by George Wayne
GW:
Did you play with dolls as a child?
MJ:
No.
GW:
Has it been a lifelong desire to design clothes?
MJ:
Yeah . . . I would say since I was about thirteen or fourteen. I was always customizing clothes, and when I was thirteen or fourteen, I decided that I wanted to be involved in fashion.
GW:
What kind of student were you at Parsons? Did you coast, or were you always studying?
MJ:
No. I worked very hard and I was working at Charivari after school and on the weekends selling clothes. I really wanted to be around designer clothes and it also gave me a very interesting education in terms of, I suppose, the designer mentality of the customer in New York.
GW:
I understand that your startling photos in Vanity Fair provoked a violent reaction from America’s heartland. That the V.F. offices were flooded. How do you feel about that?
MJ:
Really? I had no idea! It really wasn’t thought out or calculated at all. There were a lot of ideas and a lot of things we talked about doing. And I have so much trust in Stephen Meisel that I didn’t feel I had to worry about it at all. Basically what that photo said to me was that I was like a free spirit and I was out there.
DAVID COPPERFIELD
FEBRUARY 1996 & NOVEMBER 2012
Las Vegas is the American frontier for the grand spectacle! And as such there is no other place on earth where the world’s grand master of illusion would find his oasis than in the desert of Nevada. Since the age of twelve as a boy growing up in Metuchen, New Jersey, and already a practiced magician, David Copperfield knew all along that his professional calling was destined to end up in this land of gilt and illusion. He remains to this day our version of Houdini and the ultimate definition of a “zillionaire”—as in rich, rich, rich! Have you ever been to his own private island in the Bahamas archipelago known as Musha Cay? Of course not! That right has to be by invitation only.
When I did this interview with the master magician, he was the envy of men half his age all over the globe because of his years-long engagement to the German supermodel Claudia Schiffer. Yet, GW was immediately won over by how humble and relatable he was despite acquiring all the assets and trappings that come with living the über-American dream. . . . He and Mark Wahlberg are the only two personalities that I have ever interviewed twice for my column in Vanity Fair.
GW:
A lot of people fail to understand what Claudia Schiffer saw in you. I guess you must be hung like Rasputin.
DC:
It’s true.
GW:
Your magic amazes the world—from the American to the Zulu.
DC:
It’s funny: when I go to third-world countries, people actually believe it’s not illusion. I spend a lot of time convincing people—for example, in Indonesia, Malaysia, even some parts of Europe—that what I do is illusion. I work as hard to make my art form respected as entertainment form—like music and dance and drama or cinema.
GW:
And how did you find this calling?
DC:
Like everybody, we all search to find what makes us acceptable with our peer group when we are kids. What was it for you?
GW:
Being on the quiz team.
DC:
Is that right? And you excelled at it and all the kids at school thought you were cool. For me, when I did magic, I got the same kind of feeling.
GW:
And when did David Kotkin from Metuchen, New Jersey, reinvent himself as David Copperfield?
DC:
I’m constantly reinventing myself. I’m constantly changing. I’ve been on TV for eighteen years now. I’m thirty-nine, and I keep changing the face of magic and myself all the time.
GW:
All right, now that we’ve done that BS, let’s get back to you and the Fräulein supermodel. . . .
DC:
And Rasputin . . .
GW:
You get to sleep with Claudia Schiffer on a regular basis, and that makes you one of the most envied men in the world. Expound on that first meeting for the umpteenth time.
DC:
Well, she came to see my show in Berlin, Germany, two years ago. So I brought her up onstage, and I read her mind, and she read mine. And then I took her in my arms, and I flew with her. And I think that’s a pretty darn good date. And then we sat and talked all night. And we haven’t stopped talking since.
GW:
On what date did you start having sex?
DC:
This is where you put “long pause.” When I was fourteen years old, I started having sex.
GW:
On what date did you start having sex with her?
DC:
I can’t tell that. I have to protect her dignity and her womanhood.
GW:
How often do you see each other?
DC:
We have a two-week rule. We’re never apart for more than two weeks.
GW:
By the way, where do you buy your bronzer? And what kind do you use?
DC:
I don’t. You can rub.
GW:
[GW pulls a finger across DC’s forehead] It’s natural pigment!
DC:
It’s the sun.
GW:
Tanning salons?
DC:
Absolutely not.
GW:
What is your next grand illusion?
DC:
An indoor tornado, which will be the most amazing thing you have ever seen.
