Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
More Rosebud. More the merrier sometimes. Occasionally, more the sadder. But it's more, more, more. And people say, we want more. Which is rather nice. Anyway, this is More Rosebud, and welcome to it. Cue the music, and notice, it's slightly different music on a Tuesday.
MUSIC PLAYS
This is More Rosebud. I'm Charles Brandreth. And because it's More Rosebud, I have a companion with me. She's with me every week, all the time, because she's the producer of Rosebud. She's Harriet Jane. But on a Tuesday, when we put out More Rosebud, though you may be listening to it any time you like, well, she steps in front of the microphone and she says a few words.
What are the few words you're going to say today, Harriet?
Good morning, America.
Because we are in New York City where we have spent some time recording Rosebuds with interesting people. And I think today's guest is one of the most interesting. He is a magazine editor. But somebody, when I said, we've got Graydon Carter on, he's a magazine editor, they said, no, he isn't a magazine editor. He is the magazine editor from the golden age of magazines.
He worked when he was young on Time magazine, on Life magazine, in an era that was then coming to an end, but an era when that's how people got their... news in depth, their pictures in depth before, well, it was from a different era. And he then became famously the editor of Vanity Fair, where he made it a very special magazine over a quarter of a century.
Did you ever read Vanity Fair when he was the editor?
I was a subscriber when he was an editor because of him.
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Chapter 2: What was Graydon Carter's vision for Vanity Fair?
Did he send evidence that his hands were not as small? He would regularly send me photographs of his hands. In fact, he sent one. It was an old ad from the book The Art of the Deal. And he circled his hands in a gold sharpie and said, see, quite large. And I stapled a note onto the card. I said, actually quite small. And I had it messengered right up to him that afternoon.
This is when I was still at Vanity Fair.
Oh.
My God. You also, there was a kind of teasing thing that you did in Spa, I think, where you sent people cheques for quite small amounts of money to see who, if anybody, would cash the cheques.
Yeah, it was a friend of mine who was working for Margaret Thatcher at the time, his friend Steve Proben, and he said, why don't you try to get New Yorkers, really rich New Yorkers, to sign really small checks? So I thought, this is a great idea.
So we set up a company called the National Check Retrievals Company, and we sent checks out to 100, 32-cent checks out to 100 rich New Yorkers at the time. This is like late 80s. And then we wait for them to come back and then 25 of them signed the 32 cent check. And we thought, I wonder if we can get them to sign an even smaller check.
So we sent out checks for 13 cents and we waited because you have to wait for the checks to be endorsed and people have to write for deposit only and sign their signature. And after about a month, a box comes back. We all gather around to open it. There's two checks. Two people had signed and deposited the 13-cent checks. One was Adnan Khashoggi, who was then the...
He was like the biggest arm trader in the world at the time, and the other was Donald Trump. And it's just, I thought, that is almost a perfect ending. At the Waverly Inn, a restaurant we're part owners of down in the village, at the top, we've had it for the last 20 years, it's a quote, it says, Waverly Inn, worst food in the city, Donald J. Trump. And it's been at the top of our menu.
It's been great for business.
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Chapter 3: How did Graydon Carter's career at Spy magazine begin?
Let me get the name right. It's Edward Graydon Carter. Edward is actually your first name.
Yes, but Edward is my father's name. So I was Graydon from birth. Gray, my father called me, yes.
Oh, may I call you Gray?
You can. Oh, Gray.
I'm really liking this, too. I've said the name three times now in order to establish an intimacy. So, Gray, I've got the date right. Born on the anniversary of the French Revolution, the 14th of July, 1949. That's it. Gray, what is your very first memory?
Oh, I knew you were going to ask this.
i mean we lived in germany after the war and my parents would go away skiing a lot so i spent a lot of time on my own and we had a nanny called frau fliga who took care of us and i remember playing with these small beautifully made plastic cars that went with ho trains and i had an ho fleischmann train which was um stands for that's the size that's the size of the track and
And just playing with that when I was four or five years old in Germany, you know, I wasn't lonely because I didn't know what lonely was or anything like that.
And you were in Germany because your father was in the Canadian... He stayed on after the war. And he was in the forces. Yeah, he was a pilot. That's why I was born in Germany. Really? I was born in Wuppertal because my father was part of the British forces in Germany. Amazing.
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Chapter 4: What are the four elements needed to craft a compelling story?
Is it he who occasionally would break wind in... He was...
One of his great talents was his ability to break wind at the most unfortunate times. And my mother would just put up with it. And finally, when they bought their first sailboat, he wanted to call the boat passing wind, and she put her foot down.
Oh, bless him. But he was quite unselfconscious about that. He just took it in his tribe.
Yes, and my mother would just go, oh, your father, you know, during social engagements.
So who was your mother? What was she called?
Her name was Margaret, and she grew up in a wealthy family in Toronto, and I think they had greater aspirations for her than to marry a pilot after the war. But she loved my father, and they had a wonderful marriage, and she was a housekeeper and a Sunday painter.
That's nice. And tall, short, long?
Five foot five, five foot six.
Yeah.
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Chapter 5: How did Graydon Carter's relationship with Donald Trump evolve?
And that lasted. Their marriage lasted.
Right to the end.
And that intimacy between them. Yes. You saw that they were friends as well as being. Absolutely. How nice. Yeah. What for you is the coziest, the sweetest memory of seeing them together as a couple?
You know, I think they were happiest when they were either skiing or on their boat, especially on their boat. And by that time, I was living in New York, so I'd go back and stay with them, and we'd go sailing on a Sunday. And I think they had a great time, and they loved that 4 o'clock hour on a boat when you sort of break out the gin. That was their favorite part of sailing, I think.
Oh, well done. Well done, then. Can you remember a bad time? Is there a... Was there ever a row or a day that things went wrong?
No. I'm serious, no. That's great.
That's lovely. Were there brothers and sisters? Were you the only one?
I have a brother and a sister.
And how did you get on with them?
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