An Editor's Hollywood Ties Pay Off
Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter strikes business deals with some people his magazine covers.
By Claudia Eller, Michael Cieply and Josh Getlin, Times Staff Writers
In all of Hollywood, no magazine cover is more coveted than that of Vanity Fair. The publication is filled with pages of high-end ads and glamorous photo spreads. Its famed Oscar party has made pretenders of the rest.
The editor, Graydon Carter, has long luxuriated in his own kind of celebrity while sitting atop the masthead of Vanity Fair. But increasingly Carter has crossed into the world his magazine chronicles, striking business deals with Hollywood executives whose films are covered by Vanity Fair.
Among other things, Carter received a "consultant fee" of $100,000 from Universal Pictures, which financed the Academy Award-winning film "A Beautiful Mind." Vanity Fair had earlier published excerpts from the book on which the movie was based.
Carter approached the film's producer through an intermediary, Bryan Lourd, a friend and partner with Creative Artists Agency, according to sources familiar with the discussions. Carter told Lourd he deserved the money for recommending that the book be turned into a movie.
The sources said "Beautiful Mind" producer Brian Grazer, who also is a friend of Carter's, was uncomfortable about the approach but ultimately authorized the money. When Grazer accepted the Oscar for best picture, along with director Ron Howard, he thanked Carter.
Neither Grazer nor Lourd would comment.
Carter also declined to be interviewed for this story. But Vanity Fair spokeswoman Beth Kseniak confirmed by e-mail that he received a $100,000 payment. Sources said Carter got the money before the movie's 2001 opening, but Kseniak said the payment came 1 1/2 years after its release. Kseniak also said the payment was disclosed to a person "in authority" at Vanity Fair's parent company, Conde Nast Publications.
Asked whether Vanity Fair's ethical guidelines permit the editor to accept payments from people or companies covered by the magazine, Conde Nast Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications Maurie Perl said:
"Graydon Carter is a great editor in chief. Chuck Townsend, president and CEO of Conde Nast Publications, and Graydon are completely on the same page regarding Graydon's editorship of Vanity Fair."
Others, however, say there should be a firewall between publications and the subjects they cover.
"When you're running an important magazine, there's an ethical line you just can't cross," said Ed Kosner, who has been the editor of Newsweek, New York magazine and Esquire, discussing the ethical responsibilities of magazine editors in general.
"You don't do any business on the side with people you're covering. You don't pitch projects to people your magazine is covering. You don't accept gifts," said Kosner. "This is not a personal decision one makes as an editor. It's a journalistic code, something that's very well known."
Carter also received money from another studio frequently covered in the pages of Vanity Fair. He and three former colleagues shared a $1-million advance from the book division of Miramax Films for the rights to publish an anthology of material from the now-defunct Spy magazine, of which Carter was a co-founder and editor. Miramax, run by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, is one of the industry's most successful movie companies.
The size of the advance for "Spy: The Funny Years," due out next year, surprised some in the publishing industry because books about magazines and anthologies seldom become bestsellers. What's more, Spy had not attracted a broad national audience.
Still, Jonathan Burnham, Miramax Books chief, predicted the book would do well "because there's a strong market for retrospectives. The 'Saturday Night Live' book was huge." Others agreed, noting that the $1-million price tag, though steep, was not flagrantly out of line.
"The amount of money paid for this book may be a lot, but it's not unusual for Miramax," said veteran New York literary agent Lisa Queen.
Kurt Andersen, a Spy co-founder who shared in the book deal, defended its value - and the notion that magazine editors should be permitted more latitude.
"Undoubtedly, there are deals that shouldn't be made by journalists," Andersen said. But, he added, "the obligations of a reporter for the Los Angeles Times or New York Times are different from an editor at a magazine or other media entity."
He did not elaborate.
Vanity Fair dealt closely with Miramax on at least two occasions within months of closing the Spy book deal.
Last fall, the magazine published an excerpt from a Miramax book by former Clinton administration Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and shared the tab for a party at New York's Four Seasons.
Later, in its February issue, the magazine ran an excerpt from "Down and Dirty Pictures," a new book by its own contributing writer Peter Biskind. The excerpt was a less-than-flattering portrait of Harvey Weinstein, but appeared under the relatively gentle headline: "The Weinstein Way."
On Thursday, Weinstein said Carter did him no favors by running the excerpt.
"I'm angry at him," Weinstein said. "I think he ran it to show there was no conflict."
Carter also was paid $12,000 for a small part in Paramount Pictures' upcoming remake of "Alfie" - an amount considerably above the Screen Actors Guild's minimum scale.
Although "Alfie" isn't set for release until fall, Vanity Fair ran a prominent photo of the film's star Jude Law and Michael Caine, who headlined the original "Alfie."
Vanity Fair spokeswoman Kseniak said Carter had "no idea" whether the film would again be publicized in the magazine.
William Morris Agency President Jim Wiatt, who helped broker the "Alfie" and "Spy" deals, strongly defended the integrity of one of his close friends.
"Graydon is as ethical a person as I know," Wiatt said. "There is no chance anything would influence his editorial judgment in his magazine. Graydon can't be bought."
Wiatt also helped set up at CBS the Emmy-nominated TV documentary "9/11," filmed by two French brothers and produced by Carter.
Vanity Fair, which was first launched as an ultra-chic fashion and arts magazine in 1913, began a rapid rise to prominence in its current form in 1984, when British journalist Tina Brown was named editor.
Under her media-savvy direction, the newly revived monthly made a huge splash on both coasts, becoming a must-read in Hollywood and New York. Blending timely and topical journalism with lavish photos, Vanity Fair gained special recognition for its provocative covers, such as the 1991 portrait of a naked and very pregnant Demi Moore.
Brown built up the magazine's circulation from a faltering 350,000 to 1.1 million within several years and garnered four National Magazine Awards along the way. Many predicted leaner years for Vanity Fair when Brown moved on to become editor of the New Yorker magazine in 1992.
When she was replaced by Carter, some wondered whether he would be able to preserve Vanity Fair's high-gloss celebrity cachet. In fact, cultivating a stable of high-profile writers, he has boosted the magazine's visibility and influence in California and Manhattan.
No Vanity Fair writer or editor contacted for this story agreed to speak for the record. Several, however, privately expressed concern over what they described as Carter's distraction by an increasing roster of side deals with Hollywood.
Perhaps the most visible of those projects was the Carter-produced "The Kid Stays in the Picture," a critically acclaimed 2002 documentary about legendary film mogul Robert Evans.
The autobiographical film was financed and released by Universal Studios-owned USA Films after Carter persuaded his longtime friend Barry Diller to bankroll it.
Carter, Evans, Universal and Diller's own media company were later sued by filmmaker David Weisman, who claimed, among other things, that the Vanity Fair editor had interfered with his existing agreement to make a similar Evans documentary. Attorneys for both sides confirm that the suit is scheduled for trial next year.
More recently, Carter and his screenwriter friend Mitch Glazer circulated a movie proposal through the powerful Creative Artists Agency. Their pitch was based on a Vanity Fair article published last December, titled "Somebody Hung My Baby," by contributing editor Nancy Jo Sales. The story focused on a racially charged lynching in Florida.
Carter and Glazer - who were listed in CAA's pitch letter as the producers - wound up with only a single meeting about the project. Glazer said Thursday that he had always dreamed of teaming up with Carter but that his friend did not seem as committed. In the pitch meeting, Glazer said, "[Carter] was completely useless. He dozed in the middle of the meeting."
The writer of the Vanity Fair article, Sales, didn't respond to a request for comment.