CONTRIBUTORS

John Richardson

Contributing editor John Richardson's friendship with Brooke Astor began in the early 1960s, soon after his arrival in New York to head the U.S. division of the auction house Christie's. "In those days," he says, "Brooke was a very merry widow— about to become the Queen of New York." She was a patron of The New York Review of Books, where Richardson was an early contributor. "That was our link," Richardson says. When, in 2006, the news broke of alleged abuse of Astor by her son, Tony Marshall, Richardson, seen here with Astor (at right) and Annette de la Renta in 1992, temporarily abandoned work on his Picasso biography—the third volume of which, A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932, came out last year from Random House—to write his account of one of the ugliest cases involving accusations of elder abuse in memory ("The Battle for Mrs. Astor," page 342).

Sebastian Junger

Contributing editor Sebastian Junger's first experience as an embedded journalist came on a V.F. assignment to Afghanistan in 2005, when the U.S. Army randomly placed him with the 503rd Infantry Regiment (airborne), Battle Company. "I really liked them and thought, I'd love to follow them for their entire deployment," Junger says. That's what he did, and his final dispatch from the front lines appears in this issue ("Return to the Valley of Death," page 226). "It was very lucky journalistically," he says, "because not only was it an excellent unit but also they were placed in a very intense area." Also fortunate was the openness of the army brass. "They never tried to vet or control any of the material I came out with, and some of it was very sensitive," Junger says.

Bryan Burrough

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, The Big Rick The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes (Penguin), Vanity Fair special correspondent Bryan Burrough tells the story of Glenn McCarthy, the midcentury oil tycoon who single-handedly created the larger-than-life, 10-gallon-hat Texas ethos. "I wanted to write something about that colorful 'old' Texas of the 1940s and 50s, when flesh-and-blood billionaires walked the earth," he says, "not these faceless plutocrats of today." Burrough's book Public Enemies (Penguin, 2004) is currently being adapted into a film directed by Michael Mann and starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.

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Michael Wolff

When contributing editor Michael Wolff's September 2007 column, "Murdoch's Private Game," opened the door for a book project about the Australian media mogul, Wolff jumped at the opportunity. "From a writer's point of view, he's a compelling subject because everyone speaks about him in a monochromatic way—he is the villain. To be able to turn that idea on its head is an interesting challenge." For reasons that Wolff can only speculate upon, Murdoch granted him unprecedented access to himself, his family, and his powerful business associates, with whom Wolff spent nine months having hours and hours of one-on-one discussions. This month, in "Tuesdays with Rupert," page 208, Wolff shares a preview of what we can expect from The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch, due out from Broadway Books in December.

Sam Kashner

To contributing editor Sam Kashner, who wrote this month's cover story, on Marilyn Monroe (page 320), an almost religious aura surrounds the short-lived but immortal screen goddess. "If you subscribe to this idea of the 'Church of Marilyn,' she certainly has become a kind of saintly figure, a kind of revered image, endowed with all these different values," Kashner says. Asked to name his favorite Monroe film, he replies, "I sort of love the ones that people are creeped out by, like Niagara and the one where she plays a psychotic babysitter and The Misfits, where everyone's such a ruin; it's like a Mount Rushmore of movie-star misery. I really feel bad for the horses in that movie, too."

George Hamilton

An actor, a producer, and one of Hollywood's best-dressed leading men, George Hamilton has added another role to his repertoire: writer. His new book, Don't Mind If I Do (Touchstone), excerpted in this issue, beginning on page 236, chronicles his life in hilarious detail. Hamilton was inspired by David Niven's memoirs, which he says "are equal parts heart and humor." Writing the book with William Stadiem he found easy, but the publishing part was hard: "They give you all these drop-dead deadlines, and if you don't know any better, you take them seriously." Hamilton's upcoming projects include producing My One and Only, a film based on a chapter of Don't Mind If I Do. "It's an interesting he "to be executive producer of your own life story."

