This article contains The United States vs. Billie Holiday spoilers.
Federal drug enforcement was created for the express purpose of persecuting Billie Holiday. Director Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday focuses a cinematic microscope on the events, but a much larger picture is visible just outside the lens. Holiday’s best friend and one-time manager Maely Dufty told mourners at the funeral that Billie was murdered by a conspiracy orchestrated by the narcotics police, according to Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari. The book also said Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was a particularly virulent racist who hounded “Lady Day” throughout the 1940s and drove her to her death in the 1950s.
This is corroborated in Billie, a 2020 BBC documentary directed by James Erskine, and Alexander Cockburn’s book Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press,...
Federal drug enforcement was created for the express purpose of persecuting Billie Holiday. Director Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday focuses a cinematic microscope on the events, but a much larger picture is visible just outside the lens. Holiday’s best friend and one-time manager Maely Dufty told mourners at the funeral that Billie was murdered by a conspiracy orchestrated by the narcotics police, according to Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari. The book also said Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was a particularly virulent racist who hounded “Lady Day” throughout the 1940s and drove her to her death in the 1950s.
This is corroborated in Billie, a 2020 BBC documentary directed by James Erskine, and Alexander Cockburn’s book Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press,...
- 2/26/2021
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
Last year, North Carolina rapper Rapsody was searching for an introductory track for her new album, Eve, a concept LP about the history and power of black women. Her producer suggested a song she didn’t know well: Nina Simone’s 1965 version of “Strange Fruit.” A concise but graphic evocation of a Southern lynching, “Strange Fruit” was one of America’s earliest and most shocking protest songs, drawing attention to the thousands of acts of racist terrorism against black people in this country’s history. “Black bodies swinging in the...
- 8/7/2020
- by David Browne
- Rollingstone.com
Attorney Marty Singer is a Hollywood institution of such magnitude that it’s surprising no one has attempted to adapt his life for film or television. Then again, he’d probably get a cease-and-desist before we saw a single frame. This is precisely why the high-powered lawyer for a laundry list of stars (Michael Jackson, Tom Hanks, Britney Spears, Matt Damon, Justin Timberlake, Demi Moore and Katy Perry to name a few) merited a profile in this year’s Vanity Fair Hollywood issue. The David Margolick piece is full of gems, including all the proverbial bodies Singer has buried for his clients,...
- 2/7/2017
- by Matt Donnelly
- The Wrap
All Vanity Fair needed was a happy-ish ending. The magazine finally unveiled its piece on the crisis at the Motion Picture & Television Fund's longterm care center -- though online only. The publication came two days after Wednesday’s dramatic announcement that the Mptf has entered into a non-binding letter of intent with Providence Health & Services that will keep its longterm care facility and acute care hospital open. As TheWrap exclusively reported last month, the magazine pulled David Margolick’s 5,000-word examination of the battle from its annual Hollywood Issue because of space limitations. Also...
- 2/25/2011
- by Brent Lang
- The Wrap
Exclusive: Call it the incredible shrinking Hollywood issue. On the heels of killing a major piece on Hollywood digital media, Vanity Fair has now pulled a 5,000-word piece about the battle to keep the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s longterm care facility open, TheWrap has learned. Penned by frequent contributor David Margolick, the article was originally scheduled to run in the February 2 issue of the magazine, an annual Hollywood-themed tome strategically released in conjunction with the Oscars. Margolick was informed two weeks ago that the story was being cut from the issue, about the...
- 1/28/2011
- by Brent Lang
- The Wrap
Mark Madoff, left, with his brother, Andrew, and their father, Bernie, in Montauk, New York, July 2001. (Photo by GI/Bm/Getty Images.) The ruinous saga of the Madoff family took a Greek-tragic turn this morning, as 46-year-old Mark Madoff—the elder son of convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard L. Madoff—was found dead, hanged from a dog leash, inside his apartment on Mercer Street in Manhattan. Mark and his brother, Andrew, worked for their father’s investment firm, and have been living under a cloud of suspicion ever since December 11, 2008—two years ago today—when Bernie was arrested and his epic fraud revealed to the public. In the July 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, David Margolick quoted a friend of Mark and Andrew’s who said “they wouldn’t have been able to do what Bernie did: they just didn’t have the evilness in them,” before admitting that other members of...
