THEY wouldn't normally want to share a stage, never mind a snapshot, but every year the youngest, hottest actors in Los Angeles willingly get together; battles for star parts temporarily forgotten as they play up to the camera of Annie Leibovitz.
For this could be the most important photo of their lives. This is the one that will say they are a face to watch, a person of future power in Hollywood. And all because the picture will go on the front cover of Vanity Fair.
Such is the respect in
which this US magazine is held, that to turn down the chance of being front page news would be career suicide for any actor. After all it has been hailed as the "acknowledged arbiter of modern society, power, and personality".
But while it may, in the hands of editor Graydon Carter, have expanded its content to cover news and world affairs as well as celebrities, it is still the stunning photographs which mark it out from the rest.
So to celebrate both its 95th anniversary and its 25th as a relaunched publication the photographic legacy of the magazine is on a tour from London to Canberra, and Edinburgh in between.
Around 150 photographs taken by luminaries such as Leibovitz, Harry Benson, Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts and Mario Testino will form part of the exhibition, as will those from earlier times by Edward Steichen, Man Ray, Cecil Beaton, and Baron de Meyer.
From the magazine's first incarnation (it was published by Condé Nast from 1913 to 1936, when it was shelved for being too frivolous during the Depression) there are portraits of Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Jean Harlow and Louis Armstrong.
Then more recently (it was brought back to life in the 1980s) the pictures range from those of celebrities such as Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Helen Mirren and Julianne Moore, to more powerful images, such as that by Jonas Karlsson of the firefighters who tackled the aftermath of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.
James Holloway, director of the Portrait Gallery believes the exhibition is "incredibly beautiful" and will be one of the highlights of the summer season.
Editor Graydon Carter adds: "It's only fitting that the august Scottish National Portrait Gallery will present the first exhibition of Vanity Fair's iconic portraits. To have all of the works displayed together will serve as a remarkable photographic history."
• Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913 – 2008 is on at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 1 Queen Street, from June 14 to September 21. Admission is £6/£4.The full article contains 440 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
