Graydon Goes on the Model DietAlso, Julia Roberts makes out at the Waverly Inn, Chuck from the Greatest Show of Our Time gets crunk, and Katie Couric is a plagiarist — all in today’s roundup of the dish from the city’s gossip columns.
gossipmonger
Graydon Is Going to Have Another Grayby! Graydon Carter and wife Anna are expecting their first child together (Carter has four kids from his first marriage). Kim Cattrall has been bragging that her SATC: TM castmates got paid higher salaries because she held out for more money. Bono, his wife, and Helena Christensen were harassed by paparazzi while eating at Serafina in the Dream Hotel. New Yorkers Julian Schnabel and PR guru Dan Klores both took home Independent Spirit Awards. Abby Diaz, the former maître d’ of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s who wrote the restaurant tell-all PX This! was asked to leave Jean Georges while having a glass of wine. “Page Six” mourns that dive bar Siberia has been converted into a Dunkin’ Donuts.
gossipmonger
Jay-Z ‘Took Rihanna Aside’ to Talk About Rumors of Their AffairRihanna said she used to feel self-conscious about the rumors that she hooked up with Jay-Z, but now just ignores them. Observer prepmaster general David Foxley will now be the person to call to get reservations at the Waverly Inn. Billion-heiress Anna Anisimova slept at her mother’s place on Tuesday, which is a good thing because a 400-pound Venetian chandelier collapsed and fell fifteen feet onto the bed at her own place. Rapper 50 Cent has to pay an undisclosed sum to a Post photographer for knocking him down after he tried to take a photo of him. MSNBC accidentally flashed a graphic of Osama bin Laden as host Chris Matthews was discussing Barack Obama. Robert John Burck, a.k.a. the Naked Cowboy, says he has high-profile investments. DJ AM has invited ex-girlfriend Mandy Moore to hear him spin at Room Service on Friday.
gossipmonger
Maureen Dowd Knows What Michelle Obama Looks Like, Okay?Maureen Dowd says she did not mistake a Times of London columnist for Michelle Obama. Ted Kennedy may or may not have had Graydon Carter spike a story about an illegitimate child of JFK. Tommy Hilfiger is getting married to former model Dee Ocleppo. Rosie O’Donnell stopped drinking because she was getting too fat. Jerry Seinfeld said he’s not going to return to TV because he’s “old, rich, and tired.”
in other news
‘Vanity Fair’ to Cancel Its Legendary Oscar PartyAccording to Radar, the latest victim of the writers’ strike is the Vanity Fair Oscar party. Usually held at Morton’s, it was scheduled to be at Craft this time around. Bummer, man! How is Graydon going to peddle reservations to the Waverly Inn for the rest of the spring?
Vanity Fair to Cancel Oscar Party [Radar]
Press Announcement: Vanity Fair Cancels Oscar Party [Vanity Fair]
ink-stained wretches
Graydon Carter to Eat Less in 2008Today, crack WWD reporter Irin Carmon called around to various New York magazine editors to find out their New Year’s resolutions. As you can see, magazine editors have the same hopes and dreams as the rest of us. You know, ones that mostly involve being less fat and shallow:
• Departures editor Richard Story: To have “an ark full of ASMEs.”
• Teen Vogue editor Amy Astley: To “skip Us Weekly and The New York Post and read more books.”
• Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter: “Less food, more exercise.”
• Food & Wine editor Dana Cowin: “To kick my pork butt addiction and move on to healthier foods like eco-friendly farmed striped bass.”
• CosmoGIRL! editor Susan Schulz: To take up Pilates and cook dinner for her husband twice a month (“Hey, gotta start somewhere!”).
• Men’s Journal editor Brad Wieners: “To do the workout we just published (’40 is the new 30!’).”
• Bon Appétit editor Barbara Fairchild: “With my job, that same 15 pounds I always resolve to lose is with me for life.”
Meanwhile, we notice Graydon ignored our advice on what to resolve this year. But then again, he only has twelve more chances to write a boringly hysterical editor’s letter about President Bush, so we guess that’s understandable.