- 12/11/2010
- Vanity Fair
Movie Line has new details about the upcoming Eliot Spitzer biopic, the latest project from Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney, the documentarian whose previous works include Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Taxi to the Dark Side. A video clip posted to Fortune’s Web site features interviews with Cecil Suwal, the former C.E.O. of the Emperor’s Club escort service, who recalls Spitzer’s extreme paranoia—“It’s like, Listen, man, if you were so worried about what you’re doing, don’t do it,” the ex-proprietress of prostitutes advises—as well as the former governor himself. "If your point is things were as good as they could get from a political perspective? I suppose that's right. And the only metaphor I can think of is Icarus. Those whom the gods would destroy, they make all powerful,” he notes humbly. Eh, we liked the Emperor’s Club lady’s take better!
- 4/15/2010
- Vanity Fair
#232 (Vol. 2 #4): David Levine On Stage
The great caricaturist David Levine, who passed away at the close of 2009, was the subject of a sad profile article, “Levine in Winter“, written by David Margolick in Vanity Fair in November of the previous year. It was yet another variation on what has become an all too familiar theme: the troubles of the comics or cartoon art professional when, for whatever reason, his career goes into decline. Levine’s brilliant caricatures of politicians, authors, and other notables had regularly appeared in The New York Review of Books for over forty years. His work appeared in other publications as well, but the Review published half his work over the years. But, in his eighties, Levine suffered from macular degeneration, which greatly dimmed his vision, hence handicapping his ability to draw. This led to an awkward situation: though Levine believed he could adapt and continue working,...
The great caricaturist David Levine, who passed away at the close of 2009, was the subject of a sad profile article, “Levine in Winter“, written by David Margolick in Vanity Fair in November of the previous year. It was yet another variation on what has become an all too familiar theme: the troubles of the comics or cartoon art professional when, for whatever reason, his career goes into decline. Levine’s brilliant caricatures of politicians, authors, and other notables had regularly appeared in The New York Review of Books for over forty years. His work appeared in other publications as well, but the Review published half his work over the years. But, in his eighties, Levine suffered from macular degeneration, which greatly dimmed his vision, hence handicapping his ability to draw. This led to an awkward situation: though Levine believed he could adapt and continue working,...
- 2/11/2010
- by Peter Sanderson
Photograph by Gaspare Tringale.Sad news today from New York: David Levine, longtime illustrator for The New York Review of Books, has died at the age of 83. Last November, Vanity Fair published David Margolick’s stirring account of how macular degeneration ended Levine’s association with the liberal journal and, with it, “one of the most remarkable runs in the history of journalism and art.” He went on: In the course of it, more than anyone before him, Levine put together a facebook of human history, capturing everyone from Agnew and Albee to Zapata and Zola. Arguably, only Al Hirschfeld, the indomitable New York Times illustrator who worked almost to the very moment of his death, five years ago, at the age of 99, had so long a tenure or cast so lengthy a shadow, though his range was considerably narrower and his work as apolitical as Levine’s was politically charged.
- 12/29/2009
- Vanity Fair
Dominick Dunne. From PatrickMcMullan.com.Dominick Dunne’s son Griffin told a great story at his father’s funeral, in New York City, yesterday. Griffin said he’d been asked at Frank E. Campbell funeral home if he’d like to hire security to keep away the “professional mourners,” strangers who crash the wakes of celebrities. He said he immediately wished he’d been able to tell his father there was a name for this pastime—as Dominick himself had been known to drop in on the funeral home when he and his young family had lived nearby, long before he became a journalist, to see what famous mobster or socialite was lying inside. The crowd—almost 800 people packed inside the Church of Saint Vincent Ferrer, on Lexington and 66th Street—roared with laughter. If Dominick was a professional mourner, he was also a professional partygoer, stage manager, and social observer,...
