Years ago, I listened to a wrenching episode of Karina Longworth’s film history podcast You Must Remember This focused on Dorothy Stratten—a bubbly, gorgeous high school student whose life changed forever when she met an enterprising 26-year-old hustler named Paul Snider. Spoiler alert: The episode was an entry in Longworth’s Dead Blondes series. But there’s more to Stratten’s story than the way it ended. I drank up Lili Anolik’s look back at her too-brief life, which rejects the common consensus—that she was notable mostly “for the yearnings she evoked,” as one journalist put it in 1980—for something deeper.
Elsewhere today, Sarah DiGregorio explains how RFK Jr.’s health crusades do not not evoke eugenics; Kate Middleton sends a coded message about her favorite rugby team; and yours truly has some thoughts about who does and does not count as a nepo baby. See you Tuesday! |
HILLARY BUSIS,
SENIOR EDITOR |
The rise of Dorothy Stratten is a Hollywood fairy tale, from her discovery behind an ice cream counter to her run as a Playboy Playmate to her love affair with Peter Bogdanovich. But the reality is something much more sinister, from her rape and murder at the hands of her estranged husband to her exploitation by other men—Hugh Hefner, Bob Fosse, Bogdanovich himself. |
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VF’s Lili Anolik rediscovers a Hollywood horror story—and a forgotten star. |
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Survival of the fittest—a concept that’s been twisted and abused since its birth—could be a Trump administration motto. |
The Princess of Wales wore red to Windsor Castle’s Crimson Drawing Room to celebrate the Red Roses, England’s World Cup–winning women’s rugby team. “Now, if I play at home, I do not want to get tackled by George,” she shared. |
Meanwhile, rumors of Heated Rivalry costar Connor Storrie’s runway debut have been greatly exaggerated, VF has learned. |
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Few flavors of pedant are as irritating as the syntax scold, those humorless hall monitors who smirk as they tell total strangers what nonplussed actually means. So everyone confuses literal with figurative; literally, who cares? It gives me no pleasure to join their ranks. But I can no longer stay silent—because as a culture, we’ve totally lost the plot on what a nepo baby is. |
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