This Time, They’re Dressed for Success

Let’s start with the photographs.

There’s Gregory Peck posing as Atticus Finch with his co-stars from the classic 1962 film “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Brought together on the same lot where the movie was shot, Peck is reunited with Brock Peters (Tom Robinson) and the now grown children in the film, Philip Alford (Jem) and Mary Badham (Scout).

There’s Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas--four leading directors of the baby boom generation--brought together at Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch.

And, in what surely is the most controversial pose of all, there’s Antonio Banderas sitting in Monte Carlo with his legs wide open, leaving little to the imagination in his snug briefs.

The special Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair magazine--devoted entirely to movies--hits the stands Wednesday in Los Angeles and New York (and nationally March 12). From its cover shot of 10 of Hollywood’s young actors to a cartoon depiction of Monday night’s power tables at Morton’s, the issue is sure to be grist for lunchtime gossip from Cicada to the Grill.

Last year, industry folks were incensed with Vanity Fair’s first all-Hollywood issue. It was sexist and demeaning to women, critics complained, noting that the magazine largely depicted women in suggestive high-fashion undergarments, or high-fashion designer wear made to look like undergarments. Furthermore, only two female directors were pictured with 22 of their male counterparts, and female screenwriters were overlooked entirely.

This year, trying to reflect the positive impact women have had on movies (and make amends for last year?), the magazine is running an Annie Leibovitz photograph of 14 top female directors, ranging from Randa Haines and Amy Heckerling to Gillian Armstrong and Jodie Foster.

Last year’s criticisms were “slightly spurious,” said Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter.

“I think it has been a very good year for women in film,” Carter said. “People like Jodie Foster and Amy Heckerling are very much forces in Hollywood. We wanted to acknowledge that in the directors’ shot.”

Carter acknowledged that the 10 actors on the cover are all clothed, while last year’s actresses showed a lot of skin. “Men don’t tend to wear clothes that look like lingerie on the street, and I hope that never starts,” Carter said.

As always, the photographs provoke the most discussion. There’s “The Perfectionist,” Dustin Hoffman looking like Salvador Dali; “The Craftsman,” Gene Hackman looking like a pirate; “The Debutante,” Alicia Silverstone looking like Scarlett O’Hara; as well as “The Graces,” Blythe Danner and daughter Gwyneth Paltrow; “The Producers,” Arnold Kopelson, Brian Grazer and Woody Harrelson, and “The Attitude,” Angela Bassett.

Besides her appearance with the directors, Jodie Foster gets her own spread (“The Image”), shot wearing a slip next to a rumpled bed at the Ambassador Hotel.

There’s even Faye Dunaway--”The Force”--crouching in ripped lingerie, holding aloft a shard of glass next to a broken lamp. “There was a kind of fierceness I’d seen in Bonnie Parker I recognized in myself as well,” she says in a quote taken from her autobiography.

The photos also celebrate performers who have had extraordinary years, such as Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue, Kevin Spacey and Sean Penn.

Carter said that the magazine wanted to reflect various currents rippling through Hollywood: that great movies are being made outside the studio system, that a generation of younger actors and actresses are beginning to make their impact, and that the town itself, as always, has two sides to its nature.

“Hollywood is a great, sunny city,” Carter said, “and Hollywood is a great dark city.”

The magazine’s stories reflect this duality. There is a piece on “The Last Emperor,” former MCA mogul Lew Wasserman. “I don’t think anyone has ever photographed his house before,” Carter said. “He never gives interviews.”

There are pieces on highly paid screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, the late producer Don Simpson, and excerpts from a diary kept by English actor Richard E. Grant from the set of Joel Silver and Bruce Willis’ $51-million mega-disaster “Hudson Hawk.”

From the town’s standpoint, the illustration by David Cowles of Monday night at Morton’s (where Vanity Fair, not so coincidentally, holds its Oscar night party) might bring the closest inspection. It is an update of the 1927 illustration by Ralph Barton depicting a typical Tuesday night at the Cocoanut Grove.

“The groups [at Morton’s] are fairly reflective of the restaurant and who eats together,” Carter said.

Let’s see. Table 1: Viacom owner Sumner Redstone with his Paramount executives Jonathan Dolgen and Sherry Lansing, and producer Arnold Kopelson. “[News Corp. Chairman] Rupert Murdoch greets the table.”

Table 2: Creative Artists Agency’s Kevin Huvane, Bryan Lourd and Rick Nicita.

Table 3: Sid Sheinberg with DreamWorks heads Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Table 4: Disney wizards Michael Eisner and Michael Ovitz.

Table 9: Dominick Dunne, Nancy Reagan, Billy Wilder, Betsy Bloomingdale, Dennis Hopper and his fiancee, Victoria Duffy, and Jennifer Jones.

Table 22: Ray Stark, Joan Collins, James Woods, Howard Austen and Gore Vidal, and former agent Sue Mengers. “Sharon Stone sashays by.”

And Table 28: Kevin Costner surrounded by ICM’s Jeff Berg, Ed Limato and Jim Wiatt.