49 pages • 1-hour read
When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines
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Chapters 13-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes references to graphic violence, death, and sexual harassment.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Our Part in Hollywood’s Big Night”
The Vanity Fair Oscars party continued to grow in cultural influence. Each year, Carter’s team would track down stars to invite. Four years in, they were the most esteemed Oscars after-party, and everyone wanted an invitation. As the party grew, they developed new approaches—including how to seat guests and what to offer as party favors. However, the most complicated part was still the guest list. Carter recounts a few instances where guests got into conflicts at the party or used the party to get publicity. He recalls the first parties that Courtney Love, Anna Nicole Smith, and Harvey Weinstein attended. He remembers getting into an argument with Weinstein about his lewd behavior; Harvey insisted they take the disagreement outside. On the street however, Weinstein didn’t pick a fight because of the paparazzi. No matter the conflicts, Carter holds that Vanity Fair was responsible for reminding Hollywood of its history.
Carter is also proud that he invited Monica Lewinsky to the Oscars party one year. He was upset when he noticed how poorly she was treated at the event. A few weeks later, she asked Carter if Vanity Fair would do a special on her so she could tell her story in her own words for the first time. He holds that this feature, published in the June 2014 issue of the magazine, helped Monica get “her life back” and become “an inspiration for others” (251).
The Oscars party soon led to the magazine’s annual South of France dinner. Beginning in the late 1990s, they hosted the dinner during the Cannes Film Festival. These were elaborate affairs and at times involved conflicts of their own. However, since the magazine began the event, the only people they have had to be banned from the dinner are Harvey Weinstein and Philip Green.
By way of contrast, Carter remarks that some elaborate events don’t always go as smoothly. He recalls a time he had to host Princess Margaret, daughter of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and King George VI, at his own home. They had expensive food and wine and a star-studded guest list. However, Princess Margaret wasn’t on the same schedule as the other attendees. She overstayed, frustrating Carter, his family, and their guests. At the end of the night, the group was thrilled when what they thought was her car arrived but then realized the car was for someone else.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Escape Velocity, at Last”
Carter continues to reflect on his Vanity Fair work in the early 1990s. By 1994, he was proud of what he’d done thus far but still knew there was room to grow. Finally, suggestions from his friend David Halberstam and from Si helped him push the magazine further. David’s thoughts on the new versus the old establishment got Carter to think about “the economic and cultural foundations” of publishing (263). To usher in a new era, he launched a “New Establishment” issue with photographer Annie Leibovitz. The issues offered photographic features on new figures, inventors, and entrepreneurs.
From Si, Carter got the idea to do an entire issue on Hollywood. This issue made celebrity life accessible and interesting to Vanity Fair readers.
Vanity Fair also got involved with the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Carter had Christopher Hitchens cover the events. Carter had several complicated relationships with politicians during the era, but most notably with Donald Trump. He recounts all of the insulting tweets Trump has written about him over the years. Another notable Vanity Fair evening was the River Café party that Princess Diana attended in her revenge dress.
Carter shifts his focus onto his family and marital life. Although he prioritized family dinners during the week, his devotion to the magazine took a toll on his relationship with Cynthia. The two broke up, devastating Carter. At the same time, he holds that he tried his best to be a good husband and father; he and Cynthia are still friendly.
Not long later, Carter began working with Anna Scott. They’d met seven years prior but became close when she joined the Vanity Fair team. Eventually they started dating, got engaged, and were married. He attributes much of his personal success to his relationship with Anna; she is patient and supportive. Carter also has strong relationships with his children and has often asked for their advice on stories.
Chapter 15 Summary: “The Writers Were the Franchise”
Carter details the magazine’s coverage of the O.J. Simpson trail. Nick was covering the story, and had a personal interest in it because of the murder of his own daughter, the actress Dominique Dunne. He took on stories like his daughter’s throughout his career because he disliked how the media represented victims. He never tried to hide his bias in his reportage, a controversial approach at the time. Nick was also a socialite and from a wealthy family, but most of all he was a talented journalist.
Christopher Hitchens was also a key Vanity Fair voice. Carter holds that although Christopher was “a polemical columnist,” he was “also a serious reporter” (286).
Other writers and journalists didn’t always have the same integrity. Carter shares examples, referencing his work to expose his friend and colleague John Scanlon’s deceptions surrounding the tobacco industry.
Carter again returns to the topic of his home and family life. He argues that although some might think he prioritized social outings, he always made time for his kids. He describes the games they’d play at dinner and his and Cynthia’s tradition of giving them a separate table at their favorite restaurant, Da Silvano. Everyone remarked on how well the kids got along. Carter holds that their relationships have lasted to this day because of the family dinners they shared growing up.
Carter also details more controversial stories he did with Vanity Fair. One notable piece was on the collapse of the London-based insurance company Lloyd’s.
Chapter 16 Summary: “The Smell of Grease Paint”
Carter reflects on his few roles in Hollywood films. His foray into acting came via a cameo on the short-lived 1990 TV series H.E.L.P. He also played side characters in films including The Paper (1994), Alfie (2004), Arbitrage (2012), and She’s Funny That Way (2014).
