When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter

Growing up, Graydon Carter was worried “that I was destined to become little more than one of those faceless, nameless men in the scenery of someone else’s life.”

The creator of SPY (magazine) and twenty-five year editor of Vanity Fair– during which he originated its famous Oscar Party; the man who would travel by chauffeured car and Concord to multiple homes, vacations, and events; who would buy a local restaurant just to have a homey place to entertain; the man who knew (knows) everyone worth writing about (and those who are worth reading), never had a vision of his future.

Carter was a poor student; always drew, sometimes wrote. He drifted until  joining his college’s Canadian Review…as art director. The publication rose to 50,000 circulation over four years. Next, at Sarah Lawrence, connections were made facilitating a job at Time. The office’s soft paneled ceiling held dozens and dozens of yellow pencils aimed skyward “in acts of furor or sheer boredom.” He was hired as a floater, filling in at every department.

There were pneumatic tubes and fact checkers. Staff snuck out to the movies. Friday night’s dinner with wine was catered in, after which cars took personnel home. “Expense accounts were looked at with something of the same reverence as writing a particularly fine story”, but the young man was “neither Ivy League nor buttoned down,” so didn’t fit.

Late 1986, Carter created SPY Magazine, a satirical monthly named after the tabloid for which Jimmy Stewart wrote in The Philadelphia Story. “Sheer ignorance of the trials ahead is often a blessing.” New York was awash in money, the downtown scene was booming. Mad Magazine was a huge influence.

“We wanted to champion the underdog and bite the ankle of the overdog… Editing SPY was like carpet bombing at 25,000 feet as opposed to hand to hand combat…The outside world thought of us as misfits. In fact we were incredibly social, well dressed and balanced,” he says. They bartered for services including dental care. Carter was on his second marriage and had three sons. Four years in, financial reality hit and the publication was sold. An interlude at The Observer and freelance work kept the family fed. A reputation had evolved.

Si Newhouse came calling with the offer to edit either The New Yorker or Vanity Fair. Carter chose the former, but Tina Brown interceded and he landed at Vanity Fair. “It was like going from managing a boy band to The Metropolitan Opera,” he says. The magazine was all first class. Its new editor was given a car and driver. Perks included interest free loans and moving costs. Carter bought an apartment at The Dakota.

He changed “florid” language, made the culture “less poisonous,” and fired three people. Staff seemed happier. “My writers wrote mini novels,” he writes. “The masthead grew. Once in an annual contract negotiation with photographer Annie Leibovitz, it came down to a $250,000 difference. ‘Oh, give it to her,’ Si told me finally. ‘We don’t want to nickel and dime them.’” A nifty, appreciative portrait of Newhouse is offered.

Editor in Chief of Vanity Fair Graydon Carter attends Vanity Fair Party during the 8th Annual Tribeca Film Festival April 21, 2009 in New York. (Shutterstock)

It takes a month or two to put out a monthly so fingers were always on the pulse. Covers sold magazines. Fraught celebrity shoots necessitated wrangling. Carter hated those. His biggest “get,” the editor notes, was Caitlyn Jenner. He admired talent, however, pursued, negotiated, and added a remarkable roster. Writers and editors are sketched. You might want to breeze through unfamiliar lists.

The Oscars parties (assumed upon the death of Swifty Lazar) are a saga in themselves: whom to invite or not to invite, seating, party-crashers, thievery, commotion. Courtney Love had a meltdown. “In the end success hinged on having more stars per square inch than any party in the world,” he says. Cannes (The Film Festival) also had festivities with which to deal. (VF and Carter have produced multiple impressive documentaries.) Jean Claude Van Dam kicked in a bathroom door.

There were developments of the annual New Establishment Issue and the Hollywood Issue. Vanity Fair took over The White House Correspondents Dinner. Carter “suffered through” Met Galas. Agent Sue Mengers (who called Vanity Fair Proust) took him under her wing. His first dinner invitation, tablemates were Barbra Streisand and Jack Nicholson. Author Dominic Dunne, “contrarian commentator” Christopher Hitchens, gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson, Michael Lewis, and reporters Marie Brenner and Amy Fine Collins are given space.

Some of the people he took down in SPY circled ‘round again. “Donald Trump is not a man who’s easy to ignore, but I assure you, it’s well worth the effort,” he says. There are references to libel. Mohamed al Fayed sued about Maureen Orth’s “Holy Wars at Harrods.” Celebrities vociferously objected to adjectives – calling Sue Mengers house “modest” and Tom Wolfe “spry” both resulted in viperous phone calls.

Carter denies being the gadabout people think he is. It was always preferable, he writes, to leave the office at five or five thirty and go home to the wife and kids. New wife, additional kid. Best laid plans. A country house was acquired as was The Waverly Restaurant.

Anna Wintour who oversees Conde Nast publications worldwide made radical changes. At Vanity Fair, art, photography, and copy research would move into her domain, “An unnecessary and catastrophic move…” Graydon Carter left the magazine. “You only realize it’s a golden age when it’s gone,” he says.

After a month or so of retirement in the South of France, he was itchy to get back in the mix and created the biting digital magazine Airmail. Offices are walking distance from his most recent home as is The Waverly Restaurant.

At the very back of the book is “A Bonus Round” called Some Rules for Living which should be circulated on its own account.

When the Going Was Good offers insight and wit, a glimpse into the party (and its denizens) that used to be high end magazine publishing and a man clearly not scenery in anyone else’s life. One longs for photos, however. (There are none.)

When the Going Was Good
Graydon Carter

Top Bigstock Photo: Graydon Carter with his wife Anna Scott at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Sunset Tower on February 24, 2013 in West Hollywood, California

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