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Brad Pitt

On page 242, Brad Pitt pays tribute to Kenneth Roth, the executive director of the Human Rights Watch organization. The topic of charitable work was a familiar one for Pitt: along with Angelina Jolie, he founded the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, which gives funds to organizations such as Global Action for Children. "Brad and Angie regularly use Human Rights Watch reports to brief themselves before traveling to war-torn locales," Roth says. This isn't the first time that Pitt has written for Vanity Fair: he interviewed Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu ("The Tutu Connection") for the July 2007 Africa issue. He is also involved in some way in the film business.

Masha Gessen

In her first piece for Vanity Fair, writer Masha Gessen took on perhaps the most intimidating of all subjects: former Russian president and current prime minister Vladimir Putin—whose distaste for journalists isn't unknown to her. "I have the honor of being one of the first journalists blacklisted in the Putin era," says Gessen, former Moscow-bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report. "And I have the distinction of being banned even from the state-controlled television channel, Kultura, as well." Splitting her time between Moscow and Boston, Gessen has written extensively about Russian life and politics since 1991. Her book Blood Matters: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene (Harcourt) was published earlier this year.

Michael Shnayerson

Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Shnayerson has covered everything from polar bears to murder mysteries; this month, he examines the fabrications that young Italian businessman Raffaello Follieri allegedly wove to exaggerate his so-called ties to the Vatican and catapult himself into the upper echelons of society (page 356). "Unscrupulous as Follieri may have been, in many ways I found myself I admiring his sheer chutzpah," Shnayerson says. "At a time when he seemed to have virtually no money of his own, Follieri convinced Ron Burkle, one of the savviest financiers in the country, that he was rich enough to merit a private meeting at the New York Palace Hotel—then talked Burkle into committing $105 million to Follieri's Vatican real-estate venture, which seemed to be nothing more than papal smoke and mirrors! How many of us could do that?"

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Heather Halberstadt and Peter Newcomb

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE: In addition to her other responsibilities as senior editor, Heather Halberstadt co-edits the annual New Establishment package. She has worked on the list in some capacity since starting as an intern in 1998. Senior articles editor Peter Newcomb compiled the magazine's inaugural "Windfall Report," in the April issue. This is his third time co-editing the V.F. 100 section (page 245). PAST LIFE: During her summer breaks from college, Halberstadt worked as a lifeguard and restaurant hostess. Newcomb bottled liquid chlorine before becoming a copyboy at Forbes. SIDE JOB: Halberstadt handles research for the CNBC show Conversations with Miehael Eisner. Newcomb works poolside as a timer at his kids' swim meets. SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED ABOUT: Halberstadt had to be assisted out of her first V.F. holiday party—10 years ago. ("That'll be news to my parents.") Newcomb got stoned while interviewing Island Records founder Chris Blackwell in Jamaica in 1989.

("That'll be news to my parents, too.")

THORN IN THEIR SIDE: Constant badgering by handlers of assorted members of the New Establishment angling to get a higher ranking for their boss.

Tim Hetherington

The images of American soldiers in Afghanistan that contributing photographer Tim Hetherington has captured for V.F.—one of which earned him the 2007 World Press Photo of the Year award—have a remarkably intimate, up-close feel. He and contributing editor Sebastian Junger were embedded with the men of the 503rd Infantry's Battle Company on five separate occasions over the course of a year. "We became part of the fabric of their lives," Hetherington (pictured here with Sergeant Karl Steiner of the Second Platoon) says. "They almost stopped noticing we were there." Documenting the soldiers' lives and work was challenging to the end, however. "We were mortared moments before we left on the last helicopter out of the valley," Hetherington says. "It was a great sense of relief to be finished."

Mark Anderson

To date, Mark Anderson s photographs have graced more than 300 magazine covers. His work has appeared in Esquire, Elle, and Spanish Vogue, among other media. In 2005, Anderson was invited to catalogue a vast, long-stored-away collection of personal items that once belonged to Marilyn Monroe. After spending more than two years documenting the archive—the results of which are published here for the first time, on page 320—Anderson says he has a new respect for the movie legend. "Before all this, Monroe was just an intriguing, iconic figure to me," he explains. "Now she is this intelligent, tough, determined woman who is much more than simply sweet on the eyes." Anderson is currently working on a mermaid-themed photographic book.