That Time of the Year [WWD]
Earlier: New Year’s Resolutions for the Best New Yorkers
intel
New Year’s Resolutions for the Best New YorkersRecently, we were watching John Waters’s 1998 movie Pecker, which starred all kinds of great people like Martha Plimpton and Lily Taylor and Edward Furlong, before he got weird and started getting arrested and dating his manager. Anyway, as in all John Waters movies, there were about five really brilliantly funny parts in it, one of which was a game the characters played called “Shopping for Others,” in which they’d go to the supermarket and sneak things into the shopping carts of fellow shoppers when they weren’t looking. (Like a long phallic gourd in the cart of a mousy single woman or a stack of Depends for a smarmy dude in tight jeans, etc.) Anyway, we got to thinking: How about if, this year, we make New Year’s resolutions for others? We’ve never made New Year’s resolutions ourselves — it’s weird, every year New Year’s Eve rolls around, and we realize we’re still kind of perfect! — but we’ve always felt we were missing out on that great American tradition. Not to mention, frankly, there are people that could use our assistance. So. To celebrate the great New Yorkers who make this blog possible and to help them continue their gloriousness into 2008, we’ve generously ginned up some resolutions for their benefit.
in other news
Georgina Chapman and Harvey Weinstein Take the Celebrity Wedding to Connecticut (Updated)Today People brings us all the details of the glamorous nuptials of Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman and producer Harvey Weinstein. They do a pretty decent job, as wedding announcements go. Guests at Harvey’s Westport estate included Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Cameron Diaz, Renée Zellweger, Naomi Watts, Anna Wintour, Rupert Murdoch, Ron Perelman, Quentin Tarantino, Graydon Carter, Karolina Kurkova, and Helena Christensen. Yeah, it was one of those. “The wedding was the most elegant, loving affair I’ve ever seen,” one guest (no doubt a socialite friend of contributing reporter Jeff Slonim) told People. “The room was full of incredible people who were there to toast the couple, who looked totally in love.” The party tents were decorated with fir trees, crystal chandeliers, mirrors, and pink flowers. A ten-minute fireworks show erupted after the couple exchanged their vows, lighting up Long Island Sound.
bons mots
Graydon Carter: Life Is All About Who You ShunThe Guardian did a funny except maybe unintentional thing this week wherein they profiled Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter — in the exact style of a Vanity Fair celebrity profile. “Even early on he was adept at crafting an image,” the writer explains, pausing to describe Carter’s “impeccably tasteful” office before going on to say that, despite his grand stature, dude is really, like, down-to-earth. “I don’t go to parties. I’m social but I’m not a socialite person,” says Carter. “I walk down the street and people don’t go, ‘my God, there he is.’ I lead as normal a life as you can lead in New York City.” Graydon! He’s just like us! Except when it comes to the Waverly seating chart, which Carter apparently does himself, every day, even if, we hear, it means infringing on a few minutes’ worth of editorial meetings. For this very important project, he uses skills honed through years of Oscar parties. “I’m a very shy person but I forced myself during the Oscar evenings to go out and be engaging to people and make them feel comfortable,” he tells the paper. “And then you learn how to seat people. Life is all about seating and lighting.” But of course it’s not just about seating and lighting! It’s about separating the wheat from the chaff, weeding out the undesirables, not letting any dorks on the volleyball team. In other words: Exclusion!
