he is brilliant, came into Cooper’s previously passed, but on the basis of Coo- Bell and as no-nonsense a person as you will
life with Silver Linings Playbook. He liked per’s attachment, the studio purchased the find in a state legendary for no nonsense, he
Cooper’s prior work but still had the sense rights to the book in partnership with Coo- sat across from Cooper and Eastwood at the
that he “wasn’t hitting his range.” Russell per’s production company, 22 & Indiana dining-room table in the house where his son’s
remembers them meeting at the Greenwich Pictures (named after the corner his father wife and children still lived. “I took the bull by
Hotel, in New York. They talked about the had grown up on in North Philadelphia). the horns and I said I did not like a movie be-
role of Pat Solatano. But Russell remembers Chris Kyle himself was excited when he ing made about my son,” Wayne says. “I really
that they also talked about “things he had sold the rights and learned that Cooper was didn’t like a movie being made about my son
gone through or how he had been guarded going to play him, although he did have a when he was not there to have direct control.”
or not happy at times in his life. caveat: “I’m going to have to tie him to my The body of Eastwood’s work gave Wayne
“He showed me many sides of himself truck, drag him down the street, and knock Kyle reassurance. But, as he put it, “Bradley
when we discussed my impression of him,” some of the pretty off of him.” was a pretty boy and a citified kid. He is an
Russell told me. “His response was very open Then Kyle was killed without ever meet- excellent actor, but we really didn’t know much
and real. There was a mineshaft of experi- ing Cooper or knowing that his top choice to about him.” He also minced no words in say-
ences and emotions that he had not put on direct the film, Clint Eastwood, was actually ing that if “you do anything to dishonor my
the screen yet.” going to make it. son I will unleash hell on you.”
He cast Cooper as Solatano, sweet, mixed At the end of January in 2014, Cooper and “I knew this was sacred ground that I was
up, and mismatched in his bipolarity, yearning Eastwood flew into the Midlothian area of on and it was a very special gift that Clint
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 99
 Screen Shot
Bradley Cooper American soldiers and suspected collabora-

and I got to be there in this house and meet

these people,” says Cooper. “It wasn’t lost
tors. Kyle is credited with at least 160 con-
firmed kills.
Cooper bulked up from 185 to around 225.
I n November, I saw a 95 percent completed
version of American Sniper in Screening
Room 5 on the Warner Bros. lot. With the ex-
on us.” Nor was Cooper’s sincerity lost on He started eating 5,000 calories a day. He was ception of those directly associated with the pro-
Wayne Kyle: “I’ve been around livestock all able at the end to do dead lifts of 415 pounds, duction, I was the first to see the film. So my
my life. I can smell bullshit.” five sets of eight reps each. response was not influenced by any critical reac-
Former navy SEALs Rick Wallace and tion, or for that matter the reaction of anyone.
Great Expectations Kevin Lacz (he had served two deploy- There were times I squirmed because of the

I t probably wasn’t necessary for Cooper to

do the six-page exercise by the time shoot-
ing on the film started, last April. During
ments with Kyle) also trained him on how
to hold and shoot the various weapons that
Kyle utilized. Cooper never equaled the
violence and sound and heat of war. There were
times I felt physical dread. There were moments
when I looked at my watch. There was also a
three months of prior preparation, he had shot from 2,100 yards Kyle once made in moment when, despite my being staunchly un-
temporarily relocated Tim Monich from Con- Iraq, but he was able to hit targets from 600 sentimental, tears came to my eyes.
necticut to Los Angeles so they could have yards. Lacz responded the way navy SEALs Whenever Cooper was on-screen, I felt I
two face-to-face sessions of two hours each often respond to superb performance: he was in the presence of something absolutely
day except for Saturday and Sunday. said nothing. astonishing, not simply one of the best perfor-
The sessions were in the morning and Cooper kept in character during the en- mances of the year but a performance for the
early evening, sandwiched around two work- tirety of the shoot. He talked to his girlfriend, ages, the kind that creeps into your soul at all
outs a day of two hours each to gain the the 22-year-old British actress and model hours of the night.
40-odd pounds of pure muscle to resemble Suki Waterhouse, in character. He ordered So maybe he isn’t fucked after all. 
Kyle physically. Ideally, Cooper would have food at a restaurant one night with dinner
had a year. But Eastwood wanted to start companions Miller and Eastwood in char- FROM THE ARCHIVE
shooting in March, before Morocco became acter: “Y’all got any red meat?” He argued For these related stories, visit VF.COM/ARCHIVE
too hot. over another film with producer Harvey
• BradleyCooper and David O. Russell
During his workouts, Cooper listened Weinstein in character: Harvey, I just gotta open up (Krista Smith, VF.com videos,
to the exact playlist that Kyle had when he tell ya, man, there’s no way that it’s gonna be September 2012, May 2013)
worked out as a navy SEAL in Iraq in between possible for me to do this. • Behind the scenes for Bruce Weber’s
shifts, sometimes as long as eight hours, en- But it still doesn’t necessarily add up to a cover shoot of Cooper for the Hollywood
Issue (Krista Smith, March 2013)
veloped in his own urine because there was great performance. Maybe the expectations
• Jennifer Lawrence, unscripted
no opportunity to take a break when they are too high. Maybe Bradley Cooper really (Jim Windolf, February 2013)
were targeting insurgents bent on killing is fucked.

James Patterson was already telling. You know, I grew up in the

woods in Newburgh, and there weren’t a lot of
company, Patterson made it his policy never
to hire anyone he wouldn’t like working with.
people around, and I would just wander in the He especially enjoyed working on women’s
woods out there and tell myself stories, one after products, both because he had demonstrated
the other. And I didn’t really make anything of a particular assurance in this area and be-
it. I never thought I was going to be a storyteller cause sessions with female copywriters were
or a writer, but I was just in the habit.” more collaborative (“In the male sessions ev-
At St. Patrick’s High School, the Christian erybody was ‘I got it’ ”). Even today, women
Brothers smacked him around a bit, but he are Patterson’s most faithful readers.
worked hard, applying to Harvard, Yale, Colby, Patterson’s characters reflect his own blend
and Bates, only to learn that the school had nev- of light and dark. His protagonists are all a
er sent in his applications but had enrolled him bit wounded and vulnerable—not just Alex
on a scholarship at Manhattan College, in the Cross but also Michael Bennett, another wid-
C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 8 5 Newburgh, New Bronx, instead. By this point, his parents had owed detective (this one an Irish-American
York, just a few miles up the Hudson from his moved to Massachusetts, where his father got a in New York with 10 adopted children); Rafe
current home, the son of an emotionally withhold- job with Prudential, and Patterson worked sum- Khatchadorian, a hapless discipline case, who
ing insurance agent, whose own father had aban- mers on the overnight shift at McLean Hospi- is the hero of the “Middle School” series; and
doned his family, and who had grown up in the tal, the renowned psychiatric institution in sub- Jamie Grimm, a wheelchair-bound middle-
local poorhouse, where Patterson’s grandmother urban Belmont, to help pay his bills. He began schooler, who is the star of the “I Funny” se-
was a charwoman. “The first time I think he ever digging into highbrow literature—James Joyce, ries and who wants to be America’s best young
hugged me was on his deathbed,” Patterson says. Jean Genet—to pass the long, quiet shift. A year stand-up comic but can work only sitting down.
The Hudson Valley, with its dramatic pali- in the Ph.D. English program at Vanderbilt Even Patterson’s most villainous bad guys tend
sades and twisting mountain roads, remains ended when he got a high number in the draft to have had a painful childhood or some other
a frequent setting in Patterson’s fiction. But lottery during the Vietnam War and didn’t need psychic heartbreak along the way.
when I suggested that he hadn’t moved so far to stay in school any longer to maintain a defer-
from where he began, he instantly demurred. ment. He took a job as a junior copywriter at “The Power to Do Things”
“Oh, very far,” he said. “Very, very far.”
And he went on: “I think that I felt I needed
to be this very bright, first-in-his-class kind of
Thompson, and in his first year there he wound
up doing a dozen television commercials, in-
cluding a smash hit for the Ford LTD that fea-
I n the 1960s, Stan Freberg, the satirical record-
ing artist turned standout adman, promoted
Sunsweet pitted prunes with the triumphant tag
kid, for whatever reason, pretty serious. But tured a side-by-side “quiet” test with a Jaguar. “Today the pits. Tomorrow the wrinkles.” Patter-
underneath, it was just a million stories that I As he rose to positions of power in the son’s forward march is just as determined. The
100 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
one hill he feels he hasn’t quite conquered is a week, but a lot of meals are eaten in restaurants has contributed more than $26 million to his
Hollywood (although there have been a couple with a small circle of close friends, many stretch- and Sue’s alma maters, given another $5.8 mil-
of Alex Cross movies). “I think to some extent ing back to grade school (“not a self-important lion in scholarships at 22 colleges and universi-
I’ve been stereotyped,” he says. “I think that blowhard among them,” he says). Evenings ties, sent 650,000 of his books to U.S. troops
some of the people there think they’re above are spent with a movie or a favorite TV show, at home and abroad, and provided a box of
mainstream fiction. I think they’re kidding including The Good Wife and Justified. Writer’s books to every public school in New York City,
themselves, but, you know, that’s fine.” He has block is never a problem. If he ever gets bored Los Angeles, Savannah, Georgia, and Palm
recently revved up his efforts with the help of or stymied with one active project, there are a Beach County, Florida. Patterson intends to ar-
Bill Robinson, a veteran producer, and Leo- dozen others to turn to at any one time. range his estate so that about half of his wealth
poldo Gout, a producer and artist and the other “Where do the stories come from?” Michael goes to charity, and he hopes that his son,
co-president at James Patterson Entertainment. Pietsch repeated the question to himself when I Jack, might someday like to take charge of the
Patterson now has a “first look” deal with CBS posed it. “In his case, it’s a drive like I’ve never giving. His philanthropy at this point is hands-
and has recently announced a raft of new proj- seen. He’s a very competitive person, but I on (“because I think institutions frequently are
ects, including a 13-episode series version of Zoo think he’s competitive with himself. Do I wake very sloppy”). He told me that he has no inter-
for the network next summer, and a partnership up at night wondering if it’s going to stop? We est in having his name on buildings.
with Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Productions for had a meeting today in which I proposed that And he is philosophical about his critics, in
a pilot for another series based on his first novel, we might want to hold off a secondary format particular critics of his craft. Patterson decided
The Thomas Berryman Number. “I Funny” has of a book for some point in the future when long ago that he’d rather be a successful popu-
been optioned to Nickelodeon. Out of his own there might not be an abundance of them in lar novelist than a mediocre literary one. He
pocket, Patterson has financed yet another pilot future years, and he looked at me incredulously, says he thinks of himself above all as an enter-
for a proposed children’s variety series—with as if ‘When is that going to happen?’ ” tainer. And he is keenly self-aware: he knows
blackout sketches, pies in the face, and fake Patterson himself says his obituary would what he would likely be feeling about himself
commercials in the manner of Saturday Night begin, “He was slowing down at 101, and had if he weren’t already filling his own shoes. If he
Live (for products like “Boys’ Noise Canceling only finished four novels that year.” were not already James Patterson, he said, “I
Headphones”)—that Robinson described as a would be like, ‘Well, what’s this? He couldn’t
cross between Zoom and The Electric Company.
“Once they were educated on the power of his
reach with kids, once they understood that he’s
T he Pattersons drive matching Mercedes
sedans, but when he’s in Westchester and
has to go to Manhattan, he’s apt to take the
possibly do what he does.’ ” Indeed, if he were
not James Patterson, “I’d probably be kind of
irritated by the guy.” 
got more people reading his books than some Metro-North commuter train, simply because
of these networks have people watching, people it’s most efficient. He confesses that he has
FROM THE ARCHIVE
sit up and take notice,” Robinson said. “And lately started using private jets for the trip to For these related stories, visit VF.COM/ARCHIVE
an interesting piece of this is that we’re deal- Florida or for business. Increasingly, Patterson
ing with a billionaire, somebody who has more has devoted his time—and money—to promot- • The state of book publishing
(Keith Gessen, October 2011, December 2014)
money than some of the studios. He has the ing literacy and, paradoxically, to supporting
• Edgar Rice Burroughs, the father of the
power to do things that no other writer can do.” independent bookstores, for whom his own literary franchise
Patterson writes seven days a week, 365 days books are arguably the least likely source of (Dar win L. Teilhet, January 1935)
a year, typically rising with the sun, then walking income. He gave $1 million in grants to book- • Donna Tartt, best-seller
the course for nine holes of golf at midmorning stores in 2014 alone, which can be used for a (James Kaplan, September 1992; David
Gilbert, November 2013; and Evgenia Peretz,
before having a simple lunch. In Palm Beach, a variety of purposes. In November, he launched July 2014)
cook makes maybe two lunches and one dinner a national campaign to promote reading. He

