Edward Graydon Carter, CM (born July 14, 1949) is a Canadian journalist who served as the editor of Vanity Fair from 1992 until 2017. He also co-founded, with Kurt Andersen and Tom Phillips, the satirical monthly magazine Spy in 1986. In 2019, he co-launched a weekly newsletter with Alessandra Stanley called Air Mail, which is for "worldly cosmopolitans".[1] His current net worth is 12 million dollars.
After high school in Trenton, Ontario, Carter attended the University of Ottawa followed by Carleton University, but never graduated from either school.[2] In 1973, Carter co-founded The Canadian Review, a monthly general interest magazine.[2] By 1977, The Canadian Review had become award-winning and the third-largest circulating magazine in Canada.[2] Despite its success, The Canadian Review was bankrupt by 1978.[2]
In 1978, Carter moved to the United States and began working for Time as a writer-trainee, where he met Kurt Andersen.[2] Carter spent five years writing for Time on the topics of business, law, and entertainment before moving to Life in 1983. In 1986, Carter and Andersen founded Spy,[2] which ran for 12 years before it ultimately ceased publication in 1998. Carter was then editor at The New York Observer before being invited by Vanity Fair to take over for Tina Brown, who left for The New Yorker. He was the editor from July 1992 until late in 2017. Accolades during his tenure include his having won 14 National Magazine Awards and being named to the Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame.[3]
Carter is the author of What We've Lost (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 2004), a comprehensive critical examination of the Bush administration.[4]
Carter was a producer of I'll Eat You Last, a one-woman play starring Bette Midler, about legendary Hollywood talent agent Sue Mengers. The show, directed by Tony Award-winner Joe Mantello, opened at the Booth Theatre in New York City in April 2013,[7] and at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles on December 3.[8]
In 2003, Carter assigned Vanity Fair journalist Vicky Ward to write a profile of financier Jeffrey Epstein.[15] During the course of her reporting, Ward became aware of sex abuse and trafficking allegations against Epstein, later stating that almost all of her sources mentioned "the girls, as an aside".[16] In her 2015 article for The Daily Beast, "I Tried to Warn You About Sleazy Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2003", written following Epstein's conviction in Florida, Ward revealed that she had interviewed the family of two young sisters (later identified as Annie and Maria Farmer) and discovered credible reports of molestation against Epstein, but according to Ward, the allegations were removed from the piece by then-editor Carter:
"It came down to my sources' word against Epstein's... and at the time Graydon believed Epstein. In my notebook I have him saying, 'I believe him... I'm Canadian.'"[17]
Personal life
Carter and his wife Anna Scott in New York City in 2010
Carter was born in Toronto. He has been married three times. His first wife was a Canadian; the marriage was dissolved before Carter moved to the United States at the age of 28. His second marriage to Cynthia Williamson lasted 18 years and they had four children. The couple divorced in 2000.[18][19] Carter married Anna Scott in 2005. They have a daughter.[18]
Former President of the United States Donald Trump has criticized him on Twitter, attacking his restaurant and tenure at Vanity Fair.[20]
Carter splits his time between Greenwich Village and Roxbury, Connecticut, where he works "from a sun-drenched studio that occupies the top floor of the detached barn and looks onto a garden and the serene hills beyond."[21][22] He is a co-owner of The Waverly Inn at 16 Bank Street in the West Village.[23]
In 2009 Carter and Jeff Klein became partners in the Monkey Bar, a New York City bar and restaurant eatery with a history dating to 1936. Both men sold their interest in the property in 2020.[24]
In 2003 Carter has described himself as "very much a libertarian."[25]
Vanity Fair is an American monthly magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States.
Michael Steven Ovitz is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was a talent agent who co-founded Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in 1975 and served as its chairman until 1995. Ovitz later served as president of The Walt Disney Company for only 16 months, from October 1995 to January 1997.
Bruce Feirstein is an American screenwriter and humorist, best known for his contributions to the James Bond series and his best-selling humor books, including Real Men Don't Eat Quiche and Nice Guys Sleep Alone. Real Men Don't Eat Quiche was on The New York Times Best Seller List for 53 weeks.
