BIO
Matt Tyrnauer was born in Los Angeles and studied film at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. His documentary feature film, "Valentino The Last Emperor" has been called "Flawless" by Richard Corliss in Time, and a "must-see" by the New York Times. "Valentino" premiered at the 2008 Venice Film Festival, and won the top documentary prize at the Chicago Film Festival. It was one of the highest grossing documentaries at the box office last year, and was short-listed for an Academy Award for best documentary feature. It is currently available on DVD (www.valentinomovie.com) in the U.S and is currently being released in theaters and on TV around the world.
Tyrnauer's writing career began at Spy magazine. Graydon Carter, the co-founder of Spy, then hired Tyrnauer to write for him when Carter was editor of the New York Observer. In 1992, Tyrnauer edited the special edition of the New York Observer for the Democratic Convention in New York City. Later in 1992, Tyrnauer followed Graydon Carter to Vanity Fair, where he has worked ever since, as Editor-at-Large and author of major feature stories. He is currently a Special Correspondent at Vanity Fair. His Vanity Fair articles include pieces on Martha Stewart (the August 2005 post-prison cover story, and a 2001 profile), Valentino Garavani, Marlene Dietrich, Siegfried and Roy, Philippe Starck, Frank Gehry, green design pioneer William McDonough, writer Bret Easton Ellis, producer Robert Evans, and the architect John Woolf.
Film and film studies have long been part of Tyrnauer's life. His childhood and early education were steeped in movies. His father was a successful TV writer and producer, responsible for scripting some of the best-known programs on TV, such as "Colombo," "The Virginian" and "Murder, She Wrote", which his father produced. Tyrnauer attended Crossroads School in Los Angeles, where the academic program was among the first in the nation to include serious film studies at the secondary school level. At Wesleyan University, he apprenticed under the film professor, Joseph W. Reed, a pioneer in American film scholarship. Tyrnauer aided Reed in his research on American masters John Ford, Howard Hawks, Michael Curtiz and Robert Aldrich. Tyrnauer's honors thesis was an in depth analysis of the films of Robert Aldrich.