Tony Blair Project.” According to the Financial Times,

Blair was hired for his experience in dealing
sible to know how to assess Blair’s work in
a given country without understanding the
with E.U. institutions, given the numerous hur- specific advice he is giving and the nature of
dles the pipelines will encounter as they make the work. But, he added, “unless we should
their way through seven national jurisdictions. never have dealings with people whose gov-
Blair’s government advisory work is “be- ernments don’t tick every box, I’m not sure
spoke,” according to a spokesman. He can, what the criticism is.”
as in the case of Kuwait, offer basic general
advice. Increasingly, he has sought to be a IV. “A Pretty Straight Sort of Guy”
conduit for outside investments in the various
countries where he does work, such as Mo-
zambique and East Timor. Blair has helped set
A nd then there is his work for the Quar-
tet, which even Tony Blair finds hard
to describe.
up oil investments in the Middle East for the One of the few venues in contested East
onetime German
C ON T I N U E D F ROM PAGE 6 0 China Investment Corporation. He has acted Jerusalem where people on all sides are will-
foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and as a matchmaker, linking businessmen looking ing to gather is the American Colony Hotel,
Peter Sutherland, formerly of BP and now the to invest with governments seeking capital. In established at the turn of the last century by a
chairman of Goldman Sachs International. those instances, Blair essentially introduces two devoutly Christian American family who took
The panel’s purpose is to facilitate the expan- parties from his vast global Rolodex. over this Ottoman compound, originally built
sion of a vast natural-gas field in the Caspian For Blair, this kind of business is booming. for a pasha and his four wives. Blair moved
Sea and the building of two pipelines across If some of the governments that Blair advises into the elegant stone building, its courtyard
Europe. The $45 billion enterprise, champi- are somewhat blemished, it’s also true, as shaded by mulberry trees, when he took
oned by the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Ali- Jack Straw pointed out, that “those govern- over as the representative of the Office of the
yev, has been called by critics “the Blair Rich ments need advice.” Straw said it is impos- Quartet—a somewhat ad hoc position created
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 101
 Tony Blair days. But the main reason was one of image.
Blair has moved his offices up the hill to a
up of people who give speeches, hold semi-
nars, write papers, work on side projects, and
in 2002 to provide an official point of contact fortified concrete-and-glass structure; the year- in general have found a niche in the endless
between the international community and the ly rent is about $1 million, less than the space process of brokering peace between Israel and
Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Quartet at the American Colony, and the offices ap- the Palestinians. It is a notion that Ian Lustick,
representative is its official voice in Israel. The pear less ostentatious. In a beautiful city, the a political-science professor at the University
organization is symbolically important but fortress-like Quartet building, behind a spiked of Pennsylvania, explored in a New York Times
in practice often ignored. On the day Blair metal gate, is strikingly plain. op-ed column last year. The phrase surfaced
left Downing Street, he took up his new role When in Jerusalem, Blair lives on the top frequently as I made my way through Jerusa-
with the Quartet. President Bush had pushed floor in a small one-bedroom apartment with lem and asked people about Blair. There is little
for Blair’s appointment, over the objections a balcony that looks out over the city. Up at sense that he has made a lasting contribution.
of then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. seven A.M., he drinks seemingly endless cups A prominent Israeli lawyer with deep diplomat-
“Bush said, ‘This guy ruined his career to help of coffee—he gave it up while in office—to ic connections told me, “He has trivialized the
me,’ ” a former Blair associate told me. Blair fuel his peripatetic lifestyle. He visits the base- institution he purports to lead.” Mahmoud La-
worked out of the fourth floor of the Ameri- ment gym, but not necessarily every morning. badi, a onetime spokesperson for the Palestine
can Colony and eventually hired its banquet Though Blair is in Jerusalem typically for two Liberation Organization and later the director
manager as his personal chef. or more days every three weeks or so, accord- general of the Palestinian Legislative Council,
ing to his office, he has recently been staying says of Blair that his longevity at the Quartet is

