I put this photo on Twitter the other day, but most of you probably don’t follow me there. At any rate, I found it in a book I was reading, and found it very odd. Why? Because the couple is very odd.
Who are they? Do you recognize both of them? (No Google imaging allowed.)
Here’s a hint: I found the photo in the book I took to the Galápagos: Inside Story by Martin Amis. (It is, by the way, very good.)
See more below the fold (click “read more”),
Yes, it’s Christopher Hitchens, whom you know, and Anna Wintour, fashion maven, editor-in-chief of Vogue since 1988, and the model for the harridan Miranda Priestly in the book and movie The Devil Wears Prada. (Note that many people who know Wintour take issue with how she’s portrayed in the book and on film.)
The pair had a romance during the eighties, which is very odd given that Hitch was a socialist and Wintour, while a Democrat, doesn’t fit the far-left image that Hitchens considered a requisite for a solid romantic partner. That, in fact, is why Amis suggests that they broke up after a short while.
Years later, Amis recounts that Wintour visited Hitchens in Houston when he was dying of cancer. She wrote a remembrance of Hitchens after his death.
I recommend Amis’s book, which is an autobiographical novel—far more autobiography than novel—highly. And it gives a lot of details about his friendship with Hitchens, including a detailed and sad account of Hitchens’s decline and death from cancer. But he was, as Amis says, “an ox.”
Wonderful photo and story. Thank you.
He’s Hitch. The woman I do not know, but by her looks I would guess she is English. I’ll have a peep.
Same. I knew it was Hitch, but I have never heard of Anna Wintour.
She has been referenced by quite a few movies. According to Google, she is better known than Hitchens.
Cold guess:
Hitch
Bowie
… now time for embarassment.
There is something about the eyes that is rather Bowie-esque, but I would never have noticed if you hadn’t made that guess, Thyroid.
I was also thinking Bowie before reading the comments… I’m glad I wasn’t the only one!
GAH
… I mean, there’s a similarity, isn’t there? It doesn’t mean anything though.
Hitch is very recognizable, I didn’t know the woman – and even the reveal didn’t help – except that I now know her name. Andrew Sullivan and Michael Moynihan were reminiscing on Sullivan’s podcast last week about Hitch turning up to a New Republic Christmas party dressed as a waiter in order to get in, because the editor had banned him from attending. Ever the interesting life.
I recognised Hitch but not the lady.
The same.
GCM
I think it’s Anna Wintour and Christopher Hitchens, aka The Hitch.
Torgo and Parker Posey?
The Master (and myself) is amused by your answer.
She hasn’t changed her hair style in decades. Very powerful influential woman.
It’s odd, because I’m not sure I could have recognized Hitchens without being told in the book. His hair and beard are different from how I think of him.
I got Ms. Wintour because I used to watch Fashion Television on CITY-TV Toronto every week around the same time the photo was taken. But I totally fanned on Hitch….or let a called third strike go by, whichever is the more ignominious.
I swear Anna Wintour was born with that hairstyle. It’s more iconic than she is.
I’ve never read the novel The Devil Wears Prada (and have no interest in doing so). But I’ve seen the movie, which is very good, and although Meryl Streep portrays the Wintour character as a demanding and bitchy boss, it’s a performance filled with a deep streak of empathy and affection, too.
For me Hitch’s eyes were the give-away, and the hair style with Wintour.
They only thing missing with Hitch was a bagette in the coat pocket.