Enter Laughing

Sam Kashner recounts the astounding (and uproarious) life of S. J. Perelman, the man who re-invented American humor …

From Rags to Britches

Adrian Brune catches up with Sir John Bird, who grew up homeless, spent decades running a street newspaper, and now sits in the House of Lords …

Road Trip!

Fifty years after Dennis Wilson and James Taylor tried to jump-start movie careers in Two-Lane Blacktop, Jason Guriel fires it up and takes us for a spin …

Drink Up

Laura Neilson takes a shot at explaining the hottest trend on bar trolleys and at holiday parties: an explosion of rosé tequilas …

Lost in Paradise

On a trek through remote Rwanda, Marcia DeSanctis shares an extraordinary journey that brought her face-to-face with some of earth’s 1,000 remaining gorillas …

So Much For Omertà

A look at the definitive oral history of The Sopranos …

Issue No. 128

The View from Here Beloved by Kurt Vonnegut, Groucho Marx, and Sidney Namlerep, S. J. Perelman re-invented American humor

By Sam Kashner

Read On

Let It Snow

Whether you’re hitting the slopes in Gstaad or Jackson Hole, AIR SUPPLY has you covered with winter wonders for your most stylish ski—and après-ski—session yet

Shop

Illustration: René Vincent/Culture Club/Getty Images (skiers)

My Favorite Things In addition to its trademark Venetian-gondolier-style slippers, Lily Atherton Hanbury’s beloved brand, Le Monde Béryl, now comprises bespoke jewelry, accessories, and décor. Herewith, she showcases her top selects

By Lily Atherton Hanbury

Shop

Photo: Billal Taright (Atherton Hanbury)

Eye of the Beholder In an era when casual handshakes and warm embraces are largely off limits, more platonic touch, it turns out, might be just what we all need

By Linda Wells

Read On

John Bird’s Big Issue John Bird, who grew up homeless and made it into the House of Lords the unfashionable way, on running the London street newspaper The Big Issue

By Adrian Brune

Read On

Write Pineider Looking to make a fresh start next year? Nothing helps you feel more in control of your possibilities than a handsome datebook or diary…

Apply Sarisha The green clay mask from Sarisha is one of only three skin-care products I’ve used where, a few hours after applying it, I get people…

Smoke Big Green Egg When my girlfriend presented me with a Big Green Egg meat smoker on my birthday, I viewed it less as a gift and more as a call to arms…

Cook Gabriel Kreuther Those who have been fortunate enough to enjoy a meal at Gabriel Kreuther’s eponymous restaurant, on 42nd Street in Midtown…

Mask Heather Taylor Home After 18 months of face masks—but who’s counting?—we can no longer stomach the surgical garb. (How many bleached paper fibers…

THE KING’S MAN 2021 20th Century Fox film with Ralph Fiennes at left and Djimon Hounsou

Watch The King’s Man In the absence of Richard Curtis, this season there is Matthew Vaughn, serving up a crowd-pleaser not quite in the feel-good, festive variety…

Write Pineider Looking to make a fresh start next year? Nothing helps you feel more in control of your possibilities than a handsome datebook or diary…

Apply Sarisha The green clay mask from Sarisha is one of only three skin-care products I’ve used where, a few hours after applying it, I get people…

Smoke Big Green Egg When my girlfriend presented me with a Big Green Egg meat smoker on my birthday, I viewed it less as a gift and more as a call to arms…

Cook Gabriel Kreuther Those who have been fortunate enough to enjoy a meal at Gabriel Kreuther’s eponymous restaurant, on 42nd Street in Midtown…

Mask Heather Taylor Home After 18 months of face masks—but who’s counting?—we can no longer stomach the surgical garb. (How many bleached paper fibers…

Watch The King’s Man In the absence of Richard Curtis, this season there is Matthew Vaughn, serving up a crowd-pleaser not quite in the feel-good, festive variety…

Built to Last It sputtered at the box office, but 50 years on it’s clear that Two-Lane Blacktop is the great American road movie

By Jason Guriel

Read On

Ballerinas, with a Twist

“It’s sort of surprising that the company has lasted 40-plus years,” says the choreographer Peter Anastos, “but the idea was very strong.” Anastos is speaking of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, the all-male comedic ballet troupe he co-founded in 1974 and directed for decades. “Guys in tutus are funny for about 30 seconds. After that, they have to actually do something and have really good material.” READ ON

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, ready to hit the Joyce stage.

Read On

Discover

“Oh, Great One! We offer you this sacrificial lamb and your choice of any two side dishes.”