F or Blair, obtaining a somewhat official role

in the peace process has both a public
and a personal dimension. In British politics,
longer, as when he was attempting to engage Is-
raeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in dis-
a sign of his ineffectuality: “He can stay as long
as he’s not helpful.” Hanan Ashrawi, a mem-
ber of the executive committee of the Palestine
religious conviction is tolerated, but only as cussions aimed at a Gaza cease-fire. He moves Liberation Organization, says, “He is extremely
a private eccentricity. Blair is unusual in the through Israel and the West Bank in the Quar- friendly and affable, but that’s not the issue.”
public way he discusses his faith. As a young tet’s black S.U.V.’s. He has a staff of around 50. “What they most want to be is still rel-
M.P., Blair had become friendly with a fellow A security detail, provided by the Quartet, trav- evant in politics,” a former business associate
parliamentarian, Lord Levy, who is Jewish. In els with him wherever he goes and stays with of Blair’s told me, referring to public figures
1995, when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, him in the Quartet building. They shuttle him in general but also specifically to Blair. “His
Levy and Blair, who was by then the leader of from meeting to meeting, his cell phone glued Quartet role is very important to him. But
the opposition party, attended the funeral to- to his ear. In Jerusalem, Blair attends Mass at if you are doing business there, too, it gets a
gether. Levy introduced Blair to a number of the chapel of the Notre Dame Pontifical Insti- bit muddy.” In fact, it gets very muddy. As
local dignitaries. “That is all part of what gave tute, opposite the Old City’s New Gate. He car- noted, for a period of time Blair facilitated
Blair the bug of seeing the Israeli-Palestinian ries no money with him, relying on the Quar- discussions on Gaza between Israel’s Netan-
problem as solvable,” says Toby Greene, a Brit- tet’s accounts at the American Colony and the yahu and Egypt’s al-Sisi. Al-Sisi also happens
ish academic living in Israel and the author of a restaurant at the Pontifical Institute. to be getting professional advice from Blair. In
book, Blair, Labour, and Palestine, about Blair’s In the seven years Tony Blair has spent as collaboration with the United Arab Emirates,
involvement in the Middle East peace process. the representative of the Quartet, Cherie has Blair has been recommending communica-
Before Blair, the position of representa- accompanied him to Jerusalem only a few tion advisers to work with him.
tive to the Quartet had been held by James times. This, plus his frequent dinners with
Wolfensohn, the Australian-born American
investment banker and former president of the
World Bank. Wolfensohn took the position
Ofra Strauss, an Israeli heiress to a bakery for-
tune and a regular at the World Economic Fo-
rum, in Davos, has fueled persistent rumors in
I n 2009, in his role as the Quartet represen-
tative, Blair helped persuade Israel to open
up radio frequencies so that a cell-phone
in 2005. He stayed in the job for 11 months, the Israeli press of an affair between the two. provider, Wataniya Mobile, a Kuwaiti- and
lived in Jerusalem nearly full-time, and chafed Back home, in Britain, Blair continues to be Qatari-backed telecom company, could oper-
at the limited scope of his influence, which dogged by rumors that he had an affair with ate in the West Bank. He also promoted the
was confined to strictly economic projects Wendi Murdoch, now the former wife of Ru- development of a major gas field off the coast
designed to help the Palestinian economy. “I pert Murdoch. Although Blair has denied al- of Gaza, operated by British Gas. Later it
was stupid for not reading the small print,” he legations of any extramarital affairs, the friend- emerged that both Wataniya and British Gas
said in an interview with Haaretz a year after ship between Blair and Murdoch is at an end. were clients of JPMorgan. Blair maintained
he stepped down. Wolfensohn said he felt he In a move that some in the British press that he had no knowledge of JPMorgan’s re-
was a “nuisance” to Elliott Abrams, the neo- interpreted as Murdoch’s way of seeking re- lationship with either company.
con senior director of the National Security venge for Blair’s alleged relationship with A year earlier, as the representative for the
Council, and was as a result sidelined in any his former wife, Murdoch’s Sunday Times Quartet, Blair wrote to Libya’s Qaddafi on offi-
discussions. “My worry for Tony Blair is that revealed in November a £41,000-a-month cial Quartet stationery, saying that he was “very
if you read the mandate he has—it’s exactly secret contract that Blair had signed in 2010 interested to hear from you of the progress that
the same as mine. It talks about helping both with PetroSaudi International, an oil company is being made and the great opportunities there
sides, helping the Palestinians, but there’s founded by a member of the Saudi royal fam- are for the future,” adding that he was “par-
nothing there about negotiating peace.” In ily. The contract included a 2 percent success ticularly interested in what you said about the
2007, when Blair took the job, 10 European fee on any deals resulting from introductions funds that will be dedicated to projects in Afri-
foreign ministers wrote an open letter urging he might make—China was very much in ca, as I am doing a lot of work there and know
him to expand his role. Blair shows no signs mind—and was the first time a detailed con- of good, worthwhile projects for investments.”
of having done so. tract has surfaced that directly linked Blair to In response to criticism about his multiple
One of Blair’s few visible accomplishments a Middle Eastern oil firm, a tie that the article and possibly conflicting roles—as outspoken dip-
has been to move the Quartet out of the Amer- helpfully noted would “provoke fresh criticism lomat and relentless wheeler-dealer—Blair often
ican Colony Hotel. Part of the reason was to of Blair’s role as Middle East envoy.” adopts the attitude he articulated in the first year
gain a sense of permanence; in a hotel, you In some ways, Blair has become the per- of his tenure as prime minister. “I think most
can check out and shut down in a matter of sonification of the “peace economy,” made people who have dealt with me think I am a
102 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
pretty straight sort of guy,” he said in a televised So, we went into Iraq, we put in ground troops work of the Quartet, as a result, is “deeply
apology after his first political scandal. Blair there. We ended up fighting these people, and frustrating and extremely difficult.”
had been accused of lifting a tobacco-advertising we ended up pinning them down there, by the Blair maintained that his government adviso-
ban for Formula One racing as a favor to the way. But it was long and hard and brutal and ry work isn’t nearly as lucrative as people think
organization’s head, Bernie Ecclestone, a major bloody and much more difficult than anybody it is. He described it not as work for hire but as
donor to his campaign. In retrospect, Blair expected.” work that can change the character of coun-
seems to have obfuscated almost every aspect of He went on: “In the end, the most sensible tries. “The question you have to ask yourself
the affair. He denied for years that Ecclestone’s thing is to realize that this problem is huge. It’s is: Why is it that in the 1960s—take Singapore,
donations to his campaign had any effect on his not something that we’ve created. It is some- South Korea, Sierra Leone, and Iraq—why is
decision. But documents revealed by a Tele- thing we’re dealing with, and we are going to it that they all had the same G.D.P. and today
graph investigation later showed that he ap- have to deal with it for a long time.” two of them are First World and two of them
peared to have lied about the date when he I started to ask a further question, but Blair manifestly aren’t? And the answer to that is the
decided to push for an exemption. He asked for interrupted. “People say, ‘Why should you quality of government and the decisions made.”
it just hours after he had met with Ecclestone. listen to him?’—because of Iraq. And I keep I asked if he has ever run into troubling
saying, that’s why you should listen to me. Be- conflicts because he wears so many hats. Refer-
V. If Putin Called cause I’ve been through this in government, ring to Tony Blair Associates, his first response

D uring our conversation in London, Blair

sat in a wing chair next to the marble fire-
place in his office. He wore an open-necked blue
and since leaving office I’ve been studying it
the whole time.
“One thing that is quite interesting to me is
was to say what any public figure might say:
“We have incredibly strict rules we apply.” Then
he went on to argue that, to a certain extent,
dress shirt and a brown suit. On a table nearby how poor Western governments are at the mo- strict rules don’t really apply to him. “I am a
were bottles of wine and liquor and a stack of ment—and I don’t exempt mine from this—how private-sector individual,” he said. “So, I will go
copies of his autobiography, all apparently in- poor they are at understanding what’s going on and meet with some people connected with the
tended as gifts (and one of the cards bearing the in the world. I mean, I find my own under- Africa foundation, and some people connected
name Ed Milliband, the current leader of the standing of the Middle East, but also further with the Quartet, and I’m also chairman of the
Labour Party). Across the room stood a wooden afield, just so much more sophisticated and JPMorgan advisory council. I’m a private indi-
desk covered with a jumble of papers, along with deep [now] than the understanding I had in vidual. I’m not a government department! One
a large computer and an open laptop. An in- government, even with all that infrastructure”— of the things people are going to have to get
scribed photograph of John Kerry sat on the the intelligence services and foreign office and used to is: you are going to get leaders leaving
desk. Next to it was the 30th-anniversary issue of so on. Understanding the developing world in office in their early 50s. I have a lot of energy.
Gay Times, which had named Blair as one of the particular, Blair said, is something that eludes I feel extremely fit. There’s no way I’m going to
magazine’s 30 “gay icons”—not for the abs that governments in Europe and America. retire and play golf.” Blair shifted in his chair.
Cherie admired but for the Blair government’s Blair mentioned Egypt, and the toppling of “You look at someone like Henry,” he said, re-
recognition of gay civil partnerships, for its mak- Hosni Mubarak and the coming to power of the ferring to Henry Kissinger. “He’s 91 and he’s
ing homophobia a hate crime, and for its repeal Muslim Brotherhood. “People were saying, still going strong. I love that. Or Shimon Peres!
of a particularly discriminatory piece of legisla- ‘Maybe they’ll turn out all right.’ I was say- These are my role models.”
tion called Section 28. ing, they’re not going to turn out all right. Look, And is there anyone he wouldn’t work for?
Blair appeared initially wary—“I’m playing I took a view right at the outset that the Muslim For instance, would he serve as a consultant
for the long term here, I’m not playing for the Brotherhood in Egypt was a disaster. I support- to Vladimir Putin if Putin called asking for
next day’s newspapers”—but as we spoke, he ed the street movement to get [Morsi] out of advice? Blair smiled, and switched the topic
warmed to the topic of his work. It occurred power and put Sisi in office. That doesn’t mean to Kazakhstan. He said, “I choose the people
to me that his multiple spheres in a variety of I don’t criticize them for some of the things that that I’m working with because I know we are
countries around the world leave him without a happened in Egypt.” But, Blair says, “I helped trying to do good things with them. Right? So,
core social circle. Influential as he was in Brit- him. I have been very happy to help. But I’m to give you an example: Kazakhstan is the size
ish public life, he is now both physically and not some sort of adviser to Sisi. The U.A.E. sup- of Western Europe, sandwiched between Rus-
emotionally removed from it. The allegation of ports him and helps him with people, and at a sia and China. It has to be and is a partner
an affair with Wendi Murdoch only hastened certain point we suggested people that he could with Russia; it’s making sure it is also an inde-
that isolation, taking away the array of Mur- go and get to help them.” Because of that rela- pendent country. And it is a majority Muslim
doch allies who had surrounded him while he tionship, “I was able to help in ensuring that country that has welcomed the building of a
was in office. Blair was willing to talk about any Egypt was involved and was in the pole position synagogue in the last few years. So it is a stra-
subject that might come up, including the full in negotiating a cease-fire. There is going to be tegically important country for the West. I am
range of criticisms he has been subjected to. no peace between Israelis and Palestinians with- not oblivious to the challenges these countries
He was sometimes defensive, often eloquent, out the effective participation of Egypt.” have—the evolution they should have on de-
never at a loss for words. One area Blair can’t speak about very mocracy and human rights.”
However stoutly he defended his decisions freely is his role at the Quartet. When I told He paused and then added, “I’m not hold-
on Iraq and Afghanistan, Blair clearly resented him that not many Americans have much ing my breath for the call from Putin.” But if
the fact that they have damaged his reputation awareness of the organization, he responded it came?, I asked. “It won’t come, so let me
irrevocably. In a sense, he passed the buck to under his breath, “Or anyone else.” When I not either praise or insult.”
the legacy of history. “The reason it was tough asked what he felt he might accomplish, he
in Iraq and tough in Afghanistan is the reason actually sighed. “The Quartet,” he said, “was VI. “Torture in a Tin”
it is tough today. At some point, people will
understand that it’s not because of something
we’ve done. It’s tough because the terrorism
constructed in the time of the Bush admin-
istration really to manage the international
community. My mandate is basically on the
I n late July, in the midst of the war in Gaza,
Blair threw a 60th-birthday party for his
wife, Cherie, with 150 people at their Bucking-
is deep-rooted and it’s got very strong causes economy and preparing Palestinians for state- hamshire country house, with dinner, dancing,
within the religion of Islam. This is going to hood.” But, he added, “if the politics break and a comedy routine—performed for free—by
last beyond this president and beyond the next down it’s very hard to do that.” And since the British comedian Bobby Davro. The Daily
president. All the choices are ugly and tough. 2011 “the process has broken down.” The Mail covered the event, scathingly, noting that
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 103
 Tony Blair last year as the West was contemplating mili-
tary action against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
guy you’d go on holiday with, or you’d live
next door to and become good friends with.”
the Blairs enjoyed “foie gras and a freebie “People wince at the thought of intervention,” Which made Blair’s subsequent transforma-
show” even as the “death toll in Gaza passed Blair wrote in The Times of London, “but con- tion all the more jarring.
1,050.” The reference to a freebie show was a template the future consequence of inaction and The most haunting thing about listening
dig at Cherie, whose propensity for accepting shudder.” Around the same time he traveled to to Harris speak about Blair, to my ear, was
complimentary services and favors while at Sardinia and was spotted by reporters on the that his tone wasn’t angry. The most haunting
Downing Street was widely mocked in the Brit- smaller of David Geffen’s yachts, the Pelorus. thing was that it was wistful about what might
ish press. The article noted that PETA had put “He’s a very curious individual,” Robert have been. 
out a statement in response to the news that Harris told me. “The truth is whatever he
the party had served foie gras: “The Blairs are perceives it to be at a given moment. I don’t FROM THE ARCHIVE
out of touch with many things, including the think he’s ever really—I mean, lying. I think he For these related stories, visit VF.COM/ARCHIVE
majority of the British public, who rightly want becomes convinced at the moment he’s saying
• Tony Blair’s checkered legacy
nothing to do with this torture in a tin.” something that it’s true.” In the end, Harris (David Margolick, July 2000, June 2003;
It is not only Blair’s lifestyle that draws nega- has come to see Blair as fundamentally per- Christopher Hitchens, March 2001, February
tive attention. There is also his continuing partic- plexing, a cipher. The appealing thing about 2011; and Henry Porter, July 2006)