Peter Biskind is an American cultural critic, film historian, journalist and former executive editor of Premiere magazine from 1986 to 1996.
Alessandra Stanley is an American journalist. As of 2019, she is the co-founder of a weekly newsletter "for worldly cosmopolitans" called Air Mail, alongside former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter.
King School, formerly King Low Heywood Thomas, is a private, co-educational day school for pre-kindergarten through grade 12 in Stamford, Connecticut. King attracts students from 30 towns in the Fairfield County, Connecticut, Dutchess County, New York and Westchester County, New York areas.
Sue Mengers was a talent agent for many filmmakers and actors of the New Hollywood generation of the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s.
Gerald Bernard Lefcourt is an American criminal defense lawyer. He has represented a number of high-profile clients, including financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Black Panthers, activist/author Abbie Hoffman, hotelier Harry Helmsley, former Speaker of the New York State Assembly Mel Miller, and actors Russell Crowe and Tracy Morgan.
Victoria Penelope Jane Ward is a British-born American author, investigative journalist, editor-at-large, and television commentator. She was a Senior Reporter at CNN and a former magazine and newspaper editor who has featured in The New York Times Best Seller list.
Matt Tyrnauer is an American film director. He directed the documentary feature Valentino: The Last Emperor (2009), which was short listed for an Oscar nomination in 2010, Citizen Jane: Battle for the City (2016), the Emmy nominated, Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood (2017), the 2018 documentary Studio 54 detailing New York's famed Studio 54 nightclub, Where's My Roy Cohn? (2019), and the Showtime four-part series, The Reagans (2020). Tyrnauer also developed, and executive produced, with producing partner Corey Reeser, the docuseries Home, directing its Hong Kong episode, about the Gary Chang's Domestic Transformer home. The nine-part series premiered on Apple TV Plus in April 2020. Currently, Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood is being adapted as a narrative film, with Tyrnauer and Reeser producing, Luca Guadagnino directing and Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg writing the script. Tyrnauer has been Editor-At-Large and Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair, where he has contributed many feature articles.
David Kwong is a magician, puzzle creator, writer, and producer.
Danielle Brittany Brooks is an American actress. She starred as prison inmate Tasha "Taystee" Jefferson on the Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019). In 2015, she made her Broadway debut in the musical revival of The Color Purple as Sofia, for which she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
Jean-Claude Tramont was a Belgian writer, producer and director best known for his marriage to famous Hollywood agent Sue Mengers and the film All Night Long (1981).
Zig Media is a mobile-media technology company based in Brooklyn, New York owned by Billboard-Hollywood Reporter. Called an "Instagram of news" by The New York Times, the company's platform distills original and sourced content into images and video, then distributes it through mobile phone and desktop computer applications. Fast Company reported that Zig had 400,000 users as of June 2018 following investment from Graydon Carter, Ronald Meyer, Quincy Jones, and LiveNation.
Maria K. Farmer is an American visual artist known for providing the first criminal complaint to law enforcement, to the New York City Police Department and to the FBI, in 1996 about the conduct of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Farmer, a figurative painter, had described her and her sister Annie's experiences of sexual misconduct from Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to a journalist at Vanity Fair in 2002 but the publication refrained from including it in their accounts.
Kim Masters is an American entertainment journalist. She is an editor-at-large at The Hollywood Reporter. She is also host of KCRW's weekly radio show "The Business."
Air Mail is a digital weekly newsletter launched in July 2019 by former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter and former New York Times reporter Alessandra Stanley. Private equity firm TPG Capital served as Air Mail's majority investor.
John Michael Wilson is an American documentary filmmaker. He is the creator and director of How To with John Wilson, a comedy-docuseries on HBO.
Eric Eisner is an entertainment industry lawyer and executive who served as president of The Geffen Film Company and Island World Inc. He also founded the Young Eisner Scholars (YES) program.
Juli Weiner is an American writer known for her work on the HBO show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
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