GW:
I think the meanest thing I’ve ever read about you was from some hack in London, of course, who questioned your integrity by writing that you are “an egomaniac, a control freak, a closet homosexual with a fake relationship and an even faker tan.” How do you deal with stuff like that?
DC:
Except for the last two, it’s all true.
GW:
So you are a closet homosexual!
DC:
Be careful, young man—the last three. I think people are always going to have their own agenda. The more you are in the public eye, the more the people are going to try to pick you apart.
GW:
Hy and Rebecca, your parents, must be proud of you.
DC:
They’re great. They’re really, really great. I think I’m living my father’s dream. So it’s nice to watch it through his eyes.
2012
GW:
Talk to me about the eleven islands in the Bahamian archipelago that you own. Naomi Campbell has been there, Oprah has been there, and the Google guy Sergey Brin got married on one of your Bahama islands!
DC:
Yeah, and so did Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem.
GW:
Not to mention the incredible four-story bachelor pad on Fifty-seventh Street in Manhattan that you never use.
DC:
My fiancée, Chloe Gosselin, is there all the time with our two-year-old daughter, Sky.
GW:
Sky certainly has a palace in the sky. Thank you, David.
PHILIP JOHNSON
NOVEMBER 1998
Philip Cortelyou Johnson was ninety-two years old that day in September 1998 when he strode to greet me from his office in the iconic Seagram Building which he helped Ludwig Mies van der Rohe design. He shook my hand firmly and smiled broadly saying how excited he was to be part of the November issue of Vanity Fair. The iconic architect was still a quasi–press whore after all these years, and I found that highly amusing.
He was in a dark pink pinstripe suit, so elegant, so distinguished, and still a fit sprite, now well into his nineties, as he gave a guided tour of his offices and the beautiful view they offered off Park Avenue. Fifteen minutes later we sat to speak, and as I reminisce I realize I was probably a bit thrown by his assured air and his signature big, round, black glasses.
I mean this was a lion of Manhattan’s upper echelons of high society. A supposed “BFF” of Jackie O. [Onassis] and at his age still a valued curator, too, for the Museum of Modern Art.
GW:
GW regards this audience with the legend that is Philip Johnson as a historic moment. But please, sir, we need to know: Is Viagra really the miracle drug many claim it is?
PJ:
I don’t know. At ninety-two . . . you don’t ask questions like that.
GW:
Well, are you still popping Prozac?
PJ:
No. I gave up Prozac. I don’t take any pills.
GW:
Would you agree that Philip Johnson is the architect most responsible for defining twentieth-century American architecture?
PJ:
No. What I am responsible for is pointing to some kids that I liked very much. They’re almost reaching seventy now, but they are my kids. The best known are Peter Eisenman and Frank Gehry.
GW:
Well, you’ve never been shy about making proclamations.
PJ:
I speak in proclamations!
GW:
GW must be one of the few who hate Philip Johnson’s Sony Building. If that’s what postmodernism is about, you can keep it, honey! It’s like a dowdy dowager with botched plastic surgery.
PJ:
Good for you. I like the building, but it doesn’t come into my main oeuvre.
GW:
What is Philip Johnson working on now?
PJ:
The gay and lesbian cathedral in Dallas. We’re working on that very hard—the Cathedral of Hope.
GW:
It’s sort of amazing that at this point in your life you choose to do something so controversial.
PJ:
Well, they asked me. And they liked my cathedral in L.A. I said no. But then I said, Why not? I’d work for the devil himself if he were interested in architecture.
GW:
Was Jackie O. one of your best friends?
PJ:
No. I used to see her out at parties. I didn’t know her well. That was a media creation.
GW:
GW had the impression that you were on the telephone with Jackie O. every night.
PJ:
Oh, no—she and I made an appearance to save Grand Central Station, and were budsy-wudsy for ten minutes.
GW:
Tell GW about those vodka parties at your Glass House, with Andy Warhol passed out in the corner and Truman Capote reeking from vodka breath.
PJ:
Andy came out once. Truman never sloshed vodka in my house.
GW:
Okay, then we must discuss your Titanic.
PJ:
My what?
GW:
Your Titanic—1932, and your days of embracing Hitler.
PJ:
Oh, heavens. A minor period in my life.
GW:
Was it that minor?
PJ:
Yes, it was. I was taking a vacation.
GW:
You actually saw Adolf Hitler in the flesh?
PJ:
I went to a rally once. I hardly understood German at the time, but he was hypnotizing. But it was also very, very stupid. [It was] the greatest misjudgment of my life. I regretted it right away, and it’s haunted me ever since. I was old enough to know better. I have no excuses at all—just terrible regret.
