Air Mail

The Hard-Crusted Softy in Winter, Part II Ten years after Gore Vidal’s death, the one biographer to remain friendly with the prickly master reveals poignant details of his final years

By Matt Kapp

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School for Scandal

Skeletons in the Closet The culture wars have come for Skull and Bones, Yale’s most prestigious—and mysterious—secret society

By William D. Cohan

American Invasion

The Oracle of Oxford Larry Ellison, who surpassed Elon Musk last week to become the world’s richest man, is transforming the city into the new Silicon Valley

By Mick Brown

Books

Buying Basquiat Long before Andy Warhol, known for championing Jean-Michel Basquiat, there was Stéphane Janssen—a Belgian art collector in Beverly Hills who recognized the young artist’s genius early on

By Doug Woodham

The Sway of Peter Sellers Woody Allen, Christopher Guest, and Geoffrey Rush recall the influence of the great comic actor, who was born 100 years ago

as told to Andrew Pulver

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Emperor of the New Order How a promising young director gave up a comfortable life in Hollywood—and gained true creative freedom for a new generation of filmmakers. An exclusive excerpt from The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story

By Sam Wasson

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Londongrad’s Laundromat Kensington mansions and Premier League football clubs—how did London become the money-washing capital of the world?

By Scott Galloway

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Virginia Giuffre’s Last Words An explosive account of alleged abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew is seeing the light of day six months after Giuffre’s suicide

By Josie Ensor

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Bruce McCall With his deadpan surrealism, superior wit, and perfect timing, the satirical artist and writer left an indelible mark on everything he touched, from National Lampoon to The New Yorker and Vanity Fair

By Bruce Handy

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Walter Mirisch Raised in the era of silent movies, the Some Like It Hot producer, whose films won 28 Oscars, started out as an usher in a New Jersey theater

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A Cavalcade of Depravity Shakespearean actors, Penthouse Pets, 3,000 Roman costumes, 450 gallons of fake blood, and Gore Vidal. Was Caligula the most ambitious porno ever made—or the raunchiest historical epic?

By Josh Karp

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Film

Kevin Costner’s Post Apocalypse The Postman was meant to be the Oscar winner’s magnum opus—instead it became the tale of a superstar’s self-indulgence

By Tom Fordy

Film and Television

His Last Picture Show My Year with Peter Bogdanovich

By Sam Kashner

A Secret History

Devil’s Bargain A 2004 visit with the future Nobel laureate Alice Munro left me with a slightly uneasy feeling. Now I know why

By Daphne Merkin

The Talented Dr. Gray As priceless heirlooms disappeared from the homes of Newport bluebloods and Georgetown ambassadors, Lawrence Gray remained above suspicion—and on the guest list

By Steve Kroft and Howard L. Rosenberg

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Furor over the Führer Jerry Lewis’s unfinished film, The Day the Clown Cried, was long considered the last word in Holocaust-related bad taste. And then along came Heil Honey I’m Home!, an I Love Lucy–like sitcom about Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun

By Bruce Handy

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Discovering Genoa Formerly known as one of Europe’s grungiest port cities, Genoa is now welcoming travelers who seek an authentically Italian vacation

By Marcia DeSanctis

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The Downtown Set A list of the 50 young New Yorkers who are remaking Lower Manhattan in their own image

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Death on the North Atlantic Nathan Carman allegedly killed his grandfather for cash. When that ran out, he took his mother out to sea. Only one of them came back

By John Glatt

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The Hunger Game Is fasting a longevity tool or a socially acceptable type of disordered eating? Over five long days, one brave soul investigates

By Devin Friedman

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Dancing with the Devil

By Deborah Scroggins

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Great Lives

Tom Lehrer A mordant Harvard math whiz who used musical satire to skewer the Establishment and pioneer a new kind of nonconformist comedy

By Todd S. Purdum

Artistic License

Julian Schnabel’s Cutting Edge Despite commercial success and a body of work that now spans more than five decades, the artist is just as irritable and unimpressed as ever

By Arwa Mahdawi

First Family

A First Lady on the Front Line Alongside her husband, Volodymyr, Olena Zelenska is a key voice in Ukraine, as the couple rally international support and highlight the atrocities of the Russian invasion

By Antonia Hoyle

The View from Here Jeffrey Sachs, the man once described as “the most important economist in the world,” has been saying some very strange things in some very peculiar venues

By Charles Leerhsen

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