The Only Podcast You Need Give yourself the gift of good conversation, with Morning Meeting

Read On

Excuse Me, Your Tequila Is Blushing The rosé trend extends to agave, just in time for cocktail-party season

By Laura Neilson

Read On

Gorillas in Our Midst A trek through Rwanda to discover the animal kingdom in all its magnificence

By Marcia DeSanctis

Read On

France for Sale Government agencies are selling merchandise so stylish that it’ll make the MAGA hat weep

By Katia Kulawick-Assante

Read On

A farm girl from Grabtown, North Carolina, with the poise and presence of Nefertiti, Ava Gardner was dubbed “the World’s Most Beautiful Animal” by the press, and few doubted it. After a tumultuous marriage to Frank Sinatra—her third; Mickey Rooney and Artie Shaw were her first two husbands, respectively—she left Hollywood at the height of her fame, tore through Madrid like a wildfire, and settled sedately in London, a star and a dame to the end. She would have turned 99 this past week.

Alexandre Assouline He grew up watching his parents turn a fledgling publishing company into a coffee-table-book sensation. Now he’s helping to run it

By Elena Clavarino

Read On

Forever Elizabeth Photographers Douglas Kirkland, Gered Mankowitz, Norman Parkinson, Milton Greene, Terry O’Neill, and Gary Bernstein offer different looks at Hollywood’s brightest star

12

Elizabeth Taylor, photographed in 1961 by a young Douglas Kirkland. “It was actually Elizabeth Taylor who gave me my first break,” Kirkland says. “And it was that first meeting with her that changed my life forever.”

*Top,* London, 1963, by Kirkland; *above,* Richard Burton, Taylor, and director Joseph Losey on the set of 1968’s *Boom!,* by Gered Mankowitz.

Taylor prepares to shoot the Kabuki dance movements on the set of *Boom!*, by Mankowitz.

Wearing a gown by Barbara Matera on the set of *A Little Night Music,* Vienna, 1976. Photographed by Norman Parkinson.

A break between scenes on the set of *Boom!,* by Mankowitz.

Burton and Taylor, photographed by Milton Greene in London, 1963. The couple would marry for the first time a year later.

On the way to the opera, Paris, 1963. Photographed by Kirkland.

David Bowie and Taylor, photographed by Terry O’Neill the day the two first met, at director George Cukor’s house in Beverly Hills, 1974.

In Vienna during the filming of *A Little Night Music.* Photographed by O’Neill.

On the set of Cukor’s 1976 film, *The Blue Bird,* photographed by Greene at the palace of Catherine the Great, now the Hermitage Museum, in St. Petersburg.

On the set of *A Little Night Music.* Shot by O’Neill.

A rare candid, shot by Gary Bernstein. “I like this shot a lot,” Bernstein says. “She liked it as well, especially because it showed off the famous Elizabeth Taylor Diamond.”

Read On

A Word from the Wiseguys Twenty-two years after The Sopranos premiered, a new oral history revisits the gritty mobster universe the show created

By Sam Kashner

Read On

Dominic Sandbrook On

The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III

by Andrew Roberts

Read On

Max Carter On

The King’s Painter: The Life of Hans Holbein

by Franny Moyle

Read On

Murder, They Wrote

by Lisa Henricksson

Read On

Scottish Play A more enjoyable way of life unfolds at the Fife Arms, an irresistible hotel near Balmoral Castle

By Michael Hainey

Read On

What’s wrong with this holiday card? See if you can pick out the items that don’t belong in this royal mess.

Is Edited By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

Deputy Editors

Ashley Baker Chris Garrett Michael Hainey Nathan King Julia Vitale

Design Director

Angela Panichi

Chief Technology Officer

John Tornow

Books Editor

Jim Kelly

Arts Intel Report Editor

Laura Jacobs

Features Editor

Ash Carter

Executive Editor

David Foxley

Photo Director

Ann Schneider

Associate Editors

Elena Clavarino Jensen Davis Coco Paul-Henriot Jacob Robbins Elinor Schneider Roxy Solis

Art Director

Paloma Huerre

Columnists

Cazzie David Emma Freud Lisa Henricksson
Walter Isaacson Pico Iyer Rachel Johnson
John Lahr Jonathan Margolis Douglas McGrath
Linda Wells James Wolcott

Writers at Large

Lili Anolik Joseph Bullmore William D. Cohan Rich Cohen Stuart Heritage George Kalogerakis Sam Kashner Alexander Lobrano Alexandra Marshall

