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Astor Trial Wrap-up: How Anthony Marshall Sentenced Himself to Jail
10 hours ago
Brooke Astor and Anthony Marshall at her estate Holly Hill, in Briarcliff Manor, New York, circa December 2001. Photograph by Alec Marshall. Charlene Marshall tends to dominate any room that she is in. As her 85-year-old husband, Anthony Marshall—gaunt, weary, sad-eyed—stoically waited in Manhattan Criminal Court this week to be sentenced after being convicted for stealing from his mother Brooke Astor, Charlene sobbed uncontrollably. Although Tony was the one facing prison, he was in the odd position of trying to comfort his volatile wife, hugging her and whispering gently. Her loyal friends from St. James Church huddled protectively nearby, to no avail. Charlene wept noisily, making herself the center of attention. Indeed, the Brooke Astor trial really was always all about Charlene. During opening arguments back in April, prosecutor Liz Loewy declared that Charlene was “the motive” for Tony Marshall’s crimes. At the sentencing hearing this week, prosecutor Joel Seidemann, …
Which Royals Had the Best Christmas Cards?
11 hours ago
Personal letters written by the late Diana, Princess of Wales, reveal that the royal had trouble waiting for Christmas to open her presents. More than 30 pieces of correspondence written in the 1980s by the Princess to her beautician Janet Filderman will be made available at a February 13 auction at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel, in London. The items may well fetch more than $30,000. In one especially charming letter, the Princess admits she opened a present from Filderman weeks before Christmas and goes on to muse, "I fear that [Prince] William has also picked up this dreadful habit from his mother, as I find wrapping paper undone in the most extraordinary places!" …
Worlds Geekiest Rap Video Explains Cern's Large Hadron Collider
13 hours ago
Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily, a new, bookish set of brainiacs is geeking out over Kurt Andersen’s electrifying (sorry) article about the Large Hadron Collider at Cern. But you don’t even have to know how to read to get a kick out of this genius (sorry again) rap video that explains, in classic old-school rhythm, the inner workings of what Andersen called “a $9 billion cathedral of science that is in any practical sense quite useless.” Check it: Also, how is it possible that this is the best song by a white rapper since Eminem’s third album? Related: The Genesis 2.0 Project, by Kurt Andersen …
Coco De Mer: A Sex Shop With a Touch of Class
15 hours ago
Coco de Mer's new store, on Elizabeth Street. The first clue that Coco de Mer is not your mother’s sex shop is the way that Justine Roddick pronounces the word “debauchery.” Swaddled in her jammy British accent, the word sounds comforting and good-humored, as if debauching oneself was no different than a long lunch at a particularly cozy wine bar, or a pleasurable afternoon of antique shopping. And that’s pretty much the vibe that Justine and her little sister, Samantha, have established at the chain of erotic emporia they’ve opened in London, Los Angeles, and, as of last week, Elizabeth Street in Manhattan’s NoLiTa district. While the typical purveyor of sex paraphernalia tends to employ garish lighting, bad heavy metal soundtracks and sales associates who just love the vibrator that comes with a carburetor and a kickstand, Coco de Mer cultivates a warmer, less intimidating approach for a more discerning clientele. …
Why Don't Rich People Get Five-Star Service at Home?
17 hours ago
Sure, it’s big, but the service is terrible.A good friend of mine, who hosts me from time to time on my travels, lives with one extravagance in particular that never fails to make an impression on me. Upon returning home from each car trip, he drives as close as he possibly can to the front door of his mansion and parks with the nose of the car facing the house. Then, after he has walked inside, a staff member discreetly darts out from a concealed service building and re-parks the automobile by turning it around, which conveniently prevents the owner from ever having to reverse awkwardly from his own driveway. My holiday travels to luxury hotels where employees repeatedly offer to assist guests with even the most trifling affairs has me thinking about personal service and the meaning it holds for the vastly rich. What I’m beginning …
Holiday Beauty Gifts, a Salon to Add to Your Roledex, and More
17 hours ago
Recently on SunHee's Beauty Blog ... 1. Looking for a full day of spa pampering that won't break the bank? Then this deal at the Peninsula Spa by Espa, in New York City, is not to be missed. Hurry, though—the offer is good only until December 31, 2009. 2. Fresh from contributing a piece to Lance Armstrong's "Stages" exhibition, Brooklyn-based artist Kaws teamed up with Kiehl's to help children in need. …
How Much Did Avatar Really Cost?