- 9/11/2009
- Vanity Fair
Robert Novak, the conservative political commentator who sparked one of the biggest scandals of George W. Bush’s presidency by outing C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame in a 2003 column, has died of brain cancer at the age of 78. David Margolick profiled Novak in Vanity Fair's April 2005 issue, as U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the Plame affair was deepening and becoming a major story. Responding to critics who described him as a cranky cynic who reveled in mudslinging, Novak explained his mission thus: “I’m trying to tell the truth and taking positions that I hope are godly positions, positions that I hope are helpful to my fellow man. And I don’t think there’s any law against enjoying myself in the process." Whether you loved him or hated him, you had to admit that Bob Novak had his own signature style. Vf Daily will remember...
- 8/18/2009
- Vanity Fair
"People say my writing has an aphrodisiac effect," laughed Jay McInerney, "but this is ridiculous." The acerbic author was at the Montauk Yacht Club, where eye-catching Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy each read a story from his new book, "How It Ended," divulged they plan to marry in France in September, then closed down the party dirty-dancing to "Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out." Later, 150 bibliophiles dressed in white for a dinner hosted by the Accompanied Literary Society's Brooke Geahan in a compound of fantasy...
- 6/9/2009
- NYPost.com
Boy, it stinks to be Bernie Madoff's sons.
Andrew and Mark Madoff -- who claim to know nothing of their dad's Ponzi scheme despite having made millions working in the family business -- are portrayed in a new Vanity Fair piece as feeling deeply betrayed by Bernie, whom "they were always trying to please, but never could."
David Margolick, who spoke to people close to the brothers Madoff, writes:
* Andrew recently "lamented" to an African-American friend, "I'm unemployed, I don't have any money, and I'm just trying to stay out of jail -- my name is mud," to which the friend replied,...
Andrew and Mark Madoff -- who claim to know nothing of their dad's Ponzi scheme despite having made millions working in the family business -- are portrayed in a new Vanity Fair piece as feeling deeply betrayed by Bernie, whom "they were always trying to please, but never could."
David Margolick, who spoke to people close to the brothers Madoff, writes:
* Andrew recently "lamented" to an African-American friend, "I'm unemployed, I don't have any money, and I'm just trying to stay out of jail -- my name is mud," to which the friend replied,...
- 6/3/2009
- NYPost.com
Social Media Productions
PARK CITY--"The Fight" could well have been titled "The Life and Times of Joe Louis and Max Schmeling"-- and what times they were. The American black man Louis and the German hero Schmeling were heavyweight boxers who fought twice in the mid-thirties. It's a classic case of individual lives taking on greater meaning because of the history surrounding them. American Experience doc admirably animates the period within a traditional format that should play well on television and afterwards on homevideo.
Film was inspired by a forthcoming book by David Margolick who brought the project to writer/director Barak Goodman and producer John Maggio. Before the fight, doc sets up the parallel lives of Louis and Schmeling, and they couldn't be more different.
Louis was a quiet, guarded soul who grew up the son of an Alabama sharecropper. After the flamboyant championship of Jack Johnson, Louis was not embraced by white America, but he was beloved in the black community. Schmeling was an adaptable sort: once the darling of Weimar Germany he later became a favorite of Hitler's.
After Schmeling upset Louis in their first meeting in 1936 in Yankee Stadium, ninety thousand people turned out two years later for their return bout. By then the world had been polarized and Louis became the hope of the free world and Schmeling the embodiment of Nazi aggression.
It was a colorful era, and vintage footage of boxing promoters like "Yussel the Muscle" and "Uncle Mike" share screen time with contemporary interviews with well known boxing writers, historians and friends of Louis. Splendid newsreel footage, including the fateful fight in which Louis knocks out Schmeling in two minutes and four seconds of the first round, helps give the story immediacy and weight.
PARK CITY--"The Fight" could well have been titled "The Life and Times of Joe Louis and Max Schmeling"-- and what times they were. The American black man Louis and the German hero Schmeling were heavyweight boxers who fought twice in the mid-thirties. It's a classic case of individual lives taking on greater meaning because of the history surrounding them. American Experience doc admirably animates the period within a traditional format that should play well on television and afterwards on homevideo.
