July 15, 2023 – Air Mail

MARTIAN LAW

From the edge of space, Rich Cohen reports on the latest breaking developments in U.F.O.-ology—a U.S. Air Force whistleblower! A crashed alien spacecraft! Congressional hearings!—and why now is the time to start believing. No, really!

INTO THE WILD

From London, Simon Callow recalls how the cultured exterior of his friend the late actor Julian Sands masked a wild man who kicked down Callow’s front door and branded him with a coat hanger …

FIGHT OF THE VALKYRIES

From the orchestra pit, John Mauceri muses on why Putin’s chef turned mutineer, Yevgeny Prigozhin, named his supposed anti-Nazi mercenary group after Hitler’s favorite composer. And how do you pronounce it?

FRENCH KISS-OFF

From Douchy-Montcorbon, Peter Conradi reveals the sad troubles of Alain Delon, once the handsomest movie star in the world, now 87 and in a legal brawl with his former (and much younger) girlfriend …

ALL THE SINGLE LADIES

From the 1990s, Hilary Rose celebrates the 25th anniversary of Bridget Jones’s Diary and its evergreen, Everywoman antics …

SPRITZING ON THE RITZ

From the health-and-beauty lab, Linda Wells breathes in the world of hotel scents—proprietary blends used everywhere from Paris’s Ritz to Positano’s Le Sirenuse to Manhattan’s Carlyle …

THE BOGEY MAN

From Hollywood, William J. Mann pulls back the covers on the legendary romance between Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart to reveal the early rancor behind the scenes …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Oppenheimer’s Emily Blunt on taking a break from acting … Paris is burning, but the fashion houses are still showing … a heart-in-mouth vintage-car race through Italy … Brigitte Bardot, shot by the greats … wartime Berlin’s most notorious brothel … William Edmondson’s monumental vision … the marchioness who swapped Hockneys for Holsteins … The Summer I Turned Pretty’s young star tells all … all hail the return of the Attention-Whore Index!

Issue No. 209

The View from Here A U.S. Air Force whistleblower has made dramatic new claims for the existence of U.F.O.’s. Is it enough to finally make us believe?

By Rich Cohen

Read On

Cinema Verité Like the plot of a French New Wave film, the legendary actor Alain Delon is in a tumultuous battle with his much younger girlfriend

By Peter Conradi

Read On

Keeping Up with the Joneses In the 1990s, Helen Fielding’s hilarious novel Bridget Jones’s Diary became a huge hit. Now revisionists are ruining the fun

By Hilary Rose

Read On

Wagnerian Army Why is Prigozhin’s Russian mercenary force named after Hitler’s favorite 19th-century German composer?

By John Mauceri

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP

Read On

Room Service, Please!

Few things in life are better than a visit to a familiar, first-rate hotel. So after you check in and order up a club sandwich, spoil yourself with these special discoveries from, and reminiscent of, favorite properties around the globe—as well as some items to get you there in style

Shop

Photo: Jack Garofalo/Paris Match/Getty Images (Vitti)

My Favorite Things The New York designer, who was once dubbed “the darling of downtown fashion,” shares her eclectic essentials, from glitzy accessories to personalized luggage tags and beyond

By Anna Sui

Shop

Photo: Miguel Flores-Vianna (Sui)

Lunch with Emily Blunt On this week’s episode of Table for Two, the Oppenheimer actress explains her coming gap year and makes the case for being a modern-day Lucille Ball

Read On

The Attention-Whore Index After a brief summer break, the world’s neediest attention-seekers are back and clamoring for your vote. But who really deserves it? You decide!

Read On

Eye of the Beholder Hotels are so rich with scent memories that, sometimes, a spritz is enough to really take you places. Isn’t it about time you tried puttin’ on the Ritz, too?

By Linda Wells

Read On

Rolex Rewinds The king of watches is moving forward by embracing emojis, titanium, and its own storied past

By Nicholas Foulkes

Read On

Antique Road Show At Mille Miglia, Italy’s most prestigious auto race, an appreciation for classic cars and all that comes with driving them—danger, beauty, and speed—endures across generations

By Adam Hay-Nicholls

Read On

Julian Sands The actor imbued his performances across screen and stage, from James Ivory’s A Room with a View to John Malkovich’s A Celebration of Harold Pinter, with the same zeal he brought to his life

By Simon Callow

Read On

Toujours Couture In Paris, as protesters took to the streets, designers stormed the runways

Written and illustrated by

David Downton

5

At Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri looked to the architecture of antiquity.

