Editor's Letter

Curtain Up!

If America's heart belongs to Hollywood, Britain's culture is on the stage. The tradition that began with Burbage, Shakespeare, and Garrick, and continued through Kean and Irving and Olivier and Gielgud, is today at peak form. Mention of Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, Sir Alec Guinness, Vanessa Redgrave, Sir Derek Jacobi, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Irons, Ralph Fiennes, Cameron Mackintosh, or Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber evokes a stage empire that still rules the English-speaking world, both commercially and artistically, from global hits such as Cats and Sunset Boulevard to such acclaimed productions as Stoppard's Arcadia.

Our celebration of the British theater on page 188 owes its glory to one British talent above all: VF. contributing photographer Snowdon. Snowdon's portraits are as dramatic as his subjects, and his schedule alone was a noteworthy production—80 shoots in two and a half months. Senior editor Aimee Bell, who oversaw the entire project, teamed up with London editor Henry Porter, West Coast editor Krista Smith, and assistant Holly Ross to create this tour de force. Bell was impressed by how much of Snowdon went into the photographs. "Not only his art and his vision but his clothes, his motorcycle, his garden, his house," she says. "He was always improvising. He would give his coat of arms to a subject if that's what it took." At such historic spots as the Globe Theatre, the Royal National Theatre, and the House of Commons, as well as at more prosaic locations, such as Heathrow Airport, Snowdon and his assistant, Graham Piggott, caught the stars on the fly and on their lunch breaks, between rehearsals and between continents. He gathered dynasties (Dame Maggie Smith and her sons) and impresarios (the Cats team of Lloyd Webber, Mackintosh, Trevor Nunn, John Napier, and Gillian Lynne). At the Dorchester, in the suite named for his uncle, stage designer Oliver Messel, Snowdon united Peter O'Toole and Richard Harris—and left the two great actors in a spirited conversation that lasted until five in the morning. A longtime theater enthusiast, Snowdon particularly enjoyed meeting the new generation of actors, directors, and playwrights: "It was an opportunity to be updated on what is going on at a very exciting time for the British stage."