A former editor of Vanity Fair has written a new memoir that reveals his most memorable showbiz encounters in very candid detail.
Graydon Carter was the editor of Vanity Fair from 1992 until 2017. Now 75, he has reflected back on some stand-out memories from his career.
His book, When the Going Was Good, details the lavish spending that took place in publishing up until the noughties and the globe-trotting ventures journalists were treated to when budgets in the industry were high.
The 1990s and ’00s were a golden age for magazine publishing, and Carter was one of the most influential figures in the media world.
He took over from Tina Brown in 1992, when print journalism hadn’t yet been knocked back by the internet and he had ‘a budget with no ceiling’.
And as can be expected, Carter met a lot of very famous faces. His memoir is packed with anecdotes about everyone from Russell Crowe and Caitlyn Jenner to the Queen.
He described an outrageous request from Michael Jackson and a bizarre Christmas gift from Tom Cruise – detailed it all in his page-turner.
Writing in the book, Carter described talent manager Sandy Gallin’s rush to fullfill a unique request from Jackson.
Graydon Carter was the editor of Vanity Fair from 1992 until 2017. Now 75, he has reflected back on some stand-out memories from his career
The 1990s and ’00s were a golden age for magazine publishing, and Carter was one of the most influential figures in the media world
David Zaslav and Graydon Carter, pictured in 2023
Graydon Carter and actress Nicole Kidman at Vanity Fair’s dinner for the 4th annual Tribeca Film Festival at the State Supreme Court House
He said: ‘On this day in his office, Sandy shook my hand and then pressed the speaker box on the desk and called for someone.
‘In a second, the person was there at the door. It was a floppy-haired, aristocratic-looking Englishman. He was a bit over twenty years old and very Brideshead-y. “Have you got her on the phone yet?” Sandy said to the young man. “No, not yet, I’m trying”,’ he replied.
‘As I got up to leave, Sandy said into the speaker box, “Do you have her yet?” And again, the poor young fellow answered no.
‘I said, “Do you mind if I ask who you’re talking about?” I’m exhausted,’ Sandy said. ‘If I can pull this off, it will be one of my greatest productions. Michael [Jackson] wants to have a two-hour special on all three major networks. Without commercial interruption. And he wants it to end with him sitting on a bench between Liza Minnelli and Liz Taylor, and for the Queen to come onstage and knight him on live television.’
‘As it turned out, the young Englishman was a distant relative in the royal constellation, and Sandy was pestering the poor fellow to get the Queen on the phone to discuss the Michael Jackson knighting.
‘It was nuts. And Sandy, I believe, knew it was nuts. But if you’re a Hollywood manager, this is what you did. Who wouldn’t fall for someone like Sandy? As I was leaving the office, I looked down, and I have to tell you, his feet looked lovely.’
As the King of Pop, Jackson received Grammys, Brit Awards and even held world records.
But the one accolade the singer was most desperate to secure was a knighthood from the Queen.
Jackson, who sold more than one billion records, would often demand: ‘I’m the biggest star in the world, why aren’t I Sir Michael Jackson, what’s going on?’
He believed his connection with royal family, through his close friendship with Princess Diana, should have been enough to bring him to the Queen’s attention.
He was jealous of other American celebrities such as Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and comedian Bob Hope who had been given honorary knighthoods.
Other American celebrities have been made honorary knights and dames. The list includes Bob Hope, who was given the award in 1998 to recognise his contribution to the Anglo-American ‘friendship’, Steven Spielberg in 2001 for his work to increase movie-going in Britain and Angelina Jolie last year for her humanitarian work.
Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and Graydon Carter during the 2007 Vanity Fair Oscar Party
Moving on to another anecdote, this time about Tom Cruise, Carter wrote: ‘I would regularly get Christmas gifts from Tom. One year he sent me a document in plexiglass with a base that allowed it to stand upright on a surface.
‘Printed on the document were some twenty tenets of Scientology, including “To increase the numbers and strength of Scientology over the world” and “To make this world a saner, better place”.
‘We had an L-shaped dining banquette in the kitchen of our house in the Village, where we had moved after the Dakota, and as a sort of joke, I put the tenets alongside the books that sat on the shelf that ran along the perimeter of the banquette.
‘We had any number of people over for lunch or dinner over the next two years, and not once did anyone mention the Scientology edicts. Anna and I realized later that friends must have left our place suspecting that we were under Scientology’s control.
‘One year, for a charity event, Tom invited us to sit at his table. We said yes and arrived at the venue and discovered that we were seated not only with Tom but also with David Miscavige, the head of Scientology, and Anne Archer’s son, Tommy Davis, who had something to do with Scientology’s Celebrity Centre in Hollywood.
‘This weirded us out a bit. But they were all very pleasant, and blessedly, dinner was not followed by anything in the way of recruitment attempts.’
Carter also revealed that Harvey Weinstein was banned from a Vanity Fair Oscar party for being rude to the staff.
The editor referred to the disgraced film producer and convicted sex offender as a ‘recurring issue’ he had to deal with.
