Matt Tyrnauer was born in Los Angeles and studied film at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. For sixteen years he has been an editor and writer for Vanity Fair magazine, where he is Special Correspondent. His feature articles for Vanity Fair include profiles of Martha Stewart (the August 2005 post-prison cover story, and a 2001 profile), Valentino Garavani, Siegfried and Roy, Tommy Hilfiger, Philippe Starck, Frank Gehry, green design pioneer William McDonough, producer Robert Evans, actor Greg Kinnear, and writer Bret Easton Ellis.

This is Tyrnauer’s first film, yet filmmaking -- in university -- and film studies have long been part of his 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. As a result, he was exposed to movies by Fellini, Antonioni, Godard, Rossellini, Bresson and many others at an early age. 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, his favorite director.

Tyrnauer’s journalism 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 lives in New York City.

Show full bio

Hide full bio