CONTRIBUTORS

With the collapse last May of Artists Management Group—the talent enterprise viewed as Michael Ovitz’s comeback vehicle—the most epic downfall in Hollywood history was complete. While industry insiders were celebrating Ovitz’s long-awaited comeuppance, special correspondent Bryan Burrough set out to get another perspective: that of Ovitz himself. “Of the million Michael Ovitz profiles that have been done, you’ve never read one from his point of view,” says Burrough, who drew out some very raw emotion from his subject. “And you’ve absolutely never read one like this.”

As a practicing Catholic, special correspondent Maureen Orth took little joy in investigating the story of accused pedophile the Reverend Paul Shanley, but her belief that exposing the truth might do some good carried her through the reporting process. “My fervent hope,” she says, “is that bringing out this material will somehow lead to a healthier, more open relationship among those inside the church, and an increased respect for the laity.” Orth, who has written articles in recent years about unscrupulous characters ranging from fugitive financier Marc Rich to serial killer Andrew Cunanan, insists that she has no special affection for transgressive types. “I prefer writing about saints,” she says, “but Vanity Fair always seems to give me sinners.”

After the memorial Mass of the late Baron Hans Heinrich ThyssenBornemisza, contributing editor Michael Shnayerson was encouraged by the director of the baron’s private museum in Madrid to wander around, unattended, looking at the breathtaking art collection. “That’s what it was all about for the baron,” says Shnayerson, who, after taking in everything from old masters to Edward Hopper, to Francis Bacon, sensed what it must have been like to have it all for private enjoyment. “And unless you’re a curator at a museum, you never have that experience.” Next month, Little, Brown will publish The Killers Within, about drug-resistant bacteria, which Shnayerson co-wrote with Mark J. Plotkin.

New York Times fashion critic and former V.F. contributing editor Cathy Horyn first met Bill Blass in 1987 at the Detroit auto show, where the designer, who died on June 12, was promoting his signature line of Lincoln Continentals. “I didn’t know then that he had no idea how to operate a car,” says Horyn. In collaborating with Blass on his autobiography, Bare Blass (excerpted on page 150), which HarperCollins will publish in August, Horyn found that, although Blass had been “highly quotable” over the years, he had rarely said anything about himself. “People who think they know Bill Blass will be surprised, and those who don’t will be turned on by the life he led.”

Contributing editor Robert Sam Anson didn’t really want to go to Pakistan. But to get the story behind the murder of Daniel Pearl he knew he had no choice. He quickly experienced the country’s intrigue. After being followed in Islamabad, he found that his hotel-room safe had been broken into and important interview tapes had been stolen. Anson, who was taken prisoner 30 years ago in Cambodia while reporting for Time, came away sympathizing with everything Pearl did while in Pakistan. “I don’t think he was reckless,” Anson says. “He was just after a story. There was no way he could have avoided being picked up by Omar Sheikh.”

Fanfair editor Anne Fulenwider first arrived at V.F. in 1998, but took a brief respite in San Francisco. “I came back to New York six months later, when I realized I had very little interest in the Internet,” Fulenwider says. “Luckily it was a year or two before the rest of the world came to the same conclusion.” She now edits art, book, design, and travel stories for the Fanfair section, which she helped start in 1999. Her new obsession is cars. She recently profiled J Mays, head of design at Ford, and this month turns to New York’s Museum of Modem Art, which recently acquired three new automobiles. “Unfortunately, they didn’t need any test-drivers.”

Contributing editor A. M. Homes, who profiles photographer Todd Hido on page 72, sees a close connection between the literary and visual arts. “I couldn’t write without looking at art,” she says. Evidently, Homes looks at art a lot. In September, HarperCollins will publish Things You Should Know, her first collection of short stories since 1990’s The Safety of Objects, which has been made into a movie to be released next year. She is currently “up in the trees” at the Yaddo artists’ colony in upstate New York, finishing a book about Los Angeles and beginning her fifth novel.