Carter wrote: ‘He regularly showed up with more guests than his invitation indicated and would bully the staff at the door.
‘I finally had it out with him and told him that if he spoke rudely to any member of my staff ever again, I would bar him forever. It was both the correct thing to do and a foolish gesture, in that he was certifiably the reigning producer in Hollywood at the time and he could tell the stars in his films to give us a wide berth on Oscar night. This I did not want.
Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman arriving at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in 2017
‘The next year, he behaved himself. But three days before the actual awards, we had our own run-in. It was 1999, the year he was going to launch a magazine called Talk with Tina Brown. I was out having dinner with Mitch and Kelly, and as we were leaving, we spotted Weinstein at a booth with a number of young actresses.
‘He called me over. “I hear you’re doing a big takedown on us in Vanity Fair”, he said. I thought for a moment, and nothing came to mind. “I think you’re mistaken”, I said. Weinstein pointed at me and said that he had enough on our days at Spy to do a big exposé on the drugs and sex at the magazine.
‘I knew this was an idle threat in that there weren’t any drugs at Spy—for among other reasons that nobody made enough money to afford them. And as for sex, Spy was about as straitlaced a workplace I’d ever encountered up to that point.
‘Weinstein stood up and said, “Let’s take this outside!” Now, this was a whole new game. I hadn’t been in a fistfight since my early teens, and other than maybe grabbing him in a headlock, I had no idea how this could go. It was cool out that night, and the moment we hit the outside air, he changed completely, complimenting me on Vanity Fair and saying that he hoped Talk was half as good.
‘The “Let’s take this outside” challenge was all for the benefit of the women at his table. I was surprised but I was also relieved. There were photographers outside the restaurant and two middle-aged men scuffling on the street is not a good look for anyone.’
Carter said that the only other person other that Weinstein that was forever banned from their parties was TopShop owner Philip Green.
The chairman of the retail company Arcadia Group, Green owned the high street clothing retailers Topshop, Topman, and Miss Selfridge from 2002 to 2020.
In May 2023, his net worth was estimated by the Sunday Times Rich List to be £910 million.
Describing what happened, Carter wrote: ‘The incident began when Elizabeth Saltzman, our then fashion director, who was staying on Green’s boat, a bloated gin palace called Lionheart, asked if she could bring him to dinner.
‘I told her that I didn’t really want him there. A key element to staging any big event: who you don’t invite is just as important as who you do invite. But she begged me, and I finally relented.
‘Green duly came to the dinner that night. When he looked at his place setting, he said, “I’m not sitting here. Who are these fucking people?” Green proceeded to rearrange the table placement.
‘We always served good wine at Vanity Fair events, in a valiant effort to make sure guests didn’t go home with splitting headaches. Green looked at what we were serving. ‘Swill,’ he announced, and ordered his own wine.
‘The maître d’ went to Sara, who had watched all this, and said, “What do you want me to do?” Sara said simply, “When he picks the most expensive bottle on the wine list, you’re going to ask him for his credit card.”
In a royal anecdote, Carter said he was once pressured into hosting a dinner for Princess Margaret in New York.
Pictured are the late Queen and Princess Margaret. Carter wrote that the princess ‘overstayed her welcome’ when he hosted a dinner party in New York
He was briefed on all of the proper things to do and say around a royal, including that nobody was supposed to sit for dinner until Margaret did, and nobody was to rise from the table until she did.
Notably, he said that ‘no guest was to leave the apartment before the Princess herself’.
Carter wrote: ‘As instructed, I met Margaret at the building’s entrance and escorted her and Colin and Anne to the apartment. I introduced them one by one to the guests, all of whom had been given a quick primer in Reinaldo’s etiquette of royal greetings.
‘In time we sat down for dinner. Starter, main course, dessert. And then Margaret just stayed. And stayed. She wasn’t being particularly festive. She wasn’t being particularly un-festive. She was just staying. And smoking and drinking.
‘Now I should tell you, as if you don’t already know, that New York dinner parties generally break up around 10:00 p.m. because people have to go home, get to bed, and wake up early to go to work.
‘On this evening, 10:30 went by, and then 11:00. People were starting to panic.
‘Margaret finally got up from the dinner table and we made our way the short distance to the living room. We were all waiting for her to start making her way toward the exit.
‘At 11:00, Barry Diller came over to me and said, ‘That’s it, I’m out of here. This is ridiculous.’ ‘Fine,’ I whispered. ‘I understand. But please go out the back door so she doesn’t see you.’
‘At one point, Peggy Noonan leaned over in a half curtsey to Princess Margaret, who was sitting on the sofa, and as she leaned forward I guess she nicked her gently in the shin, whereupon Princess Margaret shrieked, ‘You’ve wounded me. You’ve wounded me!’
‘Finally, around 12:00 or 12:15, Margaret rose. The relief on the faces of the other guests was the sort of look that survivors of a difficult airplane landing have as they step onto the tarmac.’
‘When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines’ by ‘Graydon Carter is available now.