By DAVID USBORNE
NEW YORK - The popping sound you hear from the executive suites of New York's never-humble magazine editors suggests Christmastide champagne corks. Or are we hearing something more ominous, like an exchange of fire?
Be fearful, because the war between guardians of the glossies is about to get nasty again.
This is not just about advertising and circulation. It is about personal stuff. And this being New York, that means it is about sex, mostly, and about marriages.
We shouldn't pay attention, of course. But they do set themselves up, these editors who behave like the celebrities they are meant to be covering. Their's is not a world of paper-clips and old coffee with skin on top. They compete not just in what they publish but in the parties they throw. And they try so hard. Parties at their homes, parties in London, parties in Hollywood - every guest list more boggling than the last.
The peacekeepers, if there were any, would be rushing first to establish a buffer zone between the two best-known New York editors, Tina Brown, who presides over the still-young Talk, and Anna Wintour, the long-reigning queen of Vogue.
They are best pals, of course. They are. A spokeswoman for Talk told us so only yesterday. "Tina and Anna are friends," she insisted.
Why the need to say anything? Anna, aged 51, she of the dark-glasses and skeletal frame, has much in common with Tina. (Which may be the problem.)
They are both Britons who, with their journalistic skills, have made fabulous in Gotham. Vogue is part of the Conde Nast magazine empire, owned by Si Newhouse. Tina, 47, worked for Si for years, editing Vanity Fair for him and then the New Yorker.
The problem is simple. Talk is preparing an article about a certain Texas billionaire named Shelby Bryan and his recent fall from grace in the business world.
In short, Bryan shot to stardom by cofounding a voice and data network communications giant called IGC. In the spring it was riding high, adding about $US88 million ($197 million) to Bryan's personal wealth.
By summer, it had mysteriously fizzled. Bryan's stake was worth barely $US1 million and in late August he was ousted by the board.
But there is more to know: Wintour has suffered much humiliation at the hands of New York's tabloid press over recent weeks following the collapse of her marriage of many years to David Shaffer, a child psychologist with whom she has two children. The story was irresistible, because Wintour, sometimes called "Nuclear Wintour" because of her cold demeanour, had run off with, of course, Bryan.
Wintour is still with Bryan, best we know. And she is said to be less than happy with Tina for commissioning the piece about him, now being written by a former New York Times business reporter, Timothy O'Brian. Reportedly, she begged Brown to shelve the project, but to no avail.
The spokeswoman for Talk could say nothing about such a conversation. But she would like us to know that O'Brian is not writing a steamy tell-all about Wintour trysts in Texas. "The piece will be about Shelby Bryan and his company," Lisa Dallos was at pains to explain. "It is not about Wintour."
That may be. The piece may duly appear, soon after the New Year, and Wintour may find herself little offended. But that she is alarmed right now is not surprising. Because behind this spat there is a much deeper tension between Brown and her husband, former Sunday Times editor, Harry Evans, on one side of the battlefield, and the man Wintour works for, Newhouse, on the other.
Evans has told friends that he believes Newhouse harbours resentment towards him and his wife. That may or may not be true. (Evans, we are told, had an amicable night out with Newhouse a few days ago.) But there might be cause. Both Brown and Evans used to work for Newhouse - Harry was president of Random House, then a Newhouse property, until 1997. No sooner had Harry left Random House, than Tina bailed out of the New Yorker to start Talk with money from Hearst and Disney.
The Brown-Evans household - a fine home on the Upper East Side that is often venue to glamorous parties, including one recently in honour of actor Ralph Fiennes - has another reason to fear the people of Newhouse's Conde Nast. The Conde Nasties, as they are sometimes called.
A book is in the works about them, their careers, and, by all accounts their marriage, by a longtime Conde Nast writer, Judy Bachrach. Harry's friends have heard about this too. Evans, who is nearly a quarter of a century older than his wife, is reportedly scared to death about what this book might contain.
Bachrach is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. She has been toiling over her Evans-Brown tome for almost two years and expects to see it, under a Simon & Schuster imprint, by next July. "This is my big one," she confided. It is not a biography with which either of the protagonists are cooperating.
Bachrach understands the anxiety the imminent delivery of her book is creating. But she insists that there is no need for anyone to flee town. "It's not an attack on Tina," she explained. "It is an analysis of what she and Harry have accomplished." Doesn't seem to be much to worry about there.
Tina and Harry will doubtless remain suspicious until they see the pages for themselves.
They know that when Bachrach's book finally comes out, le tout New York media world will be upon it like a cat on a mouse, picking for anything that will get the saliva glands pumping. They know what everyone has been asking for years: how do they keep the marriage working? Him being so much older and all.
With all this going on, it is a wonder any one has time to publish their magazines.
US: Editors’ discreet war is the talk of the town
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