17 hours ago
In Hollywood, the saying goes, the really creative folks are the accountants. Certainly the number-crunchers at 20th Century Fox, the studio distributing James Cameron’s costly and complex epic Avatar, will be kept busy over the coming months as box office grosses pour in and profit participators line up for their share. As ticket sales are tallied, and investors are repaid, the question will be, Was Avatar worth it? Determining the final cost of this film is a trick in itself. Wildly different reports have been published, ranging from $230 million (The New Yorker) to nearly $500 million (The New York Times). Avatar’s official budget lies somewhere in between, probably closest to the figure the Los Angeles Times’s John Horn and Claudia Eller cited earlier this month—$280 million for the production, plus marketing costs. “It is the most expensive film we’ve made, but now, having the luxury of hindsight, …
Jeff Bridges: The Vanity Fair Interview
17 hours ago
Jeff Bridges turned 60 this year, but age has not slowed him down. On the contrary, those new little aches and pains that remind a man of his mortality have given him a second wind. With an outlook like that, it’s no surprise he’s survived a half-century in “the biz,” as he calls it. With Crazy Heart, in which he plays a down-and-out country music legend who turns his life around, he may finally get a shot at that Oscar that’s eluded him after four nominations. In fact, Vegas odds have him taking home the hardware. Bridges is a child of Hollywood. Son of actor Lloyd Bridges, Jeff grew up in the affluent Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. Yet he seems the antithesis of all things Hollywood—he’s patient, laid back, and still passionately in love with Susan, his wife of 35 years, placing their union among the most long-lasting showbiz marriages. …
A Year in the Life of the Best-Dressed List: Metallics
18 hours ago
Photographs by PatrickMcMullan.com. What were the fashion trends of 2009? Look no further than the International Best-Dressed List. For the esteemed members of the roster, dressing for a night out has the significance of a final exam, albeit one that each of them aces every single time. But is there something that mere mortals can achieve from studying their stylistic triumphs? We combed through a year’s worth of photographs to bring you the top trends among those most in the know. In the second installment of a series of slide shows, Vf Daily notices a profusion of fabulous metallic heels. …
How Many Astor Heirs Does It Take to Screw Up a Legacy?
19 hours ago
• Now that Anthony Marshall is headed to jail, Brooke Astor’s rightful heirs can finally get on with squabbling over her will. [Daily News] • Surprise! The banks have found yet another way to use the financial crisis they caused to enrich themselves. [Nyt] • The long list of medications found in Brittany Murphy’s home includes Topamax, Fluoxetine, Klonopin, and Ativan, but no illegal drugs. [TMZ] • Mexico City legalized same-sex marriage, which is all well and good, but destination-wedding planners must be hoping a locale with better weather will be next. [CNN] • Obama really is punting on the economy, isn’t he? He says all he wants for Christmas are hugs for his daughters. How is that going to put Americans back to work? [HuffPost] …
Brittany Murphy: Does Her Death Count?
19 hours ago
I want to draw my personal line at Brittany Murphy. It’s a death without worthy pathos. It does not even invite much morbid curiosity. A most minor starlet, already past her prime, dies in an utterly conventional way—methodical, long-term, self-abuse. And yet, nearly as a Christmas miracle, she’s reborn as Joan of Arc, or Michael Jackson. The point, obviously, is that celebrity death is a really big draw. Celebrity death is bigger even than celebrity adultery, except for Tiger Woods. But were Tiger Woods to die, his death would now be bigger than his adultery. The celebrity press, having done incredibly big numbers with big deaths, now needs more celebrities to die. And these cannot be old celebrities. Brittany Murphy may have been past her professional ingénue prime, but she’s still in her Hollywood-dying prime. The only problem, which the celebrity press is hoping can be overlooked, …
Which Royal May Be Selling Heirloom Replicas on TV?
21 December 2009 2:37 PM, PST
Kate Middleton's Christmas just turned a bit colder. The longtime girlfriend of Prince William has been informed she will not be invited to Sandringham Estate this week. The Queen of England wants her holiday retreat to be a family affair and has decided that only spouses of the royal family will be invited. Last week, it had been reported that Kate was gearing up to spend Christmas day at the royal family's Norfolk estate. The rumor prompted rampant speculation regarding the seemingly inevitable engagement of Kate to her Prince. Live in hope, Kate! …
Jennifer Jones: Oscar Glory but No Hollywood Ending
21 December 2009 1:45 PM, PST
Jennifer Jones holding both her Oscar and the hand of Ingrid Bergman, her rival in the best actress category, 1944. On March 2, 1944, Jennifer Jones was shaking like a leaf in her somber, loose-fitting black suit as she strolled with the perfumed crowd into Grauman’s Chinese Theater, on Hollywood Boulevard. Hers was a rather nun-like ensemble considering that she was about to embark upon the most glamorous night of her young life: it was the evening of the 16th annual Academy Awards ceremony, and she was nominated for best actress for her portrayal of an adolescent French saint in The Song of Bernadette. It was her 25th birthday, and she had a giddy feeling that she might win. The wars raging in Europe and the Pacific partly explained her virginal appearance—everyone except Hedda Hopper dressed down that night—but Jones’s outfit also had something to do with her married boss and lover, …
Hot List: Ringing in the New Year
21 December 2009 12:50 PM, PST
Philip Crangi’s large open oval ring with turquoise, chalcedony, and diamonds tops our list of knuckle dusters. ($2,875; bergdorfgoodman.com) Pippa Small’s double clear pink stone ring illustrates that two stones are better than one. ($4,845; 310-260-9222) A pairing of mod enamel and gold makes for a sleek addition to any ensemble. ($395; 212-861-5371) Royal Asscher donates a portion of proceeds from the sale of the Stars of Africa ring to the Diamond Empowerment Fund. ($6,600; neimanmarcus.com) Usher in a glamorous spring with Chanel’s Twigs ring. ($285; 800-550-0005) …
The White Hotel, Brittany Murphy's Cursed, Unmade Project
21 December 2009 10:20 AM, PST
Brittany Murphy with her husband, Simon Monjack. Courtesy of Patrick McMullan. Though very little about the circumstances surrounding the unexpected death of Brittany Murphy can be verified at this point (the L.A. County coroner is expected to perform an autopsy today), one suggestion popping up in tabloid stories about the actress is more specious than others. Take, for instance, this quote from People.com: “In addition to The White Hotel and Clueless, the Atlanta-born Murphy costarred in 8 Mile with Eminem, and Girl, Interrupted…In May of 2007, she married her White Hotel director, Simon Monjack.” The problem: Monjack and Murphy never actually made The White Hotel. It would have been a minor miracle if they had. Published in 1981, D.M. Thomas’ novel The White Hotel has, over the last three decades, earned a reputation as one of the great unadaptable works of modern literature. A six-part postmodern mash-up of poetry, prose, …
If Houston Can Elect a Lesbian, What Can Obama Do?
