November 26, 2022

Abandoned State

From Moscow, Katya V. speaks of the souring Russian mood, the flood of compatriots crossing the border, abandoned apartments, and the endless farewell parties …

Serving the Mob

From New York City, Michael Cecchi-Azzolina, the former maître d’ of the River Café, reveals how to prevent getting whacked after accidentally disrespecting one of John Gotti’s hit men …

Fake Smiles

From Beverly Hills, Michele McPhee details a widespread fraud scheme involving top N.B.A. players, dodgy dentists, and dozens of phony root canals …

The Deal-maker

From Hollywood, Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson reveal how Michael Ovitz transformed himself from mild-mannered tour guide to all-powerful superagent, and changed show business along the way …

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

From Air Mail’s Beauty and Wellness Lab, Linda Wells reports on the latest innovations in zapping, plucking, and scraping away unwanted hair—just don’t call it “shaving” …

Blowing a Fusilli

From Italy, Sheila Pierce reports on the battle between energy conservationists and pasta fundamentalists …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Did Wallis Simpson really love the duke? … the love letters of Lucian Freud … Charlotte Gainsbourg … after My Dad Wrote a Porno … Truman Capote and the “murder of the century” … the best fried chicken in New York City … everyone’s a D.J. downtown … remembering George Booth, cartooning legend … the best new mystery books … Egyptomania is here again! …

Issue No. 176

The View from Here Russia’s long good-bye

By Katya V.

Read On

Packages and Kings How, amid the wreckage of Heaven’s Gate, a couple of young agents rebuilt the movie business in their own image

By Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson

Read On

Foul Play How a group of former basketball players teamed up with a dodgy Beverly Hills dentist to defraud the N.B.A. out of $1 million

By Michele McPhee

Read On

Leave the Gun, Take the Cocktail In an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, a maître d’hôtel for Brooklyn’s River Café recalls getting on the wrong side of a mobster from the Gotti crime family—and how he lived to tell the tale

By Michael Cecchi-Azzolina

Read On

Screen Time

Whether you opt for Dune: Part Two or the Criterion Channel’s Wong Kar-wai collection, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show with these scene-stealing finds, including the projector that will turn any home into a movie theater

Shop

Photo: © Warner Bros./Everett Collection (Bugs Bunny)

My Favorite Things The Mozambique-born painter Cassi Namoda highlights her favorite international finds, from French oil paints to Austrian bath salts

By Cassi Namoda

Shop

Photo: Alina Asmus (Namoda)

Eye of the Beholder The latest innovations in skin care have nothing to do with creams or serums. Can the subtle art of hair removal accomplish more than mere shaving? Our intrepid beauty columnist investigates

By Linda Wells

Read On

When the Lights Go Out All Over Europe An argument over pasta in Rome speaks of a winter of discontent across the whole of Europe

By Sheila Pierce

Read On

Read Sunday Matinee Caroline Martin (played by Brooke Smith) makes her on-screen entrance in The Silence of the Lambs belting out Tom Petty’s “American Girl“…

Listen The Last Archive For the past two seasons of her podcast, The Last Archive, Harvard professor and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has been trying…

Eat Charles Pan-Fried Chicken Charles Gabriel started selling fried chicken from a folding table along Amsterdam Avenue in the 1990s…

Watch All the Beauty and the Bloodshed In 2014, American photographer Nan Goldin was prescribed OxyContin for the torturous pain of tendonitis…

Adorn Wallshoppe x Lingua Franca Like so many good things in life, wallpaper is a commitment. Or, rather, it used to be. Now brands such…

Stomp Le Monde Béryl Le Monde Béryl’s Mary Jane flats are classics for good reason. Now, as holiday parties beckon, the brand has trotted out a new collection…

Read Sunday Matinee Caroline Martin (played by Brooke Smith) makes her on-screen entrance in The Silence of the Lambs belting out Tom Petty’s “American Girl“…

Listen The Last Archive For the past two seasons of her podcast, The Last Archive, Harvard professor and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has been trying…

Eat Charles Pan-Fried Chicken Charles Gabriel started selling fried chicken from a folding table along Amsterdam Avenue in the 1990s…

Watch All the Beauty and the Bloodshed In 2014, American photographer Nan Goldin was prescribed OxyContin for the torturous pain of tendonitis…

Adorn Wallshoppe x Lingua Franca Like so many good things in life, wallpaper is a commitment. Or, rather, it used to be. Now brands such…

Stomp Le Monde Béryl Le Monde Béryl’s Mary Jane flats are classics for good reason. Now, as holiday parties beckon, the brand has trotted out a new collection…

Amateur Hour An unexpected side effect of house music’s stratospheric rise? Everyone and their mother thinks that they, too, can be a D.J.

