(Silver Spring, Md.) – Vanity Fair has covered some of the most fascinating crimes and dramas of our age, shedding light on everything from salacious sex scandals to cold-blooded murder. In the exclusive new series VANITY FAIR CONFIDENTIAL (12x60), created by Emmy-winning True Entertainment, Vanity Fair is opening up its vaults to Investigation Discovery (ID). Offering unprecedented access to the magazine’s writers and editors, VANITY FAIR CONFIDENTAL takes viewers to the heart of some of the most controversial dramas in history – dramas centered at the cross section of power, wealth and celebrity. ID presents the world premiere of the all-new series VANITY FAIR CONFIDENTIAL on Monday, January 19 at 9/8c.
“Investigation Discovery is thrilled to partner with Vanity Fair on their first ever exclusive television series. With some of the best writers in the world on their masthead, Vanity Fair brings a sophisticated and refined sensibility to even the most sensational of stories,” said Henry Schleiff, Group President of Investigation Discovery, American Heroes Channel, Destination America, Discovery Family Channel and Discovery Life Channel. “Vanity Fair writers dig deep into the insidious deeds of the rich and powerful, providing its readers – and now ID viewers alike – with storytelling that keeps us all transfixed.”
“When you send the right writer out on the right story, something really good comes back. With our crime stories, we recognize how incredibly important it is to just let a journalist go,” said Dana Brown, Deputy Editor, Vanity Fair. “VANITY FAIR CONFIDENTIAL gives us the opportunity to take some of our best stories and turn them into television events exclusively on ID.”
Each hour-long episode of VANITY FAIR CONFIDENTIAL features a great mystery from the pages of the magazine. Vanity Fair writers give viewers exclusive insight into each story, interlaced with first-person accounts from those involved in the case—from law enforcement to family members and friends of the victims.
Upcoming episodes of VANITY FAIR CONFIDENTIAL include:
The Runaway Doctorby Buzz Bissinger
Premieres Monday, January 19 at 9/8c
Michelle Kramer wakes up to find her husband, Dr. Mark Weinberger, is missing, and she has no idea where he is. Determined to find him, Michelle takes matters into her own hands and quickly uncovers shocking secrets about the man she thought she knew. As Vanity Fair contributing editor Buzz Bissinger reports, Weinberger’s story is a dark and twisted tale that leaves Michelle trying to figure out how her fairytale sweetheart became America’s most-wanted runaway doctor.
The Fugitive Heirby Ned Zeman
Premieres Monday, January 26 at 9/8c
A headless torso washes ashore in Galveston, Texas. A mob boss’s daughter is executed – mob style – in Beverly Hills. A millionaire’s young wife goes missing without a trace from her Upper East Side apartment in New York. For more than twenty years, authorities struggle to figure out how all three crimes are connected. Only one man knows with certainty exactly what happened to all three victims. In this episode, Vanity Fair writer Ned Zeman uncovers the tale of “The Fugitive Heir.”
Prisoner of Denver by Mark Seal
Premieres Monday, February 2 at 9/8c
Twenty-one-year-old Lisl Auman is a self-proclaimed hippie with a knack for mixing with the wrong people at the wrong place and time. In the summer of 1997, Auman is charged with the felony murder of Denver police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite being locked in the back of a police patrol car when the deadly shots were fired. Pleading her innocence, Auman writes to author Hunter S. Thompson and several politicians in a last-ditch effort to make an appeal. Auman is devastated until one day, Thompson responds. Using his vast influence to organize the “Free Lisl” campaign, Thompson starts working with Vanity Fair contributing editor Mark Seal to uncover what really happened that fatal day.
The Lady Vanishesby Mimi Swartz
Premieres Monday, February 9 at 9/8c
Madalyn Murray O’Hair is deemed one of the most hated women in all of America for being responsible for banning school prayer. When O’Hair, her son, Jon, and her granddaughter, Robin, suddenly vanish, some people believe they’ve been killed by religious fanatics, while others are convinced she fled to Europe with embezzled money. The truth about the family’s whereabouts is something that no one could have predicted.
The Case of the Vanishing Blondeby Mark Bowden
Premieres Monday, February 16 at 9/8c
It was an ugly crime. A naked woman, the victim of a vicious assault and rape, is left for dead in an empty field near the Florida Everglades. Surveillance tapes at the local hotel where she was staying show her entering, but do not show her leaving. Where was she assaulted and how did she get out of the building? Private investigator Ken Brennan is hired by the hotel to unravel the mystery. His ingenious analysis and dogged pursuit take him to other states, exposing other crimes and the evidence that would crack “The Case of the Vanishing Blonde.”
The Counterfeit Rockefellerby Bryan Burrough
Premieres Monday, February 23 at 9/8c
Christophe Rocancourt was charming, lucky and French. Most people knew him as an imposter who stole from sophisticated New Yorkers who believed he was a member of the Rockefeller clan. He swindled millions and eluded the law – over and over. When Rocancourt crosses paths with police investigator George Mueller in Los Angeles, his luck sours. Determined to take the con man off of the streets, Mueller begins a cat and mouse game with Rocancourt that crosses borders, leaves countless victims stunned, and has law enforcement officials wondering what it will take to stop the Frenchman dead in his tracks.