At Last, Christopher Hitchens Describes His Infamous WaxingToday’s “Rush & Molloy” reminds us, as if we could forget, that some poor lady had to wax Christopher Hitchens’s balls this year. This, we have noticed, is the most well-publicized hair removal since Britney took hold of a razor in a prison-grade beauty salon. Nay, since John Smith nearly got scalped by Powhatan in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1607. So needless to say, we wanted to get it over with already and read what Hitchens had to say about the experience, but Rushmo left us hanging. Vanity Fair posted a photo slideshow of the affair on their Website (don’t worry, it’s blessedly G-rated), and even they left out his description. But today we finally got our six-pound copy of Vanity Fair, and read it for ourselves. So here, for your enjoyment, horror, and titillation, is what Christopher Hitchens had to say about the dreaded “Crack, Back and Sack” Maneuver:
I had no idea it would be so excruciating. The combined effect was like being tortured for information that you do not possess, with intervals for a (incidentally very costly) sandpaper handjob. The thing is that, in order to rip, you have to grip. A point of leverage is required; a place that can be firmly gripped and pulled while the skin is tautened
gossipmonger
Graydon Carter Never Gets Any CreditDavid Boies, Al Gore’s lawyer in his recount battle against Bush in 2000, may have taken on Blackwater CEO Erik Prince as a client. The 2008 Zagat’s says that the Waverly Inn is owned by “Grayson Carter.” Deepak Chopra likes telling bad jokes about the president. A random crowd outside the French Institute was invited to watch a screening of Tina Fey’s Baby Mama and enjoyed it. Vince Vaughn hung out at the Rose Bar and the Box on Saturday. Mariah Carey promoted her new perfume at Macy’s Herald Square. Fox Business Network is throwing a launch party tonight at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
gossipmonger
It’s Not Easy Playing Graydon CarterJeff Bridges has to wear a coiffed wig to play Graydon Carter in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, but he didn’t wear a fat suit. Roger Federer told Anna Wintour that he will be wearing blue and white during the day and black at night for the U.S. Open, and Andy Roddick says that Elton John actually has a good backhand. Vivica Fox was allegedly drinking at their birthday party Tuesday night despite a court mandate forbidding her to on account of her March DUI. “Obama Girl” Amber Lee Ettinger is actually more enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton. Christiane Amanpour and other CNN staffers often saw Ted Turner in a bathrobe when he lived above CNN Center in Atlanta. Elizabeth Taylor will star in a play with James Earl Jones in December to raise $1 million to fight AIDS. Bill Clinton ate at Serendipity. Justin Timberlake’s manager got him a round of golf at Glen Oaks Country Club on Long Island.
gossipmonger
Enquiring Minds Want CashThe wife and son of deceased National Enquirer founder Generoso Pope Jr. are suing each other for the remainder of his $418 million fortune. Barbaro was the focus groups’ choice for August’s Vanity Fair cover, but Graydon Carter nixed him for Shia LaBeouf. CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo will soon have her own show titled Money Honey. The Giulianis like golf, bargains, The Tudors. Chris Noth tried to poach talent for his club from Hawaiian Tropic Zone but failed. Tinsley Mortimer and Lydia Hearst are attending a dinner thrown by Pete Wentz in the Hamptons. Jon Anderson of Yes canceled a benefit show for a bunch of kids because his spiritual adviser told him to.
intel
Beard Diners Get No Graydon But Several Waverly-Reservation TipsGraydon Carter skipped the dinner his Waverly Inn chef John DeLucie cooked at the James Beard House last night, but that doesn’t mean Beard members won’t get a chance to rub elbows with the Falstaffian editor. After attendees were served seven wines and a five-course dinner that included the restaurant’s luscious Dover sole, Chef DeLucie informed them that they’re all now worthy of a hard-to-come-by tables at Graydon’s clubby Bank Street spot, just a few blocks west of where they were eating; they should simply stop by a day or two in advance to reserve. “Just say ‘James Beard dinner,’” advised sommelier Sammy Kebob, whose name may or may not be spelled that way, as the restaurant answered neither its public nor private phones when we called to check. “Don’t use my name,” he warned the crowd. “It won’t work.” Neither, we suspect, will the “Beard dinner” trick for much longer. —Alexandra Peers
party lines
Everybody Goes to Graydon’sThe full extent of our conversation with Zhang Ziyi, the Chinese movie star and major international actress you most likely know only from Crouching Tiger, at a “Journey to Shangri-La” cocktail party — celebrating an Asian hotel chain that’s coming to the United States, maybe? — at Lever House last night:
New York: What do you like to do when you’re in New York?