By Elena Clavarino

Read On

Ready, Set, Bake! Mouthwatering desserts and beautiful breads are made with ease, thanks to these new cookbooks

By Christine Muhlke

Read On

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gainsbourged From the perils of aging to the joys of parenthood—and the undertow of depression—the French singer and actress is now happily looking ahead

Interview by

Danny Scott

Read On

A Feast for the Ears This week’s podcast has grifters, N.B.A. stars, fancy restaurants, angry mobsters, Russian dissidents, and more!

Read On

Yabba Dabba Doo! With two sellout world tours and 430 million downloads, Britain’s most successful comedy podcast, My Dad Wrote a Porno, has finally reached its climax

By Patricia Nicol

Read On

All Roads Lead to Paolo Di Paolo Ahead of a new movie by Bruce Weber on the forgotten photographer and chronicler of postwar Italy, we collect some of his most memorable pictures

9

The top of the Duomo, in Milan, photographed by Paolo Di Paolo.

*Top,* the Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni; *above,* children peek into a ship in the Port of Messina, Sicily.

*Top, Bambina e Bambole* (Girl and Dolls); *above,* at the Lido di Carollo, in Pozzuoli, Naples.

The Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini on set.

*Top,* dozing at church; *above,* a countryside wedding as the father of the bride looks on.

Roman holiday. *Top,* Pasolini in Monte dei Cocci; *above,* the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico in Piazza di Spagna.

*Top,* Magnani and Tennessee Williams; *above,* Aristotle Onassis.

*Top,* a boy and his cat look on as the Autostrada 1, or “Autostrada del Sole,” the oldest European highway and the most important in Italy, is inaugurated, 1964; *above,* a family at the beach in Rimini, in Emilia-Romagna.

Read On

Hot Topic Ever since Edward VIII abdicated the British throne to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson, there has been speculation about their relationship. A new book attempts to set the record straight

By Andrew Lownie

Read On

Maria Sole Ferragamo The young jewelry designer behind So-Le Studio uses her family’s signature fabric—leather—to make accessories that double as works of art

By Elena Clavarino

Read On

A Mania for Egyptomania Early next month, the “Magnificent Jewels” sale at Sotheby’s New York will include nearly a dozen superb pieces of Egyptian Revival jewelry

By Ruth Peltason

Read On

“O.K., let’s celebrate this touchdown and try not to disappoint our new offensive choreographer.”

Max Carter On

Love Lucian: The Letters of Lucian Freud, 1939–1954

Edited by David Dawson and Martin Gayford

Read On

Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire’s Wife, and the Murder of the Century

by Roseanne Montillo

Read On

“I don’t care for their politics, either, but we have to fly south for the winter.”

Bull Terriers on Parade George Booth’s cartoons didn’t punch up or down but elbowed gently to the side

By Bob Mankoff

Read On

Ophélie Renouard

The creator of le Bal des Débutantes answers 50 of life’s most pressing questions

Read On

Is Edited By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

Deputy Editors

Ashley Baker Ash Carter Chris Garrett Nathan King Julia Vitale

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Columnists

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

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Lili Anolik Johanna Berkman Joseph Bullmore Vassi Chamberlain William D. Cohan Rich Cohen Michael Hainey Stuart Heritage George Kalogerakis Sam Kashner James Kirchick Alexander Lobrano Alexandra Marshall

Contributing Artists

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

Contributing Photographers

Jonathan Becker Justin Bishop Alex Board James Emmerman Marcos Fecchino Daniel Paik Art Streiber Sharon Suh Justin Weiner