ipation in public debate. “He wants to be taken young Tony Blair, he recalled, was that he • In
conversation: Graydon Carter and Tony
Blair (VF.com video, June 2009)
seriously—from David Geffen’s yacht—admon- was “completely natural, pragmatic, sensible,
• Wendi Deng’s other man
ishing people for not bombing Syria,” a former funny, self-deprecating—a pricker of pompos- (Mark Seal, March 2014)
associate told me, referring to Blair’s comments ity, and very informal. He seemed the kind of

First Look Media Soon after, Omidyar and Huffington flew to

Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama was
ing some role” in getting a new media organiza-
tion off the ground. Omidyar told Greenwald
hosting a five-day Mind & Life Institute gath- that he wanted to use his background as a tech-
ering of Buddhist monks and scientists. Dur- nologist and his reach in Silicon Valley to devel-
ing the trip, the two discussed the difficulty of op technology and software to revitalize privacy
launching a destination news site. “That train on the Internet, and to allow people to come to
has left the station,” Huffington says she told journalists anonymously. Greenwald conferred
him, meaning that unlike the Huffington Post, with Poitras and Scahill, and they all agreed to
which had launched nine years earlier, when cast their lot with Omidyar as long as they could
big niches were there for the taking, anything continue to publish the Snowden documents—
Omidyar did would have to rely more on social- that was a given. Talks about what would be-
media sharing to build an audience. come First Look Media now began in earnest.
In September 2013—after he and Huffington
Media.) Huffington
C ON T I N U E D F RO M PAGE 78 had solidified the Hawaii partnership but before A Hiring Binge
spent three days in Hawaii with Omidyar, fly-
ing together from island to island for a series of
events to celebrate the launch. “Nothing was too
they traveled to India—Omidyar connected on
Twitter with Trevor Timm, a young lawyer and
co-founder of the Freedom of the Press Foun-
F or Greenwald, relationships with media or-
ganizations have always been uneasy. He
had gained the attention of Edward Snowden
much,” Huffington remembered. “That’s one of dation, who tweets frequently on the media. The through his fiery columns for the online publica-
the things I love about him.” During those three two e-mailed and eventually connected over Si- tion Salon. In his articles and books, Greenwald
days, Omidyar says, he began to see Huffington lent Circle in an encrypted video chat. Omidyar railed against not just government surveillance
as “a trusted friend and adviser.” In New York, asked Timm, “If I were to create a new news or- but also civil-rights abuses, U.S. foreign policy in
Huffington organized a dinner at her apartment ganization, what kind of an organization would general, and, as often as not, the “Establish-
so that he could meet various media figures. “It I have to create to support the kind of work that ment” press. His propensity for attacking The
ended up being so many people I had to build people like Glenn do?” “Glenn,” of course, was New York Times was athletic. No matter what
a new top for the round table,” Huffington told a reference to Glenn Greenwald. A few weeks the topic, he could work in a dig about the
me. The guests included Facebook co-founder later, Timm got back to Omidyar and told him Times. When he started writing for The Guard-
and New Republic owner Chris Hughes and his he should get in touch with Greenwald himself, ian’s U.S. online edition, he had worked out a
husband, political hopeful Sean Eldridge; Pro- noting that Greenwald and some colleagues relationship similar to the one he had had at
Publica editor Stephen Engelberg and his wife, were thinking about “some things that might be Salon: his columns were unedited, except to ad-
author Gabrielle Glaser; advertising executive interesting to you.” dress serious legal or journalistic questions.
and social-strategy author John Gerzema; po- Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Sca- At the time of Omidyar’s approach, Green-
litical and corporate adviser Ian Osborne; CBS hill had in fact been talking about joining up to wald and Laura Poitras had spent much of the
anchor and interviewer Charlie Rose; and Face- launch a new media outlet of their own. They previous four months in constant contact over
book C.O.O. Sheryl Sandberg. Omidyar, Huff- had started to put together a possible investor the Snowden stories. Poitras, though perhaps
ington says, wrote copiously in a little black note- list, which was how Timm knew about Green- more skeptical of the mainstream media than
book that was “small enough to fit in a woman’s wald’s plans in the first place. “He was very Greenwald, had worked to publish articles with
purse.” (Huffington says she has now bought humble,” Greenwald told me, thinking back to Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and The New York
the same kind of notebook to preserve a rec- that first conversation with Omidyar. (Again, via Times but remained independent and some-
ord of interesting conversations.) At the dinner, video chat. To this day, Omidyar and Greenwald times frustrated with the strictures imposed by
Omidyar didn’t divulge his interest in launching have never met in person.) Omidyar said, ac- big media organizations. Jeremy Scahill, for his
his own organization, but the guests talked about cording to Greenwald, “I don’t know if this is part, had dropped out of college, worked in
the challenges and opportunities in digital me- even possible, and you might laugh at me. But I homeless shelters, and was introduced to jour-
dia, and Omidyar’s blood continued to warm. was wondering if you would be interested in play- nalism as a volunteer for the nonprofit televi-
104 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
sion news program Democracy Now! In 2007 launch a new media outlet. Looking back, as twofold,” Temple, who lives in San Fran-
he published a book, Blackwater: The Rise of Omidyar told me that the timing was unfortu- cisco, told me in August, when he was in New
the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, nate because “it was leaked before we knew York to visit First Look’s office there. He said
which won a George Polk Book Award. He what the heck we were doing. to Omidyar, “Glenn is on the biggest story of
came out with a second book, Dirty Wars: The “The initial priority for us, for Glenn, was his life, and you can’t go dark. By necessity you
World Is a Battlefield, in 2013, and produced dominated by how can we create the operational need to create a platform so Glenn can publish.”
and narrated a film by the same name. The and legal infrastructure necessary to responsibly At the same time, “you have to be sure it doesn’t
film, which focused on U.S. covert actions and report on those documents as quickly as possi- dictate the future of the company.” Temple ar-
drone strikes, was nominated for an Academy ble,” Omidyar told me. “That was really the op- gued that the security requirements and “work-
Award for best documentary feature in 2014. erational focus of the first few months of the or- flow” of the Snowden documents couldn’t be
Greenwald said to Omidyar that, if he and ganization.” He ultimately agreed to fund the that of the entire organization. He set out to help
his two colleagues were to join the new venture, appeal of Greenwald’s spouse, David Miranda, Omidyar determine that “first incarnation” of
“we were going to need to launch in six weeks,” who had been detained over the summer by First Look, beyond the Snowden documents.
Greenwald told me. The reason for urgency was British authorities while transporting Snowden- One of his initial tasks was to organize an event
to be able to continue publishing Snowden ma- related material. Omidyar created a litigation in Laguna Beach, at the Montage hotel, for
terial without missing a beat. “He freaked out fund to support press-freedom cases, with Mi- Omidyar and—according to Stephen Buckley,
and said, ‘That’s a very fast time frame.’ ” But randa as its first one. In December, Omidyar then dean of faculty at the media-focused Poyn-
Omidyar agreed to push ahead, and Greenwald began thinking about the “first incarnation” of ter Institute, who attended the meeting—about a
went on a hiring binge. Given how rapidly the First Look, beyond Greenwald, Poitras, and dozen editors, journalism educators, industry an-
organization had come into existence, and how Scahill, and beyond the Snowden documents. alysts, and former reporters, to hear Omidyar’s
meager the planning, people signed up without “Our best idea at the time was: We’ll create digi- vision for First Look, and to challenge him on it.
any real idea of what the site was going to be. tal homes that we call digital magazines for this Around the time Omidyar was meeting in
Greenwald’s first hires were Dan Froomkin, collection of journalists around different topics.” Laguna Beach, the physical reality of First Look
the Washington-bureau chief of the Huffington The early topics, in Omidyar’s mind, were na- was sitting in temporary office space in Manhat-
Post, and Liliana Segura, of The Nation. Soon tional security, the economy and finance, and tan. There were perhaps a dozen reporters in
after came Eric Bates, from Rolling Stone, who then, potentially, sports and entertainment. New York, all working under the supervision
had edited the financial writer Matt Taibbi and And the hiring continued. Within a few of executive editor Bates, as well as under Cook
also the magazine’s award-winning Michael months First Look had hired Lynn Oberlander, and Taibbi. The task at that point was to pre-
Hastings story on General Stanley McChrystal. formerly the general counsel of The New Yorker, pare to launch a number of digital magazines
Bates, Omidyar told me, “was somebody Glenn as its legal counsel. Micah Lee, formerly of the that would feed into Firstlook.org. Taibbi’s site,
could work with, which is important, I think. Electronic Frontier Foundation, who had helped Racket, was still officially unnamed, though
The editor-reporter relationship is critical.” Greenwald with his encrypted communications Taibbi had hired Alex Pareene, from Salon, to
Greenwald and his colleagues didn’t get ev- with Snowden, was hired to set up online securi- be his executive editor. Meanwhile, Temple ex-
ery prospective hire they wanted. “They came ty, and worked from home in Berkeley. Omidyar plained to me, all of The Intercept’s founding
after everybody,” said someone who was recruit- had also approved Greenwald’s suggested hiring editors—Greenwald, Poitras, and Scahill—were
ed. “When this thing came out, pick your inves- of Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, who had once fa- busy on their own projects. “Laura is in Berlin
tigative reporter and I think they approached mously referred to Goldman Sachs as “a great making a movie. Glenn is writing a best-seller.
them.” Among those recruited was Matt Apuz- vampire squid wrapped around the face of hu- Jeremy is at the Academy Awards,” he said.
zo, then at the Associated Press, who had shared manity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into “It’s all stratospheric.” The Intercept’s first story,
a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the New anything that smells like money.” Taibbi was to published in February, was a joint venture be-
York Police Department’s surveillance of Mus- start a site focused on financial and political cor- tween Greenwald and Scahill on the N.S.A.’s
lim communities. First Look also approached ruption—which eventually adopted a satirical role in the government’s drone program. Ini-
two of Apuzzo’s A.P. colleagues, who had won tone—that came to be called Racket. Omidyar tially, the site published articles periodically, but
the Pulitzer with him: Adam Goldman, who also approved the hiring of Gawker’s John the announcements of new hires seemed more
would soon accept a job at The Washington Post, Cook, to be editor in chief of The Intercept, the frequent than the stories. The Silicon Valley site
and Eileen Sullivan. First Look told potential re- one First Look site actually up and running. PandoDaily posted an item in April, “Glenn, In-
cruits that it was building a site that would have The Intercept was dedicated to national-security tercepted,” noting that no new stories had been