Pierpaolo Piccioli showed a pared-down Valentino collection at the Château de Chantilly.

For Balenciaga’s Demna, clothing can be armor.

Chanel’s hometown of Paris provided fresh inspiration for Virginie Viard.

At Armani Privé, silk roses punctuated sleek evening gowns.

Coif Lelet NY Efforts to dress up a ponytail are often thwarted by the unevolved hair tie, creating looks that are better suited to Pilates or brunch than to…

Listen Little Feat For anyone lucky enough to have seen Little Feat perform in the 70s, one of the more poignant artifacts on display at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame…

Cook A House Party in Tuscany I recently hosted three dinner parties, ranging from 10 to 18 guests, over a six-day period. The only reason…

Read 5 Things You Should Buy Becky Malinsky spent more than 20 years as a style editor—most recently, as the deputy fashion director…

Strut Blackstock & Weber for Palmes A summer wardrobe comprising crisp whites and plenty of sharp-looking linen calls for footwear…

Wear Ann Mashburn Time and time again, we have learned that, yes, you do need to bring a sweater to dinner. The decision about which sweater, exactly, is not so…

Coif Lelet NY Efforts to dress up a ponytail are often thwarted by the unevolved hair tie, creating looks that are better suited to Pilates or brunch than to…

Listen Little Feat For anyone lucky enough to have seen Little Feat perform in the 70s, one of the more poignant artifacts on display at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame…

Cook A House Party in Tuscany I recently hosted three dinner parties, ranging from 10 to 18 guests, over a six-day period. The only reason…

Read 5 Things You Should Buy Becky Malinsky spent more than 20 years as a style editor—most recently, as the deputy fashion director…

Strut Blackstock & Weber for Palmes A summer wardrobe comprising crisp whites and plenty of sharp-looking linen calls for footwear…

Wear Ann Mashburn Time and time again, we have learned that, yes, you do need to bring a sweater to dinner. The decision about which sweater, exactly, is not so…

The Legend of Bogie and Bacall Theirs went down in history as that rare thing: a fairy-tale Hollywood marriage. But a new book reveals a rocky start to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall’s life together

By William J. Mann

Read On

Growing Up Basquiat Friends of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s compare a new exhibition on his life and work with the curious, complicated young artist they came of age with

By Joel Lobenthal

Read On

“I think the scientists want us to realize our world is warming and do something before future generations can’t live here anymore, but it’s tough to focus when cheese is so good.”

The Making of a Marchioness The late Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava rejected her glamorous youth for a colorful life spent helping others

By Harry Mount

Read On

Murder, They Watched AIR MAIL, Brunello Cucinelli, and the Cinema Society celebrate John Slattery’s new film in Southampton

8

*Top,* Jane Buffett and Andy Cohen; *above,* John Slattery.

*Top,* dinner alfresco; *above,* Darren Star and Christie Brinkley.

*Top,* Tom Freston and Carey Lowell; *above,* Craig Coyne and Barbara Bush.

*Top,* a little sustenance; *above,* Donna Karan, Nancy McCartney, and Buffett.

*Top,* Karan, Julianne Hough, and Marci Klein; *above,* Casey Slattery and Harry Slattery.

*Top,* en route to beachfront cocktails; *above,* Andrew Saffir and Éric Ripert.

*Top,* Talia Balsam and Slattery; *above,* Charles Phillips, Klein, Mary Ellen Matthews, and Michelle Ebanks.

*Top,* Ramin Arani, Ashley Wilkin, and Massimo Caronna; *above,* Sasha Alexander and Edoardo Ponti.

“A storm rages from the East—tell the men to get below and snuggle up for movie night.”

Simon Callow Discusses Julian Sands On this week’s podcast, the actor recalls his late friend. Plus: inside a successful Hollywood love story; and … U.F.O.’s!

Read On

Being Bardot A dazzling new coffee-table book collects Douglas Kirkland’s and Terry O’Neill’s photographs of Brigitte Bardot behind the scenes of some of her best films

9

Brigitte Bardot, photographed by Douglas Kirkland between takes on the set of Louis Malle’s film *Viva Maria!,* in 1965.