21 December 2009 9:10 AM, PST
What does it mean that Houston just elected a lesbian as mayor, making it the largest American city to have a gay at its helm? Some pundits say it indicates that bigger and more recognizably liberal cities such as New York are behind the times, since they don’t have homo heads of their own. Obviously this is silly, as New Yorkers have had gayish mayors in the past, and anyway sexuality has nothing to do with getting elected to run N.Y.C. right now; what you need is $80 billion dollars and a willingness to spend it. Others see it as a sign that fast-growing localities in the South and Southwest—places like Charlotte and Vegas—are leaving identity politics, and the creaky old Northwestern and Rust Belt political rules they spawned, behind. This is a Gladwellian argument, in my opinion: taking a result and reverse-engineering it into a trend. …
Remembering Dan O'Bannon, Father of Alien
21 December 2009 8:06 AM, PST
Dan O’Bannon as Pinback, here in the feeding the alien sequence from Dark Star. Photo via. Since he worked as a designer, writer, and only occasional director in an era that prized the single-minded auteur, Dan O’Bannon remained fairly obscure until his death, last Thursday, at the age of 63. But genre fans know that he was one of the great unsung heroes of one of the most critical stories of American popular culture: the ascent of the fantasy genre from children’s guilty pleasure to the red-hot center of Hollywood. He died from a three-decade battle with Crohn’s disease only hours before the opening of James Cameron’s Avatar, a $400 million blockbuster whose ambition, expense, and seriousness of purpose are, in a way, a direct tribute to the success of his passionate lifetime commitment to the fantastic. The top of his long list of accomplishment is creating, …
Holiday Hot List: TV and Movies
21 December 2009 8:00 AM, PST
1. Whatever elaborate excuse you’re concocting to justify buying Sony’s PlayStation 3 for your loved one (or yourself) this holiday, be it Blu-ray, Rock Band, or Call of Duty, your justification just got a lot easier thanks to the addition of Netflix instant streaming software. Subscribers to the service can request a free access disc to get started. ($300 for PSP3 and $9 per month for Netflix streaming; us.playstation.com and netflix.com) …
A Year in the Life of the Best-Dressed List: Sparkles
21 December 2009 7:45 AM, PST
Photographs from PatrickMcMullan.com. What were the fashion trends of 2009? Look no further than the International Best-Dressed List. For the esteemed members of the roster, dressing for a night out has the significance of a final exam, albeit one that each of them aces every single time. But is there something that mere mortals may achieve from studying their stylistic triumphs? We combed through a year’s worth of photographs to bring you the top trends among those most in the know. In the first installment of a series of slide shows, Vf Daily gets a sparkle in its eye from some very glittery ensembles. …
The Ugly Truth About Obama's "Copenhagen Accord"
21 December 2009 7:37 AM, PST
Obama briefs world leaders in Copenhagen, December 18. The so-called Copenhagen Accord is a mere side deal that leaves undone the true hard work of tackling climate change. Official White House photo by Pete Souza. Well, so much for Hopenhagen. Organizers of the U.N. climate summit had proposed that upbeat respelling of the Danish capital when negotiations began two weeks ago, and one saw it everywhere in Copenhagen: in metro station advertisements, activist press releases and newspaper headlines. But the cheery new name did not survive the talks themselves. In the end, Hopenhagen became Nopenhagen. Boarding the plane home on Saturday after the summit’s collapse, my eye was caught by a large wall photo of Barack Obama. Something about it wasn’t right, though. Bleary-eyed after an exceptionally late night of covering the dueling press conferences of the summit’s final hours, it took me a moment to see what was off. …
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