CONTRIBUTORS

William Langewiesche

For “A Face in the Crowd,” page 124, International Correspondent William Langewiesche reports on Great Britain’s response to a suspected terrorist plot to unleash a lethal chemical agent in London. * “This is a story about the global fight against terrorism,” he says, “especially as it occurs in the country that has long stood as a beacon of civil liberty and good government. It is a story full of uncertainties and gray areas.” Langewiesche spent many months on the subject; its lessons, he believes, have broad relevance. “The piece takes place entirely in Great Britain, but I suspect that American readers will see the parallels to the United States.” Langewiesche’s most recent book, The Atomic Bazaar: The Ruse of the Nuclear Poor, was published last year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Maureen Orth

Reporting on an upper-class British drama that rivals ABC’s Dirty Sexy Money, special correspondent Maureen Orth gets the inside track on the family feud raging over London club owner Mark Birley’s will. “I almost felt like I was an anthropologist in London, studying a fast-disappearing tribe of aristocrats who once ruled the roost but are being edged out by rich outsiders,” Orth says. “I loved listening to their language.” Although she spoke with Birley’s family, longtime friends, and staff, Orth says, “I regret I could not interview his dogs, because they were closest to him.” She also visited some of Birley’s establishments, including Annabel’s. “I had been to Annabel’s in the early 80s and remembered the full flavor of it. When I went back the first night, there was a party for Kate Moss, so all the glamour was still there. It has retained its aura.”

Bob Colacello

Prince Pavlos and Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece, whom special correspondent Bob Colacello profiles in “A Royal Family Affair” (page 146), “seem to have it all,” Colacello says, “looks, money, intelligence, the best-mannered children in the world. But what impresses me is that they’ve gone out and made something of themselves, because in her case she didn’t really have to”— her father is a billionaire retail magnate—“and in his case the role he was born for is not available to him.” In previous Vanity Fair articles, Colacello has reported on the conflict between Pavlos’s father, King Constantine II, and the Greek government (July 1995), and on the fabulous wedding of Marie-Chantal’s younger sister, Alexandra (January 1996). Boh Colacello's Out, a book of photographs, was published in September by Edition 7L.

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Jim Windolf

For the March 2004 issue, contributing editor Jim Windolf profiled three teenage friends who spent seven years doing a scene-by-scene remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark. For this issue Windolf returns to the storied franchise to discuss its latest installment, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Whereas in 2004 he chronicled amateurs, this time Windolf spoke with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Harrison Ford to discover their motivation for the newest Indiana Jones thriller. “It was a privilege to have the chance to interview these renowned filmmakers,” Windolf says. “Working on this story was like going to a film seminar. All three of them are experts in making smart movies for huge audiences, and they’re also able to step back and explain how they do what they do.”

Adam Leff and Richard Rushfield

Adam Leff and Richard Rushfield have been collaborating on V.F. Intelligence Reports in Vanities since 1997. This month they examine the tastes of America’s most dominant voting blocs: the Soccer Mom, the NASCAR Dad, the Business-Class White Guy. “I think in politics stereotypes are everything—it’s important to recognize all of them at the broadest and most insulting level,” says Rushfield, a onetime campaign organizer for Bill Clinton who is preparing to begin his second year as the Los Angeles Times's American Idol critic. Asked for his thoughts on the current campaign, he replies, “It looks to be our most boring yet. I’m worried that the YouTube-ization of politics is going to ruin the quality of content on YouTube.” But the duo also take their analyses seriously. “You’ll see pollsters noting the emergence of the BusinessClass White Guy” in upcoming election cycles, says Leff, a screenwriter.

Michael Joseph Gross

When a friend told Michael Joseph Gross that the divorce case of billionaire rightwing publisher Richard Mellon Scaife was “a potentially rich story,” he decided to look into it. “I saw that that was quite an understatement,” says Gross. “It has love, sex, betrayal, revenge, and politics. At first glance it looks like a simple story of hypocrisy”— Scaife, who helped bankroll the crusades exposing Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct, was having an affair with a woman whose past includes an arrest for prostitution—“but it’s much more complex. Indulging the temptation for Schadenfreude here would be a mistake.” “A Vast Right-Wing Hypocrisy” (page 102) is Gross’s first article for Vanity Fair. He is working on a book about the discovery of the world’s great waterfalls.