Angelina Jolie, Martin Amis and Prince William: Where Are They Now?

by Matt Haber

Once upon a time there was a princess who lived in a castle before she ran away and married an ogre. Together they spawned Talk, a magazine sprinkled with synergy dust and celebrated across the land. It was so wonderful, it only lasted two years….

Here are some of the things you’d learn reading the June/July 2000 issue of current Newsweek/Daily Beast honcho Tina Brown’s Talk: Now that he’s 18, Prince William (“’Wills,’ his mother called him”) “needs a bride”; Erica Jong burned her prenup with husband, Ken Burrows; Gigi Levangie Grazer “lives in Pacific Palisades with her second husband, superproducer Brian Grazer”; “Amy Smart has played it like her last name”; Hugh Jackman is “Better-looking than Superman”; “übermodel Heidi Klum got the first film role she ever read for”; Jean Pigozzi “never leaves one of his five houses — or his yacht — without one of his trusty Leicas”; Billy Bob Thornton is “just the sexiest fucking… creature that ever lived” according to Angeline Jolie, and, according to the cover, she will be in love with him “till the day I die”; this is how the “feisty young” partners at Endeavor get along according to Ari Emanuel: “We fight and we fuck”; and Bo Peabody could’ve sold his internet company Tripod to “AOL Yahoo!, Microsoft, Excite — but we went with Lycos. It felt great.”

Let’s go inside.

Then…

“This month we publish an exclusive extract from something the literary world has been buzzing about for months: a memoir by Martin Amis, which he has called Experience…. It is a double event for us to publish this first taste of a brilliant book: Experience is also the first nonfiction title of the spring list for Talk Miramax books.” — Tina Brown’s Notebook, June/July 2000.

Now…

“The alluring bad boy of literary England has always been fascinated by Britain’s dustbin empire. Now Martin Amis takes on American excess.” — Sam Tanenhaus, Newsweek/Daily Beast, June 25, 2012.

Then…

“Wills is e-pals with Britney Spears. He has a crush on Baby Spice. He was observed not so long ago making out with a 25-year-old woman mutual friends refer to as his ‘cousin,’ Emma Parker Bowles, niece of his father’s longtime consort Camilla. (‘Nothing much came of it,’ says a friend of his. ‘But still, it’s pretty good, to snog a 25-year-old when you’re only 17.’)” — Daisy Garnett, “Who Wants to Marry a Gazillionaire,” which is accompanied by a four-page chart of possible girlfriends, which included the princess of Sweden, Gisele Bündchen, Natalie Portman, Serena Williams, and Jenna Bush.

Now…

“There is a common view today that Prince William hates the press and, given his experiences, it would be surprising if he didn’t.” — Penny Juror, The Daily Beast, June 5, 2012.

Then…

“The religious aspect of Internet mania has not gone unnoticed; it just hasn’t been taken that seriously. Recently in these pages, Tucker Carlson observed that high-tech capitalism has taken on many of the characteristics of a religious movement: ‘It’s no longer good enough… to become impossibly rich. If you’re a visionary CEO, it’s vital that you make a connection between your own fortunes and enthusiasms and the fate of the entire world.’” — John D. Gartner, “Prophet Or Loss.”

Now…

“In two short decades, the Internet has changed almost everything about the way we live: The way we communicate, the way we shop, the way we read, the way we love, the way we fight, the way we play. So, too, the people shaping and changing the world are a breed apart from the old ruling class. Moguls, Masters of the Universe, military despots… your time has come and gone. The geeks have inherited the earth!” — Newsweek/Daily Beast “Digital Power Index,” June 25, 2012.

The takeaway:

2000 was a long time ago. So long ago, magazines didn’t have URLs on their covers, Angelina Jolie was photographed smoking and drinking a glass of wine and didn’t talk at all about human rights, and the wrestler Chyna got a seven-page profile. It was also a time when a general interest magazine could include an excerpt from Jim Knipfel’s memoir and an as-told-to story by Peter and Bobby Farrelly’s mom, Mariann. Much of the June/July 2000 issue of Talk feels dated (Sean Patrick Thomas from Save the Last Dance is now on a canceled CW show), but some of it, like Dick Lehr’s and Gerard O’Neill’s piece about Whitey Bulger feels surprisingly relevant. The ten-page oral history of Lucille Ball by Rex Reed (supply your own exclamation point) could run in Vanity Fair next month.

For all the criticism Talk got for being a Miramax promotional pamphlet, there’s not a ton of Miramax-centric content besides the Amis excerpt, a photo spread of Heidi Klum in advance of the utterly forgettable (and forgotten) British hairdressing comedy Blow Dry; as far as house ads go, there’s one for Talk Miramax Books’ Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas, Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Love’s Labour’s Lost (featuring Alicia Silverstone and Matthew Lillard), and a quarter-page promotion that lets you enter to “Win two tickets to a Miramax Movie Premiere” of Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet. In all, a pretty restrained example of late-90s/early-aughts synergy.

Matt Haber just found a stack of old Talk magazines on Broadway near Canal Street.