Vanity Fair

The toughest Republican gutter fighters are ready for anything except two rounds in the ring with Dr. Henry Foster.If you call your secret armed gang a militia, that doesn't make it a militia.Dee Dee Myers as political editor of Vanity Fair? Don't they know fashion? They'll miss the GOP Chic story.The mayoral campaign is so low and vicious on both sides that some people will turn to any feasible alternative. Are you listening, Don? American Joe? Kweisi?

In a sign that the recession may be lifting on Seventh Avenue, Calvin Klein has taken 116 pages of advertising space in a single issue of Vanity Fair magazine.The whopping advertising package, to appear in a separately bound supplement in October, is the largest industry executives could remember. In the 1970s Revlon bought 100 pages of advertising in Harper's Bazaar, to celebrate that magazine's 100th anniversary."It's certainly a record for me," said Klein, who was one of the first fashion designers to place multiple-page ads in magazines.

Dorothy Parker1893-1967Poet, playwright and writer of short fiction, Dorothy Parker is perhaps best known for her sharp, bitingly funny witticisms.At a Halloween party she asked what game guests were playing; on being told "Ducking for apples," Parker replied: "There but for a typographical error, is the story of my life."Parker began her career as a writer in 1916 writing captions for fashion photographs for Vogue. She went on to write drama criticism for Vanity Fair and became part of the famous Algonquin Roundtable.

I use a computer mostly, some long-hand, but then I transfer it immediately and I carry a notebook with me at all times, even when shaving. I find that if I have a thought it won't be the same if I don't get it down right away.I have four computers. Two desktops, one in New York, one in my Connecticut house and 2 laps in California. Word Perfect version 5 is on all of them, then I just have to choose between a stiff and a floppy.And the modem ... I don't even know. I can't figure out how to use it. Vanity Fair, they know how dumb I am, they send someone over to do that stuff.

Back in 1998, Gretchen Mol appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair's September issue, wearing a nearly transparent white gown and looking about as alluring as humanly possible. The accompanying article (and one got the feeling it was the cover photo that prompted the article, not the other way around) proclaimed her the next big thing. In fact, it treated the 25-year-old actress as though she already were a major star. Eight years later, thanks to her winsome, absolutely unselfconscious performance as a 1950s pin-up queen in The Notorious Bettie Page, she may finally be living up to the magazine's hype.

The Oscar season is in full swing -- the awards will be presented March 5 -- and that means Prestigious Magazines have hired Important Photographers to put together photo spreads of the stars. Already, The New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair have come out with their Oscar portfolios. Nowadays it doesn't suffice to simply present interesting photos of actors. That will not do. You've got to have props in today's photo shoots. Or nudity. Or both. And so the photographers employed ropes, face paint, pacifiers, breasts, baby dolls, bling and more.

DOMINICK DUNNE, 83 Crime writer Author Dominick Dunne, who told stories of shocking crimes among the rich and famous through his magazine articles and best-selling novels such as "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," died Wednesday in his Manhattan home. Mr. Dunne's son, actor-director Griffin Dunne, said in a statement released by Vanity Fair magazine that his father had been battling bladder cancer. In September 2008, against the orders of his doctor and the wishes of his family, Mr. Dunne flew to Las Vegas to attend the kidnap-robbery trial of O.J. Simpson, a postscript to his coverage of Simpson's 1995 murder trial, which spiked Mr. Dunne's considerable fame.

I have been reading the February issue of Vanity Fair wherein Christopher Hitchens, a British subject, describes Mother Teresa ''the ghoul of Calcutta.'' Mr. Hitchens' essay -- ''Mother Teresa and Me'' -- is a justification of a television expose that he wrote and presented last year on Britain's Channel Four.Mr. Hitchens belongs among that generation of British journalists and editors -- amoral aliens -- who have invaded New York and Washington. These expats are like characters from a minor Evelyn Waugh novel; they are craven and coarse and contemptuous of the colonials.

In the News Polanski wins his libel suit against Vanity Fair The model at the center of Roman Polanski's successful libel suit against Vanity Fair says the filmmaker never tried to seduce her. Polanski on Friday won his suit over an article that accused him of propositioning the model in a New York restaurant on the way to the funeral of his wife, Sharon Tate, who was killed by followers of Charles Manson in 1969. The 2002 Vanity Fair article alleged that Polanski put his hand on the thigh of Norwegian model Beatte Telle and promised her: "I will make another Sharon Tate out of you."

Michael Jackson gave wine to the 13-year-old cancer patient at the center of the molestation charges he's battling but concealed it inside a Coke can, according to an article in the March issue of Vanity Fair. The incident reportedly occurred during a February flight from Florida and partially explains the charges of "administering an intoxicating agent with intent to commit a felony" that the beleaguered pop star is also fighting in court in Santa Barbara County, Calif., according to writer Maureen Orth.