PRIVATE LIVES TRACY JAMES and SLOANE TANEN

Tracy James and Sloane Tanen were brought up in "Hollywood, U.S.A.," to quote their father, Ned Tanen, one of that town's most charming and illustrious pioneers. "I started in the mailroom at MCA and ended up running a studio," he explains. Make that two studios: Universal, in the 70s and early 80s, then Paramount, until 1988. Ned produced the Brat Pack troika—Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and St. Elmo's Fire—in partnership with writer-director John Hughes and, unofficially, the then teenage Sloane. "She was John Hughes's confidante," Ned says. "She was probably the only person he would talk to openly. He would call her for information and feelings about things he was doing, and she would really lay into him at the age of 15. Everybody else was kissing his ass." Hughes showed his gratitude by naming Mia Sara's character Sloane in Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Sloane and Tracy's was a unique upbringing. Their parents divorced when they were very young, and their mother, Max, later died tragically by her own hand. "Being a single father with two daughters is not easy under any circumstances," says Ned, who was determined that the proximity to the limelight not jade his daughters. "I tried to be supportive and tried to keep Hollywood out the door."

Glamour and style moved in, however, when Ned married interior designer Kitty Hawks, daughter of Lady Slim Keith and director Howard Hawks. "When he was with Kitty, it was kind of more fabulous," Tracy remembers. "We'd go stay at Slim's estate in Connecticut, and go to dinners at Bill Blass's house. He gave good gifts, and he let us smoke cigarettes." Sloane is sure they were candy, but Tracy persists:

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"They were pink, but they were tobacco.

They were just really light."

An early sign of the sisters' creative bents came when a rising star visited the family home in Malibu. "When Top Gun came out, Tom [Cruise] was in the living room, so Sloane and I paraded back and forth," Tracy recalls. "In different outfits," Sloane interjects. "But without looking at him to acknowledge him," Tracy continues, "because we were so cool."

The truth is, these sisters are cool. After attending Sarah Lawrence and Columbia, Sloane, 35, lives in New York City and is working on the third in her series of Bitter with Baggage books, sly photo collections of dioramas starring miniature toy chickens in compromising situations. Having already based one kid-friendly "chick" book on Tracy's six-year-old daughter, Coco, Sloane is now using her experience as a new mother (of 10month-old Harry) as inspiration for a book called Hatched! The Big Push from Pregnancy to Motherhood. She still cites Tracy as her chief collaborator: "She's the only person I trust when I'm like, 'Is this funny?'"

Tracy, 38, never left Los Angeles. She changed her last name to James, to avoid nepotism, and tried acting. Eventually, she settled in retail. Her latest venture, Zanzabelle, in Silverlake, named after the French stop-motion film about a giraffe who saves children, is modeled after an old-fashioned general store—complete with soda fountain, homemade ice cream, one-of-a-kind gifts made by artists for children, books, toys, and vintage candies with names like Idaho Spud and Sad Wiener Gum.

"They both have great humor and their own form of style," says their father. "I just hung on and said, 'Go where you want to go.'"

KRISTA SMITH