*Top,* Bardot, left, on the set of Guy Casaril and Claude Chabrol’s 1969 film, *Les Novices*; above, Bardot and Sean Connery promote Edward Dmytryk’s 1968 film *Shalako,* in which they starred. Photographed by Terry O’Neill.

Bardot, photographed by O’Neill on the set of Christian-Jaque’s film *Les Pétroleuses,* in 1971.

Connery and Bardot, photographed by O’Neill.

Photographed by Kirkland on the set of *Viva Maria!*

Photographed by O’Neill on the set of *Les Novices.*

Photographed by Kirkland between takes on the set of *Viva Maria!*

Photographed by O’Neill during a lunch break.

William Edmondson with one of his limestone sculptures in the 1930s, the decade he started making figurative works.

In 2016, 65 years after the self-taught sculptor William Edmondson was buried in an unmarked grave, his work Boxer fetched $785,000 at Christie’s—breaking the sales record for a single piece of “outsider art.” Born in 1874 in Davidson County, Tennessee, the son of sharecroppers, Edmondson settled in Nashville, where late in life he carved gravestones for neighbors and made art for his community, fashioning biblical figures, animals, preachers, and teachers from limestone. “William Edmondson: A Monumental Vision”—now on at the Barnes Foundation, in Philadelphia—celebrates the artist with 66 of his works as well as photographs of his home, by Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Edward Weston. READ ON

Read On

Discover

Lola Tung The actress returns to her starring role in Amazon’s hit series The Summer I Turned Pretty with the added weight of millions of viewers

By Carolina de Armas

Read On

Sommer Nights Afire, a new German summer film, follows in the unique tradition of Billy Wilder’s People on Sunday

By Tobias Grey

Read On

Ned Martel On

The Madam and the Spymaster: The Secret History of the Most Famous Brothel in Wartime Berlin

by Nigel Jones, Urs Brenner,
and Dr. Julia Schrammel

Read On

Spike Carter On

Lowdown Road

by Scott Von Doviak

Read On

Walking Wounded An excerpt from the upcoming book Wounds and Other Blessings offers a meditation on physical, emotional, and worldly slights

By Roger Rosenblatt

Read On

Mixing Up Le Melting Pot A mini-revolution is changing the port city’s surly character

By Cole Stangler

Read On

Rome for the Holidays? Joining the monarchs, the Eden and the Russie, stylish new hotels such as the Bulgari continue the tradition of excellence in the Eternal City

By Mary Lussiana

Read On

Hey, Mr. D.J., put a record on: remembering Larry Levan, the king of house-music D.J.’s, on his birthday later this month. The wizard of Paradise Garage would have been 69 this year.

Is Edited By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

Creative Director

Angela Panichi

Deputy Editors

Ashley Baker Ash Carter Chris Garrett Nathan King Julia Vitale

Chief Technology Officer

John Tornow

Editor at Large

George Pendle

Books Editor

Jim Kelly

Arts Intel Report Editor

Laura Jacobs

Senior Editor

Elena Clavarino

Junior Editor

Jensen Davis

Photo Director

Ann Schneider

Copy Editor

Adam Nadler

Research & Legal Editor

Matt Kapp

Production Editor

H. Scott Jolley

Associate Editors

Carolina de Armas Clara Molot Paulina Prosnitz

Art Director

Paloma Huerre

International Editor

Isabelle Harvie-Watt

London Editor

Bridget Arsenault

Communications Director

Harrison Vail

Columnists

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

Writers at Large

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 Daphne Merkin

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

Architectural Consultant

Basil Walter

Head of Audience Development

Rachel LeSage

Cartoon Editor

Bob Mankoff

Music Supervisor

Randall Poster

Photo Editor

Emine Gözde Sevim

Designer

Zoé Gillette

Technology

Brooks Oakley Justin Rubaloff Sade Singleton

Interns

Eleanor Barzun Nyla Gilstrap Michael Melinger Gasper Tringale-White

OUR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER ARE

Bill Keenan and Emily Davis

Air Supply General Manager and Brand Partnerships

Anjali Lewis

Advertising Director

Michael Pescuma

European Sales Director

Selim Mataraci

Financial & Business Operations

Marc Leyer

Account Manager

Dillon Freeman

Chief Strategy Adviser

Adam Mendelsohn

AIR SUPPLY

Chief Merchant

Jennifer Noyes

Shop 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 A U.S. Air Force whistleblower has made dramatic new claims for the existence of U.F.O.’s. Is it enough to finally make us believe?