Contributing Artists

Monica Ahanonu Barry Blitt André Carrilho Paul Davis David Downton Andrea Ferolla Josh Gosfield Cathy Graham Duncan Hannah Eric Hanson Angelica Hicks Pip Johnson Hilary Knight Jenny Kroik Michael Lindsay-Hogg Ross MacDonald Joe McKendry James McMullan Donald Robertson Charles Dare Scheips Grant Shaffer Ed Sorel Ralph Steadman

International Editor

Isabelle Harvie-Watt

London Editor

Bridget Arsenault

Architectural Consultant

Basil Walter

Communications Director

Monika Camara Batista

Head of Audience Development

Rachel LeSage

Cartoon Editor

Bob Mankoff

Music Supervisor

Randall Poster

Copy Editor

Adam Nadler

Research & Legal Editor

Matt Kapp

Photo Editor

Emine Gozde Sevim

Production Editor

H. Scott Jolley

Technology

Brooks Oakley Justin Rubaloff Sade Singleton

Intern

Gasper Tringale-White

Chief Operating Officer

Bill Keenan

Chief Marketing Officer

Emily Davis

Shop General Manager and Brand Partnerships

Anjali Lewis

Sales Director

Michael Pescuma

European Sales Director

Selim Mataraci

Integrated Marketing Producer

Alex Dickerson

Account Manager

Dillon Freeman

Integrated Marketing Manager

Georgia Karakostas

Financial & Business Operations

Marc Leyer

Chief Strategy Adviser

Adam Mendelsohn

In Memoriam

Richard David Story (1952–2021)

The View from Here Beloved by Kurt Vonnegut, Groucho Marx, and Sidney Namlerep, S. J. Perelman re-invented American humor

Whether you’re hitting the slopes in Gstaad or Jackson Hole, AIR SUPPLY has you covered with winter wonders for your most stylish ski—and après-ski—session yet

My Favorite Things In addition to its trademark Venetian-gondolier-style slippers, Lily Atherton Hanbury’s beloved brand, Le Monde Béryl, now comprises bespoke jewelry, accessories, and décor. Herewith, she showcases her top selects

Eye of the Beholder In an era when casual handshakes and warm embraces are largely off limits, more platonic touch, it turns out, might be just what we all need

A century after Gainsborough’s Mona Lisa–esque Blue Boy left the U.K. for California, it’s back on show in London. So who was the boy in blue?

John Bird’s Big Issue John Bird, who grew up homeless and made it into the House of Lords the unfashionable way, on running the London street newspaper The Big Issue

Built to Last It sputtered at the box office, but 50 years on it’s clear that Two-Lane Blacktop is the great American road movie

Chicago

London

Milan

New York

Paris

The Only Podcast You Need Give yourself the gift of good conversation, with Morning Meeting

Excuse Me, Your Tequila Is Blushing The rosé trend extends to agave, just in time for cocktail-party season

Gorillas in Our Midst A trek through Rwanda to discover the animal kingdom in all its magnificence

France for Sale Government agencies are selling merchandise so stylish that it’ll make the MAGA hat weep

Alexandre Assouline He grew up watching his parents turn a fledgling publishing company into a coffee-table-book sensation. Now he’s helping to run it

Forever Elizabeth Photographers Douglas Kirkland, Gered Mankowitz, Norman Parkinson, Milton Greene, Terry O’Neill, and Gary Bernstein offer different looks at Hollywood’s brightest star

A Word from the Wiseguys Twenty-two years after The Sopranos premiered, a new oral history revisits the gritty mobster universe the show created

Scottish Play A more enjoyable way of life unfolds at the Fife Arms, an irresistible hotel near Balmoral Castle

Don’t neglect your dreams this holiday season. Escape to the Alps with these songs from Beyoncé, Haim, Tems, and more

Is Edited By

Deputy Editors

Design Director

Chief Technology Officer

Books Editor

Arts Intel Report Editor

Features Editor

Executive Editor

Photo Director

Associate Editors

Art Director

Columnists

Writers at Large

Contributing Artists

International Editor

London Editor

Architectural Consultant

Communications Director

Head of Audience Development

Cartoon Editor

Music Supervisor

Copy Editor

Research & Legal Editor

Photo Editor

Production Editor

Technology

Intern

Chief Operating Officer

Chief Marketing Officer

Shop General Manager and Brand Partnerships

Sales Director

European Sales Director

Integrated Marketing Producer

Account Manager

Integrated Marketing Manager

Financial & Business Operations

Chief Strategy Adviser

In Memoriam