GW:
I’ve read that you had a nervous breakdown at Harvard in the twenties.
PJ:
I was out three or four years.
GW:
And was that a result of your not being able to acknowledge that you were gay?
PJ:
That’s right. In the twenties it was terrible.
GW:
Are you still married?
PJ:
I’m not married.
GW:
But you have a significant other—your “husband,” David Whitney.
PJ:
We came together in 1960. Haven’t you got a significant other?
GW:
No.
PJ:
Playing the field, huh?
GW:
I should, but nobody seems to want me. Don’t you think I’m a great catch?
PJ:
It’s called luck. You have lots of time, so play the field.
BRIDGET HALL
DECEMBER 1995
Bridget Hall was very much part and parcel of the golden age of the supermodel as ingénue.
Before even the arrival of Kate Moss, this all-American girl from Texas defined the era and the aura of 1990s supermodel-dom. To this day, she remains one of the coolest, realest, most down-to-earth gals that I ever have met! We spent many a night bonding and becoming bosom buddies and drinking partners at the haute-boîte that defined New York City at the time—and that was impresario Roy Liebenthal’s legendary Café Tabac in Manhattan’s East Village.
“B,” as all who grew to adore her fondly called her, spent her days minting coins as the five-star supermodel and her nights knocking back Heineken beers and owning the poolroom of Café Tabac, which was then the hottest of hot spots in Gotham City. Every night was an incredible night at Café Tabac. What Café Tabac was in the nineties is what my favorite boîte, Omar’s La Ranita, is to the twenty-first-century Manhattan demimonde: that one restaurant, bar, and incredibly special salon. I will always remember that night B dropped a bombshell while we were shooting billiards in the cool poolroom of Café Tabac.
Christy Turlington was at the main bar throwing back shots with Bono Vox—yes, that Bono! And Bridget and GW were getting equally wasted and gossiping the night away. It was on that night when she revealed to me that she lost her virginity to a very, very famous A-list Hollywood box-office superstar—and still to this day a serial modelizer. You can well imagine that I gasped and spewed my “GW Mimsy” across the room. For those who don’t know the George Wayne cocktail of choice—the GW Mimsy is a concoction of the finest cuvée served over ice in a “piscine” (red wine goblet preferably) with a “spooge” of premium vodka and fresh, squeezed blood-orange juice. It is my drink of choice and of course, as always, on that particular night it put GW in the perfect mood to probe and parry.
“Lord have mercy, B!!” I remember squealing. “Are you telling me that HE was the one who popped your Texas cherry?” She admitted again that that was indeed the facts of life. And you wonder why to this day the notorious Lothario and legendary A-list actor remains hooked on supermodels.
Suffice it to say, that this is one of GW’s all-time memorable interviews—most so because it was with a near and dear friend and one of my all-time favorite girls in the world.
GW:
So give me the juicy on that story I heard about Jack Nicholson chasing you around the pool of the Chateau Marmont.
BH:
It’s true, but it wasn’t that bad.
GW:
So his tongue wasn’t hanging out of his mouth?
BH:
No. He said, “Hi, nice to see you again.” I said, “What do you mean to see me again? It’s my first time meeting you.” But he seems very nice.
GW:
So he wasn’t a dirty old man?
BH:
He probably was, but I left.
GW:
Your life is like a fairy tale. Here you are, a high-school dropout, poor white trash from Texas, now the emerging supermodel of the millennium. And all of seventeen years old!
BH:
It’s not really a fairy tale. It’s a lot harder than it seems. Sometimes I wish I didn’t drop out of school.
GW:
Tell me about your childhood.
BH:
My childhood was cool. It was all right. I was always the tallest, skinniest kid in school, tomboy.
GW:
Were you the ugly duckling?
BH:
In a way I was. I had friends who would always put me d
own. They would call me “Chicken Legs.” I would feel hurt.
GW:
Tell me about the worst day ever on the set of a fashion shoot?
BH:
The worst day is any day I have to get up really early, with a photographer who shoots really slow. And keeps me really late at night.
GW:
Do you realize that not since the trinity—Naomi, Linda, and Christy—has there been a super, super girl to emerge like you?
BH:
I guess that’s great. But I am trying to get into acting.
GW:
I know for a fact that you’ve had a few boy problems. Things didn’t work out with you and Leonardo DiCaprio. For a while you were chasing Stephen Dwarf—excuse me, Stephen Dorff. And he had the nerve to treat you like doo-doo.
BH:
I don’t know what I want right now. They were very nice guys, but prettier in pictures.