Zhang: Waverly. [Laughs lightly.]
New York: What?
Zhang: The restaurant called Waverly.
New York: Waverly Inn?
Zhang: Yes. [Points at us: That’s it!] You know it?
Graydon Carter has won. —Bennett Marcus
gossipmonger
Chuck Schumer, Lady’s ManAfter college, Chuck Schumer picked a girl over a scholarship. 50 Cent is really rich. Gay activists don’t like John Travolta in the Hairspray movie because he’s a Scientologist, not because of his performance. Brian Grazer is getting divorced. Eliot Spitzer banged his head on the trunk of his car. Rufus Wainwright defends Anderson Cooper’s lifestyle and choice of gym. Maggie Gyllenhaal might come to Broadway as Nellie in South Pacific. Kevin Spacey partied at Lotus. Lily Allen put on a bad show at the Roseland Ballroom, then she hung out with Josh Hartnett. At Graydon Carter and Anna Wintour’s party for Nicholas Coleridge’s A Much Married Man, Ron Perelman thought the book was about him.
gossipmonger
Curb Your MarriageLarry David and his environmental-activist wife, Laurie, have separated. Today show staffers refer to Good Morning America as “Gay-MA”; GMA staffers refer to Today as “Yesterday.” Marc Jacobs is back on with boyfriend Jason Preston and even got Preston’s initials tattooed on his stomach. Graydon Carter thinks of Vanity Fair’s publisher as a dancing monkey. Eric Alterman claims his arrest was a “misunderstanding”; police claim they asked him to leave a private reception area seven times and that Alterman was “belligerent.” Vanessa Minnillo is gaining a rep with TV insiders as being difficult to work with, and photos of her posing with Lindsay Lohan and a knife aren’t helping.
company town
Will Imus Return?MEDIA
• Is Imus’s planned $200 million lawsuit a ploy to get back on the air? [NYP]
• The final bids for Dennis Publishing are due next week, and it’s shaping up as a showdown between Kent Brownridge and Ron Burkle. [AdAge]
• Jeff Bridges will play Graydon Carter in the film version of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. [WWD]
gossipmonger
Vanity CareLimos parked outside Graydon Carter’s Waverly Inn delayed an ambulance en route to nearby St. Vincent’s Hospital. Former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill cut down his use of the company’s corporate jets right before 17,000 people were laid off. Michael Chabon is proud to have been branded an anti-Semite by the Post. Ellen Barkin is writing a novel based on her marriage to Ron Perelman. Bonnie Fuller is branching into TV. Barbara and Lauren Bush sang karaoke. The famous hawks living at 927 Fifth Avenue will soon be in a kids’ book. Jay Leno confused two Mexican comedians. Joe Francis says his Girls Gone Wild videos don’t feature black girls because they ask for money, not because he’s racist.
gossipmonger
Big HouseV.C. Fred Wilson sold a townhouse on West 10th Street for $33.14 million — a record for private property below 14th Street. Beyoncé and her mother won the $1.5 million lawsuit filed against them regarding their House of Dereon fashion line, but the plaintiff plans to appeal. Robert Rodriguez left his wife of sixteen years for Rose McGowan during the filming of Grindhouse, but the split was amicable. The split between golfing great Greg Norman and his wife, Laura, however, is less so. Millionaire Miami developer Thomas Kramer was arrested during the birthday party of Fairchild Corp. CEO Jeffrey Steiner for allegedly sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy in the bathroom. Lindsay Lohan and Steve Aoki are hanging out a lot. This here New York Magazine is moving downtown, but no one knows what to do with the signs on top of the current building.