Cinema Verité Like the plot of a French New Wave film, the legendary actor Alain Delon is in a tumultuous battle with his much younger girlfriend

Keeping Up with the Joneses In the 1990s, Helen Fielding’s hilarious novel Bridget Jones’s Diary became a huge hit. Now revisionists are ruining the fun

Wagnerian Army Why is Prigozhin’s Russian mercenary force named after Hitler’s favorite 19th-century German composer?

Few things in life are better than a visit to a familiar, first-rate hotel. So after you check in and order up a club sandwich, spoil yourself with these special discoveries from, and reminiscent of, favorite properties around the globe—as well as some items to get you there in style

My Favorite Things The New York designer, who was once dubbed “the darling of downtown fashion,” shares her eclectic essentials, from glitzy accessories to personalized luggage tags and beyond

Lunch with Emily Blunt On this week’s episode of Table for Two, the Oppenheimer actress explains her coming gap year and makes the case for being a modern-day Lucille Ball

The Attention-Whore Index After a brief summer break, the world’s neediest attention-seekers are back and clamoring for your vote. But who really deserves it? You decide!

Eye of the Beholder Hotels are so rich with scent memories that, sometimes, a spritz is enough to really take you places. Isn’t it about time you tried puttin’ on the Ritz, too?

Rolex Rewinds The king of watches is moving forward by embracing emojis, titanium, and its own storied past

Antique Road Show At Mille Miglia, Italy’s most prestigious auto race, an appreciation for classic cars and all that comes with driving them—danger, beauty, and speed—endures across generations

Julian Sands The actor imbued his performances across screen and stage, from James Ivory’s A Room with a View to John Malkovich’s A Celebration of Harold Pinter, with the same zeal he brought to his life

Toujours Couture In Paris, as protesters took to the streets, designers stormed the runways

The Legend of Bogie and Bacall Theirs went down in history as that rare thing: a fairy-tale Hollywood marriage. But a new book reveals a rocky start to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall’s life together

Growing Up Basquiat Friends of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s compare a new exhibition on his life and work with the curious, complicated young artist they came of age with

The Making of a Marchioness The late Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava rejected her glamorous youth for a colorful life spent helping others

Murder, They Watched AIR MAIL, Brunello Cucinelli, and the Cinema Society celebrate John Slattery’s new film in Southampton

Simon Callow Discusses Julian Sands On this week’s podcast, the actor recalls his late friend. Plus: inside a successful Hollywood love story; and … U.F.O.’s!

Los Angeles

Montclair, New Jersey

Tokyo

Geneva

Petworth, U.K.

Being Bardot A dazzling new coffee-table book collects Douglas Kirkland’s and Terry O’Neill’s photographs of Brigitte Bardot behind the scenes of some of her best films

Lola Tung The actress returns to her starring role in Amazon’s hit series The Summer I Turned Pretty with the added weight of millions of viewers

Sommer Nights Afire, a new German summer film, follows in the unique tradition of Billy Wilder’s People on Sunday

Walking Wounded An excerpt from the upcoming book Wounds and Other Blessings offers a meditation on physical, emotional, and worldly slights

Mixing Up Le Melting Pot A mini-revolution is changing the port city’s surly character

Rome for the Holidays? Joining the monarchs, the Eden and the Russie, stylish new hotels such as the Bulgari continue the tradition of excellence in the Eternal City

Is Edited By

Creative Director

Deputy Editors

Chief Technology Officer

Editor at Large

Books Editor

Arts Intel Report Editor

Senior Editor

Junior Editor

Photo Director

Copy Editor

Research & Legal Editor

Production Editor

Associate Editors

Art Director

International Editor

London Editor

Communications Director

Columnists

Writers at Large

Contributing Artists

Contributing Photographers

Architectural Consultant

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

Air Supply General Manager and Brand Partnerships

Advertising Director

European Sales Director

Financial & Business Operations

Account Manager

Chief Strategy Adviser

Chief Merchant

Shop Editor

E-Commerce Manager

E-Commerce Associates

In Memoriam