The arrival of Vanity Fair’s new Hollywood issue, with its photo portfolio by the great Bruce Weber, reminded me of my June 1986 debut in Vanity Fair–a story never before available on this web site. Originally commissioned by the New York Times Magazine, it was rejected due, I think, to the newspaper’s then-notorious homophobia (after, I should add, an editor there demanded to know why I hadn’t asked Weber if he was gay). “They’ll never publish it,” VF’s then-editor Tina Brown predicted, “but I will.” And she did, in June 1986. You can read it here (pdf alert: give it some time to load.).