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Basil Walter

Communications Director

Monika Camara Batista

Head of Audience Development

Rachel LeSage

Cartoon Editor

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Randall Poster

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Emine Gozde Sevim

Designer

Zoé Gillette

Technology

Brooks Oakley Justin Rubaloff Sade Singleton

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OUR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER ARE

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AIR SUPPLY

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Editor

Zoe Ruffner

E-Commerce Manager

Isaac Metlitsky

E-Commerce Associates

Coco Paul-Henriot Roxy Solis

In Memoriam

Peter Bogdanovich Duncan Hannah Douglas McGrath Richard David Story André Leon Talley

The View from Here Russia’s long good-bye

Packages and Kings How, amid the wreckage of Heaven’s Gate, a couple of young agents rebuilt the movie business in their own image

Foul Play How a group of former basketball players teamed up with a dodgy Beverly Hills dentist to defraud the N.B.A. out of $1 million

Leave the Gun, Take the Cocktail In an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, a maître d’hôtel for Brooklyn’s River Café recalls getting on the wrong side of a mobster from the Gotti crime family—and how he lived to tell the tale

Whether you opt for Dune: Part Two or the Criterion Channel’s Wong Kar-wai collection, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show with these scene-stealing finds, including the projector that will turn any home into a movie theater

My Favorite Things The Mozambique-born painter Cassi Namoda highlights her favorite international finds, from French oil paints to Austrian bath salts

Eye of the Beholder The latest innovations in skin care have nothing to do with creams or serums. Can the subtle art of hair removal accomplish more than mere shaving? Our intrepid beauty columnist investigates

When the Lights Go Out All Over Europe An argument over pasta in Rome speaks of a winter of discontent across the whole of Europe

Amateur Hour An unexpected side effect of house music’s stratospheric rise? Everyone and their mother thinks that they, too, can be a D.J.

Ready, Set, Bake! Mouthwatering desserts and beautiful breads are made with ease, thanks to these new cookbooks

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gainsbourged From the perils of aging to the joys of parenthood—and the undertow of depression—the French singer and actress is now happily looking ahead

A Feast for the Ears This week’s podcast has grifters, N.B.A. stars, fancy restaurants, angry mobsters, Russian dissidents, and more!

Yabba Dabba Doo! With two sellout world tours and 430 million downloads, Britain’s most successful comedy podcast, My Dad Wrote a Porno, has finally reached its climax

Baltimore

Seoul

London

New York

Seattle

All Roads Lead to Paolo Di Paolo Ahead of a new movie by Bruce Weber on the forgotten photographer and chronicler of postwar Italy, we collect some of his most memorable pictures

Hot Topic Ever since Edward VIII abdicated the British throne to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson, there has been speculation about their relationship. A new book attempts to set the record straight

Maria Sole Ferragamo The young jewelry designer behind So-Le Studio uses her family’s signature fabric—leather—to make accessories that double as works of art

A Mania for Egyptomania Early next month, the “Magnificent Jewels” sale at Sotheby’s New York will include nearly a dozen superb pieces of Egyptian Revival jewelry

Bull Terriers on Parade George Booth’s cartoons didn’t punch up or down but elbowed gently to the side

The creator of le Bal des Débutantes answers 50 of life’s most pressing questions

Is Edited By

Deputy Editors

Design Director

Chief Technology Officer

Books Editor

Arts Intel Report Editor

Senior Editor

Editor at Large

Photo Director

Copy Editor

Research & Legal Editor

Production Editor

Associate Editors

Art Director

International Editor

London Editor

Columnists

Writers at Large

Contributing Artists

Contributing Photographers

Architectural Consultant

Communications Director

Head of Audience Development

Social Media Manager

Cartoon Editor

Music Supervisor

Photo Editor

Designer

Technology

Interns

OUR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER ARE

Shop General Manager and Brand Partnerships

Advertising Director

European Sales Director

Integrated Marketing Producer

Financial & Business Operations

Account Manager

Chief Strategy Adviser

Merchant

Editor

E-Commerce Manager

E-Commerce Associates

In Memoriam