In the mid-1990s, Carter began making documentaries. He didn’t know anything about producing such films, but was inspired to make one on based on legendary film producer Robert Evans’s autobiography, The Kid Stays in the Picture. Some of his most significant projects have been his documentaries 9/11, on the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Everything Is Copy, on writer and director Nora Ephron, and His Way, on film and music legend Jerry Weintraub. Then in 2012 he got the chance to make a production on talent agent Sue Mengers, who’d recently died.
Another venture Carter is proud of is his decision to buy the Waverly Inn—a notable West Village restaurant. He doesn’t obsess over the restaurant’s operation but does at times have to get involved. One of the most notable instances was when Harvey Weinstein bought the apartment across the street and his renovation crew worked too late, causing a noise disturbance. Another conflict happened after New York banned smoking in restaurants. The manager was worried because novelist Toni Morrison and Fran Lebowitz wanted to smoke inside; despite the risk, Carter let them.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Meltdowns and Valedictions”
Carter traces major shifts in Vanity Fair coverage over the years. The original iteration of the magazine folded in 1936, an event that Carter blames in part on the magazine’s failure to fully acknowledge the danger of fascism in Europe prior to World War II. Under Carter, the magazine started taking on bigger global happenings, most notably the 9/11 attacks and the Great Recession. He includes excerpts from these articles. Their writer, Amy Fine Collins, also did a notable piece on Frida Kahlo’s death, which Carter excerpts.
Carter reflects on his work to put out covers that spoke to contemporary culture, too. He references the magazine’s cover of Caitlyn Jenner as an example.
Carter reflects on all of his talented Vanity Fair colleagues who passed away during his time as editor, including writers Marjorie Williams, Ingrid Sischy, Dominick (Nick) Dunne, and Christopher Hitchens. He also reflects on A. A. Gill’s death and his work with the magazine. Gill was a major first food critic, and his critiques set a new precedent in the industry. To this day, restaurants worry when they discover they’re hosting a Vanity Fair writer.
Chapters 13-17 Analysis
In Chapters 13-17, Carter’s reflections on the Oscars party, the Cannes dinner, the “New Establishment” and “Hollywood” issues, his documentary work, and his national and global political coverage capture The Media’s Impact on the Political and Cultural Narrative. Throughout these chapters, Carter holds that Vanity Fair was not only a contributing voice to the 1990s and early aughts zeitgeist, but in fact dictated the culture’s understanding of itself at the time. Carter is thus claiming his sway and influence as Vanity Fair’s editor-in-chief. He argues that his contributions to Vanity Fair’s growth weren’t limited to the pages of the magazine, but in fact catalyzed important cultural, political, and social shifts.
The attention that Carter gives the Oscars party on the page enacts his belief that the event created cultural change and that print journalism can in fact create history. Indeed, he remarks that the success and popularity of the party created “a whole social ecosystem […] around Oscar weekend” (246). At the same time, the Oscars party’s influence wasn’t limited to this one weekend a year. Carter provides examples of the party’s reach and influence to bolster this claim. One such example is Carter’s decision to invite Monica Lewinsky to the party despite how she’d been socially and culturally marginalized. While others didn’t receive her attendance well, inviting her granted Carter the opportunity to establish a relationship with Monica—a connection that led to a feature on her in Vanity Fair. The way that Carter describes this feature underscores the notion that Vanity Fair directly created social change:
We gave Monica a platform and support. She did a TED talk and a big Vanity Fair story, and both got a lot of attention. […] I decided to make her a contributing editor, not unaware of the timing—Hillary Clinton was going to run for president. I’ve never seen anybody change the narrative on themselves quite the way she did. I later introduced her to Jemima Khan, who in turn introduced her to Alex Gibney, the documentary director, and they did a big three-part series on the impeachment. Monica not only got her life back, she became an inspiration for others who have been caught in the maw of the ruthlessness of the internet (251).
In this passage, Carter is directly attributing Monica Lewinsky’s reclamation of her own public image to her work with Vanity Fair. The passage also marks a significant tonal shift in Carter’s memoir-writing style. In the early chapters of the text, Carter embraces a self-effacing, self-deprecating voice, which implies that he was a nobody just trying to make it in New York when he first left Canada. In this passage, however, Carter begins to take ownership of his successes. He is also identifying the more explicit intentions behind his work—a focus he didn’t always have at the start of his career. In this instance, he specifically hired Monica Lewinsky as an editor because of Hillary Clinton’s presidential race—an admission that captures Carter’s heightened awareness of his and his magazine’s sociopolitical power. This tonal shift conveys how Carter was changing as an individual and an editor, and it captures how he was adapting to the industry. At this point in his career, he had discovered how important media was to the political and cultural moment, and began to use this influence to give marginalized people a platform or to shed light on politically murky events. Examples of this latter dynamic include his attention to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2008 economic collapse. By reporting on these incidents, Carter was actively remaking the face of Vanity Fair and influencing his readership’s impressions of life in America and abroad.
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