Truman Capote’s Swan Dive; Deadly Peril on the ‘Costa Concordia’; Prince Charles’s Court

A special delivery from the Vanity Fair Archive. View in your browser | Update your preferences     A daily digest of things to discuss over drinks December 04, 2021 Dive into these long reads this weekend, handpicked from the Vanity Fair Archive.   Virgil in the House In 2018, the prince of pop design ascended to the throne of a major French fashion label. Sitting down with the Louis Vuitton menswear artistic director, K. Austin Collins wondered if Virgil Abloh would keep his cool. R E A D  M O R E »     Capote's Swan Dive "La Côte Basque 1965," the first installment of Truman Capote's planned roman à clef, Answered Prayers, dropped like a bomb on New York society when it appeared in Esquire's November 1975 issue. Iced out by the friends he'd skewered—such of his "swans" as Slim Keith, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Babe Paley—Capote began his slide into an early grave. Sam Kashner pursues the scandal's mysteries, including the fate of the unfinished manuscript. R E A D  M O R E »     Another Night to Remember When the Costa Concordia, a floating pleasure palace carrying 4,200 people, hit a rock off the Italian coast on January 13, 2012, it became the largest passenger ship ever wrecked, supplanting the Titanic in maritime history. From the moments when the captain made the first in a series of incredible blunders, through a harrowing night of mindless panic and deadly peril, in which rescuers and passengers improvised a massive evacuation and ordinary men emerged as heroes, Bryan Burrough reconstructs an epic fight for survival—in which all too many would perish. R E A D  M O R E »     A Court of His Own Four years after his ex-wife's death, Prince Charles was looking less like a coldhearted anachronism and more like a future king, thanks in large part to the charitable work of his Prince of Wales Foundation. During 2001's Royal Ascot week, with Camilla Parker Bowles at his side, he treated the foundation's patrons, a group including Trumps, Forbeses, Basses, Rockefellers, Queen Noor, Lily Safra, and Elton John, to a four-day whirl. The dresses, the menus, the decor, the gossip—Bob Colacello caught it all, while Jonathan Becker turned his camera on the A-crowd. R E A D  M O R E »     Producing The Producers Starting with just a title, Springtime for Hitler, TV comedy genius Mel Brooks wrote and directed The Producers as his shot at Hollywood. But the film got buried at the box office, only to become a cult classic, resurfacing 33 years later as a Broadway smash. Sam Kashner captures the insanity faced by two colorful real-life producers, Sidney Glazier and Joseph E. Levine, Brooks's clash with star Zero Mostel, and dozens of Führers causing a furor at Rockefeller Center. R E A D  M O R E » Get on the list Subscribe to our Hollywood newsletter for your essential industry and awards-season news, every day. Sign Up Now     This e-mail was sent to you by VANITY FAIR. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, vanityfair@newsletter.vf.com, to your address book. View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.