Mad About the Boysby Bryan Burrough
Premiere TBA
On November 11, 2006, Frankie Vazquez Jr., was found dead – sitting in his Porsche with the motor running in his garage and a T-shirt wrapped around his head. Vazquez’s family believes that when Frankie discovered that Lou Pearlman, Frankie’s closest childhood friend and the ‘90s boy-band impresario who created the Backstreet Boys and ‘NSync, was not the man he claimed to be – Vazquez couldn’t face the truth and killed himself. What unfolds is an unbelievable story of deception and perversion.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Killby Buzz Bissinger
Premiere TBA
At 2 a.m. on July 5, 1999, Private First Class Barry Winchell is murdered. His parents are told he’s been kicked in the head by a steel-toed boot, while his girlfriend, Calpernia Addams, hears on the news that he was in a brutal fight. Addams, a pre-operative transsexual, fears she was to blame for Winchell’s killing. Only two men know what really happened in the beer-soaked barracks that deadly night. One of them is released from prison; the other is ready to tell the awful truth about the jealousy, homophobia and manipulation that led to the death of the well-liked PFC.
Serial Killer J.R. Robinson’s Alter Egoby David McClintick
Premiere TBA
To all appearances, J.R. Robinson was a doting father and husband. A neighborhood activist, J.R. was an officer of the residents’ association and chairman of its rules committee, and also a founding elder of the nearby Presbyterian church. Neither his neighbors nor his family knew about J.R.’s second life—secret and sordid—dating back nearly two decades. A swindler and a forger, with a long history of embezzling businesses and creating fraudulent ones, J.R. was a pathological thief dodging easily through the system. In the mid-80s in Kansas, he was becoming something much more sinister … leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.
Legend with a Bulletby Robert Sam Anson
Premiere TBA
The 911 call came into the Alhambra Police Department on February 3, 2003. The man on the line reported hearing gunfire, providing the address of 1700 South Grandview Drive, but didn’t have to say more. In Alhambra, a working-class suburb 30 minutes down the freeway from Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip, everyone knew that address: the home of music legend, Phil Spector. When the officers entered the residence, they encountered a small, disheveled figure wearing what appeared to be a white nightshirt. On the marble floor of the large foyer, the body of a tall, blonde woman lay in a pool of darkening blood. She’d been shot in the mouth. Was this a suicide as Spector claims, or a case of cold-blooded murder?
The White House Boysby David Kushner
Premiere TBA
For decades, relatives of boys dispatched to the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida struggled to find out what became of them when they went missing amid reports of beatings, torture and sexual assaults. Recently, researchers and forensic anthropologists uncovered the remains of 55 bodies on the school grounds. The surviving men remember the same things: blood on the walls, bits of lip or tongue on the pillow, the smell of urine and whiskey, and the way the bed springs sang with each blow. They remember walking into the dark little building on the campus of the Florida School for Boys, in bare feet and white pajamas, afraid they’d never walk out. Now the men, carrying 50 years of wreckage, come forward to tell their stories.
Presumed Guiltyby Myron Farber
Premiere TBA
In 1983, in an affluent enclave of DuPage County, Illinois, fifth grader Jeanine Nicarico’s body is found by a couple of men walking in woods off the Illinois Prairie Path, a dirt trail a few miles northwest of Naperville. For two weeks, a task force led by sheriff’s detectives had no suspects. Then Alejandro Hernandez – “Crazy Alex” as he was known locally – inserted himself into the hottest case in northern Illinois. A 19-year-old high school dropout from Aurora, Hernandez was intellectually challenged, with an IQ in the low 70s. During his time with detectives, Hernandez threw around many names, including that of Rolando Cruz, another 19-year-old from Aurora. It was a case built on talk – eventually including shaky testimony about incriminating admissions by the defendants to their jailers and to fellow inmates, some of whom lied. While there were no eyewitnesses to the murder and no physical evidence linking either man to the crime, they were both convicted and sentenced to die. Then Brian Dugan was arrested. It took more than 26 years for Brian Dugan to finally face judgment for the 1983 murder of Jeanine Nicarico.
VANITY FAIR CONFIDENTIAL is a co-production between Investigation Discovery, Condé Nast Entertainment and True Entertainment. For ID, Pamela Deutsch is senior executive producer, Sara Kozak is senior vice president of production, Kevin Bennett is general manager, and Henry Schleiff is Group President of Investigation Discovery, Destination America, American Heroes Channel, and Discovery Fit & Health. For Condé Nast Entertainment, Michael Klein and Dawn Ostroff are executive producers; and Dana Brown is deputy editor for Vanity Fair. For True Entertainment, Glenda Hersh, Steven Weinstock, and Stephanya Bareham are executive producers.
