VANITY FAIR

June

Contents

Volume 47 Number 6

Features

Voices: The deep throats of Washington, D.C., talk and talk and talk about their town to Bob Colacello 32

Books Do Furnish a Room: Novelist Anthony Powell, who’s not simply reeling after his twelve-volume Dance, speaks with Duncan Fallowed 40

Gender Mercies: Boy George and the intersex phenomenon, photographed by Annie Leibovitz and analyzed by Jan Morris 44

Rounding Cape Cod: World traveler Paul Theroux’s perilous voyage circumnavigating the Cape in a rowboat 48

Mind over Matter: Despite being crippled by Lou Gehrig’s disease, Stephen Hawking is pushing theoretical physics beyond black holes to the mysteries of creation; profile by Timothy Ferris 56

Blanc de Blancs: Michael Roberts’s manage a la mode, a white miasma of misty lace and veiling photographed by Deborah Turbeville 60

Between the Shiny Sheets: Philip Norman’s Palm Beach story links diamonds, Warhol, cancer balls, and the paper that covers them all 68

Satyr vs. God: The loser is flayed alive in Titian’s late, great masterpiece, chosen by David Sylvester 72

Tough Guys Don’t Dance: A second excerpt from Norman Mailer’s rambunctious blockbuster, coming shortly to a bookstore near you 74

Out to Lunch: Umberto Eco discusses the semiotics of wine labels with John Heilpem in the back of a limousine 112

Vanities

June social crimes include three couples booked for public displays of affection... Boob tube or pseud tube? TV criticism that sounds as if it were translated from the German. . . Nora Ephron blows the (wolf) whistle on Rapunzel—who sounds very much like Mary Cunningham... Dominick Dunne has a close encounter with a living legend, a.k.a. Ava Gardner.. .Headless body to be found at Olympic Games. .. The word on the Street is a shouting match over Leslie Wexner.. .Nude ghosts roam the Playboy Mansion. . .When men wear dresses, women go bald... All that glitters is Gould... Rocket Randy bums out... Everybody loves Molly Ringwald. . .Taki explains where the uninvited are hanging their hopes... Flashback: brides revisited 11

Arts Fair

Stephen Schiff doesn’t assail The Bounty.. .A new photography column focuses on Diane Arbus. . .The uncivil treatment of Robert Wilson’s the CIVIL warS... Suzanne Stephens wants to bring the Louvre pyramid home. . .Kirstein’s Cadmus. . .James Wolcott reviews Gore Vidal’s Lincoln... Duane Michals photographs leading American choreographers. . Night-table reading with William Simon, Nadine Gordimer, the Reverend Paul Moore, Jr., and Nancy Reagan 91