Air Mail

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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Fifty Shades of Antiquity

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

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

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

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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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Books

Dancing with the Devil

By Deborah Scroggins

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

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

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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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Follow the Ruby Red Slippers! The crazy tale of a career criminal’s theft of the shoes worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz—and the madcap, decades-long fight to get them back

By Mark Seal

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A Forgotten Master of Pulp Fiction The only thing more noir than the work of writer Cornell Woolrich may have been his own life

By Sam Kashner

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Sinatra in the Jungle On the 70th anniversary of Mogambo, John Ford’s 1950s adultery epic set in Africa, a behind-the-scenes look at its stars—Grace Kelly, Clark Gable, and Ava Gardner, married to Frank Sinatra at the time

By Richard M. Cohen

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Private Quarters Brant Lake Camp was warned about pedophiles in their midst. Why did the camp not act against them?

By Johanna Berkman

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A Very British Scandal-Maker Sam McAlister, the longtime BBC producer who persuaded Prince Andrew to do that car-crash interview, tells all

By Michael Odell

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Bedroom Politics

By Peter Conrad

Bedroom Politics

By Peter Conrad

Motion Pictures

Lartigue on La Côte d’Azur In the early 30s, the photographer and playboy Jacques-Henri Lartigue took a job shooting a movie on the French Riviera. The film went nowhere—but Lartigue became a legend

By Joan Juliet Buck

Going After the Gonzo When the author was sent to visit Hunter S. Thompson—five months before Thompson shot himself—he found a writer trapped inside a legend

By Rich Cohen

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