Huffington Post–level traffic but with the smart- reporting and in its early days focused almost posted on The Intercept in nearly 10 days.
est investigative reporters in the business. It exclusively on the Snowden documents. Even so, First Look kept growing. But it was
seemed the organization wanted to recruit a hard to say who was running the show. John
group of big-name journalists and have them Who’s in Charge? Temple was still finishing up his journalism fel-
join First Look together. But Apuzzo balked at
the numbers the First Look recruiter initially
suggested for a salary—it didn’t seem to take into
I n January 2014, Omidyar asked John Tem-
ple, who was at the time doing a fellowship
at Stanford, to join First Look’s board. “I say,
lowship at Stanford. Randy Ching, First Look’s
C.O.O., was in California. And Omidyar was
rarely seen in New York, though he and Temple
account the risk of joining a new journalism ‘John, I need your help. We are trying to build met occasionally in the Bay Area. And if no
start-up. In December, it was announced that an organization here, a journalistic institution, one was running the show, it’s also true that
Apuzzo was going to work for The New York one that’s going to have a large-scale impact over no one even knew what the show was.
Times. Omidyar also unsuccessfully pursued a long period of time,’ ” Omidyar told me. Dur-
James Risen, the Times reporter who, back in ing their two years together at Civil Beat, they “Up Your Asana”
2006, shared a Pulitzer Prize for an early and
crucial series on the Bush administration’s
warrantless-wiretapping program.
got along well, despite their different approaches.
“Pierre likes systems and process,” Temple told
me. “I’m intuitive.” Omidyar had been informal-
E xpansion without direction—it couldn’t last.
In April, Eric Bates told Cook and Taibbi
that Omidyar had put in place a three-month
The earliest public word of the existence of ly talking to Temple about his new venture since hiring freeze. If there was a specific need related
First Look came in the form of a BuzzFeed August, but it was only in January that Omidyar to the Snowden archive, Bates said, then the
story on October 15, 2013, revealing that Green- asked Temple to officially come on board. hire could go through, but otherwise Omidyar
wald planned to leave The Guardian to help “I viewed the responsibility he had acquired wanted to buy some time to reflect. When
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 105
 First Look Media ries of people on a given project: Responsible,
Accountable, Supportive, Consulted, and In-
conduct may have been motivated, at least in
part, by her gender.” The article also described
Greenwald and Poitras came to New York to ac- formed. Although many of the journalists were the “confusion, differing perspectives, and
cept a Polk Award for the Snowden stories that not expected to use RASCIs very frequently, misaligned expectations” between First Look
had appeared in The Guardian, Greenwald, Poi- editors occasionally had to. In an organiza- management and the editorial staff. It alleged
tras, and Scahill arranged a video chat with tion that First Look editors had billed as non- that Omidyar personally signed off on routine
Omidyar about the purported freeze. Omidyar hierarchical, the use of responsibility assignment expenses such as taxi rides and office supplies.
said that there was no freeze and that there had matrices rubbed some people the wrong way. In preparing their article, the authors looked
been a misunderstanding. Still, John Cook and By then, the First Look temporary offices into the complaints against Taibbi. Insiders say
Matt Taibbi found it difficult to get hires approved had moved to a building in the Flatiron District, they debated for days about what to include in
for The Intercept and Racket. In June, Green- near Madison Square Park, in a space once oc- their story. An initial version didn’t mention the
wald, Poitras, Scahill, and Taibbi wrote a private cupied by Creative Artists Agency. Closed-door gender of the employee who had raised con-
letter to Omidyar expressing their displeasure. offices ringed the perimeter, and the center of cerns about Taibbi. The authors circulated early
They complained about arbitrary restrictions on the newsroom was filled with high-walled cu- drafts of the story among some Intercept staff-
hiring and a lack of clear budgets for the two bicles. Over the summer, there were discussions ers and, based on the feedback they received,
sites. The letter, after back-and-forth discussions about redesigning the office so it would have an particularly from women, determined that they
between First Look journalists and management, open plan. Cook and Taibbi argued that certain might be seen as protecting a male journalis-
resulted in a clear budget for The Intercept and journalists, such as those dealing with Snowden tic star and ignoring the concerns of a female
increased autonomy. During this time, The Inter- documents, would need to be in a closed office staffer. The final story was not reviewed by First
cept was publishing significant national-security with doors that locked. What resulted was a Look’s internal counsel before publication.
stories, not all of them based on Snowden’s docu- compromise. Some journalists kept offices, but On October 10, according to the Intercept
ments. Over the course of a month—from early the rest were in the open newsroom. Some of the account, Taibbi left the office claiming he had
July to early August—The New York Times fol- extra offices were converted to become “Zen” or been stripped of managerial responsibilities
lowed three such stories from The Intercept, and “collaboration” rooms. A “seat changing” party (a claim First Look managers dispute). Taibbi
credited the site with breaking the news. was also suggested, in which editors and report- maintained that the woman’s complaint was
In late July, Omidyar announced in a blog ers would throw their names into a hat and draw without merit. First Look, according to the
post that, instead of launching a variety of sites, a new working space. (This party never took article, determined that Taibbi was not legally li-
First Look would be “building out” The Inter- place.) A disagreement surfaced over whether able for his behavior, just a bad manager. Then
cept and Racket. No other sites were immediately the First Look journalists in New York should Omidyar told him he could not return to the or-
planned, and First Look would focus on experi- have landlines. Cook and Taibbi wanted them, ganization as an employee, only as a contractor
menting with the technical aspects of distribut- but First Look suggested the staff just use their who would not be managing other employees.
ing First Look’s journalism, rather than simply cell phones, and the company offered to buy This was not acceptable, and he left the compa-
creating new content. For some of the journalists phones for anyone who needed or wanted one. ny and published an article soon after in Rolling
who had joined the site expecting to be part of a As a compromise, the company installed phone Stone. First Look declined to comment on the
large, reporter-driven, and all-purpose media or- lines in “quiet” rooms where journalists could complaints referenced in the Intercept piece,
ganization, the news came as a shock. Omidyar’s conduct interviews if needed. or to say whether it has routine procedures in
technical curiosity about the distribution of place to handle complaints of this kind. The
news was trumping his interest in actual news,
some of the journalists said. That impression
was partly seeded by John Temple, who had be-
A s Taibbi’s relationship with First Look’s
management was deteriorating, so was
his working relationship with a female em-
company also declined to comment on its own
investigation, to say if it is complete, or to indi-
cate whether the person who lodged the com-
come First Look’s president in June. Shortly after ployee. When the employee, who does not plaint against Taibbi is satisfied with the process.
he arrived, Temple spoke to the First Look news- wish to be named, complained about Taibbi’s After Taibbi left, First Look held an all-
room about his recent stint at Stanford and an behavior, Temple and Ching called a video- company meeting during which various employ-
inspiring start-up he had encountered that cre- conference with Taibbi, and Temple launched ees voiced their displeasure that First Look’s
ated content for Oculus Rift 3-D gaming head- an investigation. management had allowed him to leave. The
sets to put people into video virtual-reality settings. What followed was a set of events that result- woman whose complaint had triggered Temple’s
Adding to Cook and Taibbi’s overall frustra- ed in Taibbi’s leaving the company, in late Oc- investigation stood up and said that the reaction
tion was a suggestion from First Look executives tober. On October 30, First Look’s founding she was hearing negated her experience. An-
that journalists make use of specific computer journalists—Greenwald, Scahill, and Poitras, other woman stood up and said that the whole
programs and project-management software. joined by Intercept editor in chief Cook—wrote episode made her concerned as a woman work-
The editors were encouraged to use a task- an article, published in The Intercept, outlining ing in the company. The day the Intercept story
management system called Asana. It works like the reasons for Taibbi’s exit. “The Inside Story ran, Nick Denton had breakfast with John Cook
this: a person creates a task on Asana and invites of Matt Taibbi’s Departure from First Look and offered him a job back at his old employer,
relevant colleagues to join the task. The task has a Media” described Taibbi’s leaving as “the cul- Gawker, which he ultimately accepted.
deadline, and everyone invited can see the chains mination of months of contentious disputes I asked Omidyar what he thought of the In-
of conversation about the task. When the task is with First Look founder Pierre Omidyar, chief tercept article, and he said, speaking carefully,
completed, a box is checked, and the task goes operating officer Randy Ching, and president “I need to be in a position where I’m support-
into an archive. Jeremy Scahill jokingly called John Temple over the structure and manage- ing the work of our journalists and I have their
the program “up your Asana.” Matt Taibbi ment of Racket,” the site Taibbi had been hired backs, especially on high-stakes stuff. And
used the program so infrequently he had to be to create. “Those disputes were exacerbated by I have no doubts about that.” The national-
continually reminded of how it functioned. a recent complaint from a Racket employee security reporting, he added, “is the stuff that
First Look managers also encouraged the about Taibbi’s behavior as a manager,” the ar- really matters. It’s their publication—they can
use of RASCIs—responsibility assignment ma- ticle maintained. Specifically, a female Racket publish what they want… So I’m not going
trices—to manage various projects, whether staffer had “complained to senior manage- to second-guess their decisions.”
it was site design or promotional spots. The ment that Taibbi had been verbally abusive and As for what lies ahead, the Intercept article
acronym stands for the five different catego- unprofessionally hostile, and that she felt the noted that, after “months of disagreements
106 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
and negotiations,” the Intercept editors had are doing the most high-stakes, difficult work First Look now faces, at the very least, a
reached an understanding with First Look ex- that there is.” He noted that building the organ- difficult recruiting environment. The Snowden
ecutives and had been given a sizable budget ization was a challenge, but “a year in, actually, material will hold Greenwald and Omidyar
and autonomy to make decisions. The future we’re in really great shape.” His overall outlook together for the foreseeable future. But First
of Racket, with Taibbi gone, remained unclear. was one he had expressed to me before, when Look’s reliance on high-maintenance person-
we spoke in Hawaii: “I’m patient.” alities made the turmoil it has experienced
“I’m Patient” Silicon Valley executives like to talk about how almost inevitable. Omidyar has learned quite