Film was inspired by a forthcoming book by David Margolick who brought the project to writer/director Barak Goodman and producer John Maggio. Before the fight, doc sets up the parallel lives of Louis and Schmeling, and they couldn't be more different.
Louis was a quiet, guarded soul who grew up the son of an Alabama sharecropper. After the flamboyant championship of Jack Johnson, Louis was not embraced by white America, but he was beloved in the black community. Schmeling was an adaptable sort: once the darling of Weimar Germany he later became a favorite of Hitler's.
After Schmeling upset Louis in their first meeting in 1936 in Yankee Stadium, ninety thousand people turned out two years later for their return bout. By then the world had been polarized and Louis became the hope of the free world and Schmeling the embodiment of Nazi aggression.
It was a colorful era, and vintage footage of boxing promoters like "Yussel the Muscle" and "Uncle Mike" share screen time with contemporary interviews with well known boxing writers, historians and friends of Louis. Splendid newsreel footage, including the fateful fight in which Louis knocks out Schmeling in two minutes and four seconds of the first round, helps give the story immediacy and weight.
Social Media Productions
PARK CITY--"The Fight" could well have been titled "The Life and Times of Joe Louis and Max Schmeling"-- and what times they were. The American black man Louis and the German hero Schmeling were heavyweight boxers who fought twice in the mid-thirties. It's a classic case of individual lives taking on greater meaning because of the history surrounding them. American Experience doc admirably animates the period within a traditional format that should play well on television and afterwards on homevideo.
Film was inspired by a forthcoming book by David Margolick who brought the project to writer/director Barak Goodman and producer John Maggio. Before the fight, doc sets up the parallel lives of Louis and Schmeling, and they couldn't be more different.
Louis was a quiet, guarded soul who grew up the son of an Alabama sharecropper. After the flamboyant championship of Jack Johnson, Louis was not embraced by white America, but he was beloved in the black community. Schmeling was an adaptable sort: once the darling of Weimar Germany he later became a favorite of Hitler's.
After Schmeling upset Louis in their first meeting in 1936 in Yankee Stadium, ninety thousand people turned out two years later for their return bout. By then the world had been polarized and Louis became the hope of the free world and Schmeling the embodiment of Nazi aggression.
It was a colorful era, and vintage footage of boxing promoters like "Yussel the Muscle" and "Uncle Mike" share screen time with contemporary interviews with well known boxing writers, historians and friends of Louis. Splendid newsreel footage, including the fateful fight in which Louis knocks out Schmeling in two minutes and four seconds of the first round, helps give the story immediacy and weight.
PARK CITY--"The Fight" could well have been titled "The Life and Times of Joe Louis and Max Schmeling"-- and what times they were. The American black man Louis and the German hero Schmeling were heavyweight boxers who fought twice in the mid-thirties. It's a classic case of individual lives taking on greater meaning because of the history surrounding them. American Experience doc admirably animates the period within a traditional format that should play well on television and afterwards on homevideo.
Film was inspired by a forthcoming book by David Margolick who brought the project to writer/director Barak Goodman and producer John Maggio. Before the fight, doc sets up the parallel lives of Louis and Schmeling, and they couldn't be more different.
Louis was a quiet, guarded soul who grew up the son of an Alabama sharecropper. After the flamboyant championship of Jack Johnson, Louis was not embraced by white America, but he was beloved in the black community. Schmeling was an adaptable sort: once the darling of Weimar Germany he later became a favorite of Hitler's.
After Schmeling upset Louis in their first meeting in 1936 in Yankee Stadium, ninety thousand people turned out two years later for their return bout. By then the world had been polarized and Louis became the hope of the free world and Schmeling the embodiment of Nazi aggression.
It was a colorful era, and vintage footage of boxing promoters like "Yussel the Muscle" and "Uncle Mike" share screen time with contemporary interviews with well known boxing writers, historians and friends of Louis. Splendid newsreel footage, including the fateful fight in which Louis knocks out Schmeling in two minutes and four seconds of the first round, helps give the story immediacy and weight.
- 1/23/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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