gossipmonger
Graydon Carter Is Everywhere, All the TimeAnderson Cooper, Bono, and Tom Hanks, among others, roasted Graydon Carter at a National Resources Defense Council gala (we had quotes yesterday). Harvey Weinstein introduced Graydon Carter to Jared Kushner at the Waverly Inn. Rosie O’Donnell has made The View co-host Elisabeth Hasselback cry multiple times during the show’s run. Gisele may be pregnant with quarterback Tom Brady’s baby. Linda Evangelista may be pregnant with billionaire Peter Morton’s baby. Maggie Gyllenhaal got husband Peter Sarsgaard a diaper bag for his birthday. Scarlett Johansson wants to go on a date with Patrick Swayze. Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds went on a dinner date. Rosario Dawson is dating a photographer.
gossipmonger
Boobs at ‘Jane’Jane magazine asked girls to bare their breasts for a picture spread but canceled after a staffer mistakenly unveiled the identities of the participants. Jake Gyllenhaal and David Fincher had some “artistic differences” on the set of Zodiac. Phillip Bloch was not impressed by how Vogue’s André Leon Talley styled Jennifer Hudson’s thighs at the Oscars. Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselback got into (another) fight at The View, which ended with Hasselback (again) in tears. Graydon Carter and Jim Kelly hosted a book party for Kurt Andersen at the Waverly Inn, and a lot of media bigwigs showed. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are not looking to buy an apartment in the Dakota, according to a rep. Spike Lee hung out with Mayor Bloomberg at City Hall.
company town
Speak, Models!FASHION
• Turns out models can speak — at least in Ridley Scott’s new Prada movie. [Fashionista]
• Bottega Veneta has designed the interior of a penthouse suite at the St. Regis. [British Vogue]
• Model Paulina Porizkova has joined the cast of Dancing With the Stars. [Flypaper]
• Naomi Campbell left Premier Models, where she’s spent most of her career, for IMG. [All Company News]
photo op
Not Everybody Loves GraydonThe most amusing review of Graydon Carter’s Waverly Inn we’ve yet read (and perhaps the most honest one), photographed in the window of the Old Town Bar on East 18th Street and offered today by our old friends at Gawker:
Old Town Bar at War With Waverly Inn [Gawker]
in other news
Killers Kill, But ‘VF’ Just HurtsAs if Graydon Carter’s inability to sell his latest documentary, Chicago 10 , at Sundance wasn’t proof enough that the fabulously coiffed magazine editor should perhaps get out of the movie-production business, we point you to Killers Kill, Dead Men Die, a faux-noir video montage now available on VanityFair.com to promote the magazine’s new Hollywood Issue. We have no idea who wrote that drivel, how much they had to pay Ben Shenkman to get him to narrate it, or whether it’s intentional or accidental that it seems like Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid–style noir spoof, but, regardless of the answers, this much is clear: It’s time you put down the camera, Graydon, and got back to filling people’s dinner reservations.
Killers Kill, Dead Men Die [VF.com]
company town
Paper Trail Disturbed at Sullivan & CromwellLAW
• Did Aaron Charney “misplace” documents belonging to a partner’s file at Sullivan & Cromwell? The firm’s countersuit suggests so. [Above the Law]
• Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft is rising up the ranks of most profitable firms, thanks to some cut-throat tactics and, apparently, a wicked bowling night. [New York Law Journal]
• Save a life, become a hero, and suffer the (tax) consequences. A law professor explains why the Subway Superman might get walloped by the IRS this tax season. [Mauled Again via Legal Blog Watch]
company town
Proenza Schouler Shoots Too Early at TargetFASHION
• Proenza Schouler’s Target line was available online for four hours yesterday (three days before its official debut), causing mass Internet shopper hysteria. [Fashionista]
• Snejana Onopka, one of the poster girls for the current Save the Models movement, is rumored to be skipping New York Fashion Week. [FlyPaper]
• Jordan Scott, former designer at Betsey Johnson and child of the East Village, will launch his first collection during Fashion Week. [British Vogue]
gossipmonger
Factory Porn?In Factory Girl, Sienna Miller and Hayden Christensen might have engaged in not-so-simulated sex on camera. (Also, Diddy doesn’t want anyone taking pictures of him with Miller. Also, all Sienna’s partying is merely PR for Factory Girl.) The house that Graydon Carter threw scaffolding outside of yesterday? Harvey Weinstein’s. (Graydon’s also having a tough time selling his new documentary, Chicago 10.) Chuck Schumer has imaginary friends. Former Paramount exec Gail Berman and former ABC exec Lloyd Braun are starting their own production company. Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe is going to bare all onstage in a London play.