I met with Omidyar for a second time at the

offices of one of his philanthropic organiza-
tions, Omidyar Network, in Redwood City, Cal-
you aren’t succeeding if you aren’t failing at least
some of the time. By that measure, First Look’s
first year is a towering success. Perhaps the ten-
a bit in the past year, and the lessons he
takes away will shape whatever it is he’s now
left with. One of them may be that cultural
ifornia. Asked about First Look’s rocky start, he sions and battles between the journalists at First transformations aren’t easy, even when
replied pointedly, saying that “building some- Look and their executive counterparts can be you’re creating the organization yourself.
thing from scratch is difficult.” He noted that he interpreted as the typical growing pains of a start- And you have to wonder what Omidyar
had done it before. “Lots of people have done up, with Omidyar cast as the plucky entrepreneur thinks now, as sanity returns, about that of-
it before—but, actually, many more have never at its helm, tinkering, adjusting, and perfecting fer from the Post. 
done it.” He chalked up some of the difficulty his model. But it’s more likely that the misun-
at First Look to employees not understanding derstandings at First Look derive from a funda-
the normal chaos of building an organiza- mental philosophical divide between two groups. FROM THE ARCHIVE
For these related stories, visit VF.COM/ARCHIVE
tion. “Part of being an entrepreneur is taking on The journalists saw themselves as freethinking,
a large challenge—having a vision to take on a independent, and adversarial, and felt hemmed • “The Snowden Saga” (Suzanna Andrews,
Bryan Burrough, and Sarah Ellison, May
challenge—and then putting the pieces in place in by a process-driven management structure. 2014)
to get there. And a lot of those pieces are not For its part, management thought it was simply
• How to become a brand-name journalist
related to the challenge that you’re trying to ad- providing some much-needed organization—a (James Wolcott, April 2014)
dress. They’re the infrastructure of a company.” system—within which the journalists could op- • Newspapers in turmoil in the Digital Age
He added that the normal difficulties of a start- erate. The hubris that each party brought to First (Mark Bowden, May 2009; Sarah
Ellison, June 2010, April 2012; and
up are exacerbated by building an organization Look probably meant that self-awareness was Michael Kinsley, May 2014)
“that has, at its core, a group of journalists who not at the top of the list of personal attributes.

