Vanity Fair's Women on Women

July 22, 2019
This dazzling collection features 28 profiles of famous women, including politicians, artists, musicians, and actresses, from the last 36 years of Vanity Fair. The profiles, each of which was written by a woman, offer snapshots of their subjects at key points in time, often with remarkable prescience. For a 1992 piece about Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail stumping for her husband, author Gail Sheehy is present to witness Clinton watching Gennifer Flowers’s CNN interview on her affair with Bill, but more importantly, she captures her personality astutely, as the “tougher, cooler, and more intellectually tart of the two” Clintons. Amy Fine Collins’s 1995 piece on Audrey Hepburn explores how the legendary actress’s relationship with designer Hubert de Givenchy helped shape her career. In 1985, Tina Brown articulates the precise nature of Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s mismatch, 11 years before their divorce, while, in 1984, Janet Coleman finds Whoopi Goldberg, just prior to the release of The Color Purple, wrestling with the implications of stardom, as “she had never yet been censored and was concerned for her integrity.” This is an ideal collection for those who enjoy celebrity profiles with a bit more substance. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency.

Starred review from August 1, 2019

Jones (editor in chief, Vanity Fair) and Friend (editor, creative development, Vanity Fair) have put together an imminently enjoyable collection of Vanity Fair profiles of women by women from the 1980s to the present. We are treated to interviews and profiles of the now famous as their stars were rising (Whoopi Goldberg, Tina Fey), the already acclaimed (Cher, Tina Turner), the historical (Emily Post, Frida Kahlo), and the current (Michelle Williams, Lena Waithe). Among the delights are the 2007 Michelle Obama interview and 1992 profile of Hillary Clinton, in which several remarked she should be the one running for president and her brother, Hugh Rodham, declared she'd make a great secretary of state. The royal family also appear, including Tina Brown's 1985 piece on Princess Diana's transformation from shy, blushing girl into glamorous star. VERDICT A perfect book for dipping into when something longer and more involved would be too much. There are plenty of "I didn't know that" moments in spite of how well known many of these talented women will be to readers.--Stefanie Hollmichel, Univ. of St. Thomas Law Lib., Minneapolis

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2019
A vigorous selection of essays spanning the magazine's modern era that underscore the combative resilience of notable accomplished women who never gave in to what was expected of them. Perusing the list of subjects--including, among many others, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Tiny Fey, Whoopi Goldberg, Frida Kahlo, Michelle Phillips, Princess Diana, Tina Turner, and Lady Gaga--it's clear that a major theme of the collection is overcoming adversity. The profiles are divided into "Comedians," "White House," "Society and Style," "Renegades," "Musicians," "the House of Windsor," "The Stars," and "In Their Own Words," and the content spans the last four decades of editors-in-chief, including Tina Brown, Graydon Carter, and Jones, the current EIC. Yes, the pieces engagingly capture the celebrity of many of the subjects, but they are also culturally relevant and timely--e.g., "The Change Agent," about actor Michelle Williams, who forced a reckoning over the wide discrepancy in pay between men and women in Hollywood. Written as minibiographies, the profiles serve as poignant tales of how one rises and falls and then rises again. In "Deconstructing Gloria" (1992), Leslie Bennetts examines how Gloria Steinem caused a major scandal by dating real estate mogul Mort Zuckerman, as if she were betraying all her feminist ideals: "Trashing her became the favorite spectator sport of the smart set." In Maureen Orth's piece on Tina Turner, the singer recounts candidly how she was abused physically and emotionally by Ike Turner for decades; though many witnessed the mistreatment, "no one ever intervened." Along with bubbly profiles of style icons Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, Laura Jacobs offers an astute piece on Emily Post, who turned a soured marriage and scandalous divorce into a satisfying new career as a bestselling writer. Finally, there are a cluster of recent essays delineating the fallout of the #MeToo movement by those closest to the subject in film, literature, and Wall Street. Besides making for absorbing reading, these essays pack a feminist wallop.

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