gossipmonger
Rudy No Longer Thanking God George Bush Is Our President?A high-level Republican official says that Rudy Giuliani, should he decide to run, won’t have the blessing of Bush or Rove. Recently fired Citigroup exec Todd Thomson, who got himself in trouble for flying Maria Bartiromo around, has flown his wife to Montana, on vacation. Diddy has been partying a lot with “friend” Sienna Miller while his wife Kim Porter stays home with the twins. Martha Stewart is a Hillary supporter, and the launch of high-profile Condé Nast business mag Portfolio may not be going as smoothly as planned.
gossipmonger
Tom and Katie, Together AgainTom, Katie, J-Lo, and Marc double-dated at Prince’s Golden Globes after-party. And Drew Barrymore and Bruce Willis hooked up at the same party. Diddy tried to pick up Sienna Miller at the CAA after-party, but he couldn’t get in. Cameron Diaz blew up at Jessica Biel for chatting up former boyfriend Justin Timberlake. (Although the Daily News claims their encounter was a bit more jovial.)
gossipmonger
Rodentia? We Hardly Even Know Ya!Sources claim Judith Regan often compared Jews to “rats” and “rodentia,” but Regan (and her lawyer) deny it. Anybody who is anybody (Harold Ford! Harvey Weinstein! Taki Theodoracopolous!) has been spotted eating at Graydon Carter’s friendly neighborhood joint, the Waverly Inn. Madonna is keen on adopting another child from Malawi, though her husband, Guy Ritchie, is not. Josh Hartnett is in an open relationship with Scarlett Johannson, which is why it’s okay he was making out with Gisele Saturday night. PayPal dumped Vincent Gallo after he tried to sell more than, uh, T-shirts on his Website. John Mara, son of late, great Giants owner Wellington, got fired from a broadcast-booth job in 1978 for slamming his fist and knocking over equipment. Adam Levine allegedly got drunk and brought three girls back to his room at the Mercer, though his rep denies it. Republican fund-raiser Georgette Mosbacher had both Dems and GOPers over for dinner at her swank Fifth Avenue digs Tuesday. Ludacris ate with Cosmo’s Kate White at Michael’s. Hugh Jackman once gave his sister a stick of deodorant for Christmas. Liz Smith claims she’s responsible for the new Rocky getting made.
gossipmonger
Donald and Graydon: Hair Fight!“Without Si Newhouse,” Spy punching bag Donald Trump says, “Graydon Carter would be just another overweight editor with bad hair.” Eliot Spitzer will likely choose one of four people to replace embattled State Comptroller Alan Hevesi: a Latino, a woman, a banker, or a guy who donated a kidney to his daughter. Both Britney Spears’s family and the L.A. Department of Children and Family Services are disturbed by her recent pantyless partying. Did Augusten Burroughs pull a James Frey? The crazy family depicted in Running With Scissors says so. John Mayer made a script suggestion to Kiefer Sutherland regarding 24. Sex blogger Jessica Cutler pulls out of a panel on blogger book deals because she is currently being sued. Pam Anderson and Kid Rock are hosting rival New Year’s Eve parties in Las Vegas. NBC honcho Jeff Zucker and the L.A. Times disagree on whether he’s about to promote someone. A model confused Charles Barkley with Gnarls Barkley. Wyclef Jean visited Haiti again, wants to open a resort there. Terrence Howard is one of the few black guys who support Michael Richards. East Hampton hotspot Star Room is on sale for $4.25 million. “Page Six” was name-checked on Law & Order. Da-dum. Liza Minnelli recently attended a perverted rock musical. Liz Smith really likes Dreamgirls. Cindy Adams really likes Barack Obama.