Angela Merkel in being seen as a woman.” Another of her

nicknames in Germany is “Das Merkel,” the
ny’s version of the BBC. With the exception of
Schäuble, she says, “not one of them today is
“das” implying gender neutrality. in a party or in government. None survived.”
Merkel’s next post was minister for the en- “I was there in Essen when she was elected
vironment, nature conservation, and nuclear head of the party, and I walked by a line of
safety. In 1995 she led the U.N. climate con- these men and I watched their faces. Nobody
ference in Berlin that produced an agreement was delighted or happy,” Dirk Kurbjuweit
on greenhouse-gas emissions, still a pretty big says. “They thought, O.K., Angie, two years
deal. She was elected secretary-general of the for you to sweep away this Kohl mess and
Christian Democrats in November 1998, after then one of us will do the real job. I thought
Gerhard Schröder, of the S.P.D., had been this as well.” But, Kurbjuweit says, “because
elected chancellor in October. In December, they were all rivals to one another, they could
she married Sauer but was so nonchalant never agree on whom to replace her with. That
C ON T I N U E D F ROM PAGE 71 engaging, and in- about it that she called to tell her parents the was their mistake. Then the job was easy; she
tensely curious about America. “She wanted to next day. Then das Mädchen roared. could take one after another out of the game.”
know everything about NATO, its dual tracking In 2002, despite being the C.D.U.’s leader
system, U.S. relations with the U.S.S.R. She was
very friendly; she basically knew there was a
gap in her education.” He described her as
I n late 1999, without warning, a letter written
by Merkel appeared in the Frankfurter Allge-
meine Zeitung saying it was time for the party
in the Bundestag, Merkel decided not to run
for chancellor; the C.D.U. joined with the
right-wing Christian Social Union to back
a woman “just unrelenting in her search for to move on without her political patron and Edmund Stoiber, who lost. Schröder—who
information about subjects she knew were im- mentor, Helmut Kohl. After he had been vot- had made opposing a potential American
portant for her and her future.” ed out, Kohl found himself mired in a scandal intervention in Iraq a major campaign issue—
One subject, however, that did not en- about C.D.U. finances and refused to name stayed in office. But Merkel was in position
gage her then—or now—was feminism. The the donors involved. (He was not accused of to be the next C.D.U. nominee. In February
taken-for-granted tradition of women work- using any of the money for himself.) Many 2003, in the run-up to the U.S.-led war in Iraq,
ing in East Germany formed much of her in the German media characterized Merkel’s Merkel wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post
thinking. Rita Süssmuth, the grande dame move as a cold act of political patricide. titled “Schröder Doesn’t Speak for All Ger-
of the C.D.U., a pioneering feminist, and the Kohl’s chosen successor as party chief, mans.” She openly criticized Schröder for us-
second female president of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Schäuble (now Merkel’s finance ing the issue as a wedge, said the threat from
preceded Merkel as minister for women and minister), also got caught up in the scandal Saddam Hussein was real, and insisted that
youth. “She had big problems with the femi- and had to resign. The way was cleared for Europe should work in unity with the United
nist movement; she believed she was already her to become party chairwoman in April of States. The Iraq war was deeply unpopular in
emancipated by her studies,” Süssmuth told 2000. What was left of the C.D.U.’s old-boy Germany, but she was staking out her turf.
me. According to Stefan Kornelius, the autho- network was stunned. “They began to fight In the 2005 election, Merkel and the C.D.U. ran
rized Merkel biographer, “She never wanted against this rising star, Angela, but she got rid on a conservative, free-market platform, while
to be minister for women. She doesn’t believe of them,” says Sabine Rau, of ARD, Germa- Schröder attacked evil capitalism. Neither
JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 107
 Angela Merkel “Merkel does not define herself as a female—she
has defined her own class, which is heavyweight
case and we can’t force anything.” But about
the crisis in Ukraine, she said, “If we have to
party won a clear majority. There was going champion.” Although Merkel got her start and watch how a country is de-stabilized and then
to be a coalition government, and it was not promotions from men, she always benefited gets weaker and weaker, then we have to try to
immediately clear who the next chancellor of from being underestimated, in part because help this country.” Indeed, by October of last
Germany would be. she looked so young, geeky, and frumpy; she year, Germany was considering sending troops
Germany has a curious political tradition smoked and bit her fingernails practically down to Ukraine to assist international monitors there,
called “the elephant round.” After the polls to the cuticles. Additionally, Merkel’s peers were and, in November, Merkel delivered a strongly
close on Election Night, the major candidates the men who rose through the party ranks, begin- worded rebuke to Russia following the G-20
appear together on television. Schröder took ning in the C.D.U. as teenagers, and its leaders, Leaders’ Summit.
the opportunity to lay into Merkel, shouting at such as Kohl, were revered as father figures with- “People have come to understand the evil
her that she would never be able to form a coali- in the party. Merkel never really saw it that way. intentions of Putin, so the public mood has
tion with his S.P.D. party, and she would never Today, she has to contend with two domi- changed toward Putin,” says Norbert Röttgen.
be chancellor. Merkel was very passive in her nant male figures on the world stage, Vladimir Roderich Kiesewetter told me that “Putin un-
responses. “I was there that night at party head- Putin and Barack Obama. Roderich Kiesewet- derstandings” has become a standard expres-
quarters and she was in a visible state of shock,” ter, a C.D.U. member of the Bundestag and a sion in the chancellor’s circle: “She reaches
says Stefan Theil, Newsweek bureau chief at the data-security expert, told me that the chancellor an oral agreement and then one day later, two
time. If there was a moment for her opposition spent more than 110 hours on the phone with hours later, he doesn’t remember.” After one
in the C.D.U. to take her out, this was it. Putin in 2014, though Germany’s Information particularly vexing round of phone calls in
As it happened, a feeble attempt was made Ministry downplayed that number. Merkel’s March, it leaked that Merkel had confided to
inside the party to depose her, but no one Russian is as good as Putin’s German. Grow- Obama that Putin lives “in another world.” The
coalesced around another candidate, and in ing up in East Germany, Merkel won a prize as leak may have come from the White House,
the end the S.P.D. caved. It formed a grand a teenager for being the third-best student Rus- and the Germans were not pleased. When I
coalition with the C.D.U.: Schröder was out sian speaker in the G.D.R. The award included asked a German official to confirm the state-
and Merkel had squeaked in. Says John Korn- a trip to Moscow, where she took the opportu- ment, he very pointedly said, “We never divulge
blum, “She has been mashed potatoes ever nity to buy her first Beatles record. For his part, the content of confidential conversations.”
since.” Bland, safe, predictable. Putin spoke German while stationed in Dres-
But not exactly. As nine years of Merkel
leadership have shown, when the wind or the
polls blow a certain way and she can be con-
den as a not terribly successful K.G.B. agent,
where his mission was to recruit Stasi members
for the K.G.B.
E ven though President Obama presented
Merkel with the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, our highest civilian honor, and gave
vinced by facts, the methodical Merkel can The Germans and the Russians have a long her a state dinner in 2011, she and Obama have
turn on a dime. For instance, after realizing history of being philosophical and literary soul- none of the coziness between them that may
how frightened the German public was of mates when they are not trying to annihilate have prompted George W. Bush to surrepti-
nuclear energy after the 2011 Fukushima di- each other. Merkel keeps a small portrait of tiously approach Merkel from behind and
saster, and in anticipation of regional elections, Russia’s Catherine the Great on her desk. In squeeze her shoulders at a Group of 8 summit
she suddenly backed a policy in which Ger- past years, Germany blocked NATO expansion in 2006. (The New York Times called it “the
many, a country that at the time used nuclear that was being pushed by the U.S. ever closer neck rub heard round the world.”) Obama has
power for 17.7 percent of its electricity needs, to Russia’s borders. Germany obtains 36 per- not learned how to break the ice with her, or
would eschew all nuclear energy by 2022. cent of its natural gas from Russia, and Ger- perhaps does not care to. Tricky relations be-
She debated over a weekend with her min- hard Schröder, who is still influential in S.P.D. tween U.S. and German heads of state aren’t
ister of the environment, Norbert Röttgen, circles, became so chummy with Russia that entirely new. “Kennedy and Adenauer hated
and made a final decision on Monday while his revolving door after the chancellery led each other,” Kornblum says, “and Schmidt
riding an elevator with him. In 2012 Merkel right to a position on the board of Gazprom, thought Carter was a damned preacher in the
fired Röttgen from his ministerial post after Russia’s chief energy conglomerate; last spring White House.” Merkel and Obama are cor-
he failed to win state elections for the C.D.U. in St. Petersburg, on Schröder’s 70th birthday, rect with each other, both realizing their
He made no public comment about being her Putin even came by to give Schröder a hug importance to each other, though Merkel’s im-
latest male victim and is now chairman of the and wish him a happy birthday. portance seems only to increase every day.
Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Bundes- Merkel’s relationship with Putin isn’t that “Nowadays they are on an eye-to-eye level with
tag, ostensibly enjoying a successful working buddy-buddy, even though Putin was so grate- us,” says Tony Czuczka, who covers Merkel for
relationship with the chancellor. ful to Germany in 2008 for preventing NATO Bloomberg and co-wrote a Merkel biography.
expansion into Georgia and Ukraine that, “Merkel doesn’t have to take advice from the
One of the Boys according to Stefan Kornelius’s biography, he Obama administration. Obama very conscious-

