Vanity Faire

Tidbits from “Vanity Fair: Selections from America’s Most Memorable Magazine; A Cavalcade of the 1920s and 1930s.”
(a book I got for $3 at the local library book sale)

Now before you close your browser, Vanity Fair is not what it used to be. It was still mostly a celebrity magazine then; but the 1920s and 1930s were the time of a different kind of celebrity: T.S. Eliot, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Paddock, Rudolph Valentino. And when is the last time you saw such magnificent artists as Picasso and Matisse in a “celebrity” magazine? Probably 1927, when they were featured in Vanity Fair.

It is funny to me to read Vanity Fair’s opinion in the early- to mid-1930s that such unquestionable greats as Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, and Katharine Hepburn are “destined for great stardom” since I have always known them as great stars.

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Excerpt from A Cooking Egg by T. S. Eliot, 1923

Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps
Over battered scones and crumpets
Weeping, weeping multitudes
Droop in a hundred A.B. C.’s*

*An endemic teashop found in all parts of London. The initials signify: Aerated Bread Company.

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From a 1925 article where artists write their own epitaphs:

“Here lies the body of Harry Hirschfield
If not, notify Ginsberg & Co., Undertakers, at once!”

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Some of the earliest examples of “photoshop” graced the pages of the early 20th century Vanity Fair coupled with witty captions. Another style of photo collage I found funny was comparing photos of celebrities to those of animals. Did you know Albert Einstein looks remarkably like a wind-blown poodle when you put the two next to each other?