A ngela Merkel remains distinctly unim-

pressed with many male politicians, and
she frequently one-ups them, even when she
promised Merkel he “would never forget what
she had done.” She had learned to be skepti-
cal. Only a year previous, knowing Merkel has
ly has delegated key parts of what needs to be
done in Europe to Merkel in the last five
years.” Often that puts Merkel right at the pres-
likes them. As outgoing U.S. ambassador Philip a fear of large dogs stemming from an incident sure point between Obama and Putin.
D. Murphy rose to give an effusive toast in Ger- in which she was bitten, Putin had his large Moreover, because of the “lies and decep-
man at an intimate farewell dinner in the sum- black Lab, whose name is Koni, run into the tions” of the Iraq war, drones, the N.S.A. phone-
mer of 2013, his notes quoting J.F.K. printed on room during one of their private meetings and tapping scandal, and spying revelations, as I
index cards, Merkel reached up and snatched stay beside him while he and Merkel sat across heard over and over, it’s a new day for relations
the cards right out of his hand and mischievous- from each other. Merkel did not flinch. (Pho- between Germany and the United States. “As a
ly placed them under the napkin on her lap. tos of the meeting show the dog burying her role model America has lost its fascination,” says
“Your German’s good enough to do it without head in Merkel’s lap.) Sebastian Turner, co-owner of the Berlin-based
these,” Merkel said. “Let’s hear it.” Merkel recently told a group of German high- daily Der Tagesspiegel. Polls today show Ger-
Says Annette Heuser, executive director of the school students, “Maybe Russia does not want mans less favorably disposed toward the U.S.
Bertelsmann Foundation in Washington, D.C., to share our values. That may very well be the and Obama than they were just a year ago.
108 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com JAN UARY 2 015
 From the beginning of his first presidential colorful tunic there for about 15 years. But this dren under five have an immigrant background,
campaign, when all of Germany seemed to no-frills style is very appealing to Germans: she mostly Muslim. At the current rate, Germany
develop a mad, passionate crush on Barack is not a spendthrift; she cannot be bought! could acquire a million refugees every five years.
Obama, Merkel, perhaps because she is no ora- Merkel cultivates her own form of down- How will they be integrated into German soci-
tor, was highly suspicious of Obama’s appeal. home style: she is a genuine soccer fan and ety? Because the re-unification of East and West
First she was against his giving a campaign avidly roots for Germany in the World Cup Germany cost about a trillion euros, spending
speech at the Brandenburg Gate in 2008, which (she was in Rio last summer when they on infrastructure and education has suffered,
seemed intended as a kind of encore to Reagan’s won); she occasionally goes grocery shop- and Germany has failed to spawn anything yet
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” and an ping on her own; she likes to cook; she spends resembling the innovation of Silicon Valley.
echo of J.F.K.’s “Ich Bin ein Berliner.” Instead, off time at a small dacha not far from Tem- “What has she done for the Germany of
candidate Obama spoke before 200,000 people, plin that she bought before she got involved in the future—to make Germany more dynam-
the largest crowd of the entire campaign, at the politics. Gahl Hodges Burt, the vice-chairman ic? The jury is out,” says Bloomberg’s Tony
nearby Tiergarten. Dirk Kurbjuweit says that, of the American Academy in Berlin, was once Czuczka. “Germany faces all these challenges.
at the time, Merkel told him that Obama’s cha- getting her hair done at Udo Walz’s salon—he Is she resting on Germany’s laurels? That
risma—the very idea of which is antithetical to is the Mr. Kenneth of Berlin—and looked really is the question, especially for econo-
everything that is Angela Merkel—was overrated: up to see Angela Merkel in the chair right next mists, of the third term.”
“When he’s running, he can shine, but when he to her, with hair color waiting to set, working Nearly 70 years after the end of World War
is in office he will have very different tasks. You away on her BlackBerry, just another client. II and 25 years after re-unification, Germans
can’t solve the tasks with charisma.” Her only security, Burt said, was two men may still want to think of themselves as a big,
standing outside, sipping coffee. uninvolved Switzerland, but they certainly tele-

O ne mystery that remains is the role that

Merkel’s highly intelligent husband, Fourth Time Around?
graph power in their architecture. One day I
went to see Merkel give a press conference in
Joachim Sauer, plays in advising his wife. Al-
though people told me that he plots with her
and is very influential, I never got any concrete
T here is no term limit for German chancel-
lors, and people have already begun to
speculate as to whether Merkel will run for a
her dramatic, sweeping, ultra-modern glass-and-
concrete Chancellery building, which happens
to be 10 times the size of the White House and
examples. Still, according to Stefan Kornelius, fourth term in 2017, and, if not, who her suc- one of the biggest government headquarters in
“He’s a guy who is even stronger politically [in cessor will be. She has eliminated most of the the world. An oversize female nude sculpture,
his views] than she is. He advises her even now.” competition. (Note to Hillary Clinton, who is titled The Philosopher, stood in front of the
Sauer, a professor of theoretical chemistry known to share a rapport with the chancellor: north entrance’s grand stairway; it is intended
at Humboldt University, in Berlin, is so pri- in the last election Merkel’s opponent accused “to epitomize the person who likes to take time
vate that he travels everywhere without visible her of having a Frauen-bonus, a bonus for to reflect.” Whoever wrote that definitely got
security. On the day Merkel got the Presiden- being a woman, and a poll showed the Ger- Merkel’s number. At the top of the staircase to
tial Medal of Freedom in Washington, he man public preferred that she run against a the right is a row of portraits of Merkel’s pre-
showed up late for the state dinner. He rarely woman.) The pol who appears to most want to decessors, all male, their names evoking history
travels anywhere officially with his wife and succeed Merkel is a woman and could not be and glory: Adenauer, Brandt, Kohl. But Angela
was criticized for skipping her inauguration more different. Minister of Defense Ursula von Merkel has acquired more power on the world
altogether in 2005. He did, however, play the der Leyen, also of the C.D.U., is a petite, out- stage than any of them. And yet, as Die Zeit’s
kind spouse, taking Michelle Obama and spoken, 56-year-old medical doctor and moth- Mariam Lau told me, “she’s a riddle.”
the daughters to see Berlin. Sauer spent a year er of seven. It is said that she is not a favorite When I pressed the C.D.U.’s Roderich Kie-
working in San Diego in the 1990s, and the of Merkel’s. She has not been defense minister sewetter about a potential fourth term, he told
California coast remains one of the couple’s for long, but, bad luck for her, she has to take me he has heard Merkel say she does not want
favorite vacation spots, even though they can- the brunt of criticism for the ill-prepared state to risk losing an election. She prefers to find a
not travel there anymore because of the dis- of German military equipment. way to turn the job over to a handpicked suc-
tance and obvious time constraints. One rumor you hear is that Merkel wants cessor. Kiesewetter is convinced that Merkel is
He and Merkel live in an apartment in an to follow Ban Ki-moon as secretary-general of already working on a candidate, but he refused
old building right across from the picturesque the U.N. There is also speculation that she will to reveal a name: “It’s a surprise.” 
Museum Island, in Berlin. The night I drove by, stick around for a fourth term just to see if she
there was a lone policeman outside and a cou- can ultimately take down the Big Dog—Putin. FROM THE ARCHIVE
ple who apparently also lived in the building “We think he has a hidden strategy to disturb For these related stories, visit VF.COM/ARCHIVE
fiddling with the lock. Merkel and Sauer, who and weaken the E.U. to cause it to split,” Kie-
prefer classical music and opera to any other sewetter told me. • Is Germany ready to lead Europe?
(Michael Lewis, September 2011)
form of culture, go to the Bayreuth festival ev- There are other serious issues brewing inside
• Sizing up Helmut Kohl
ery year, and bloggers delight in posting pho- Germany. Her country has one of the lowest (T. D. Allman, December 1990)
tos that show the chancellor wearing the same birthrates in the E.U., and 35 percent of chil-

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JANUARY 2 015 www.vanityfair.com VAN IT Y FAIR 109

 PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE

David
BYRNE
The Talking Heads’ award-winning front man has made it into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame. With his musical, Here Lies Love, embarking
on a global tour this year, he waxes poetic on the randomness of happiness

W hat is your idea of per-

fect happiness? Wow,
these are big questions! Hap-
piness, as I’ve experienced it and observed it
in others, seems to be random—some of us
lots of species share—we have evolved to have regular
sporadic moments of happiness. They keep us from
totally sinking into contemplating our life stories, which
ultimately always have a bad ending. In an evolutionary
sense, some of those joyous moments might be clues to
are happy fairly regularly (I am, mostly), and things that help us survive. Happiness emerges some-
some of us not as much—but there seems to times when we’re around family and friends—if it’s a com-
be no clear explanation as to why. It comes and fortable and supportive situation. When we’ve had a good
goes at unexpected moments, too. meal. Completed a task or had an inspiration. What is
The graph of happiness doesn’t your greatest fear? I’ll know it when I
even seem to match what is going see it. Hello, Room 101. Which histori-
on in our lives. Or maybe it does and cal figure do you most identify with?
we don’t know it. Money—is there a Not sure about identify—but there are
connection between money and hap- figures I admire, like M.L.K. … Bob
piness? It takes away a world of worries Rauschenberg. Gandhi, Mandela. Which
and anxieties, but are rich folks all hap- living person do you most admire? Aung
py? Are you kidding? Donald Trump is San Suu Kyi, Caetano Veloso, Terry and
ALWAYS scowling. That said, it’s hard to be Jo Harvey Allen, Ford Wheeler, Edward
happy if you don’t know where you’ll sleep Snowden, Chelsea Manning. My late fa-
or where your next meal is coming from. The ther. What is your favorite journey? From
pursuit of happiness? Where are we supposed the barroom to the bedroom … that’s not
to look? Are there clues hidden somewhere? really true—it just popped into my head,
The very act of searching and striving for it can but, wow, it sounds like a song waiting to
lead to frustration and unhappiness. I suspect be written! Maybe a song for someone else,
that happiness finds you—I’m not sure you can I think. My favorite journey is the journey
find a road that leads to it. Happiness is everywhere, that an idea takes when taken all the way to
though some cultures are, I’ve read, happier overall its logical conclusion—which usually ends up
than others—G.N.P. be damned. Is sunshine one of being a place that is surreal and ridiculous.
those things? Are tropical folks generally happier? Logic and rationality taken all the way to the end
They would, if you don’t believe in heavenly re- are irrational and nonsensical. What do you
wards, be then deemed the winners in the meaning- dislike most about your appearance? I stopped
of-life sweepstakes. Those cultures, along with some looking in the mirror or at shopwindow reflections
of our animal friends. Dogs, birds, otters, seals, and a while ago. Which words or phrases do you most
dolphins have moments of pure happiness—it’s not a overuse? “In my opinion.” When and where were
feeling unique to human beings. My hunch is you happiest? Hanging with friends. Kiss-
that it’s an evolved survival mechanism that ing someone. Singing. Riding a bike.
110 VANI T Y FA I R www.vanityfair.com I L L U ST RAT IO N BY RISKO JAN UARY 2015