Maureen Orth

In October of 1973 Orth was hired as one of the first woman writers for Newsweek, covering music, books and movies. She was one of the early beneficiaries of a 1970 lawsuit claiming that the newsroom discriminated against women.[14] At Newsweek, Orth wrote eight cover stories in five years on subjects including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen,[15] Steve Wonder,[16] and The Godfather Part II film.[17] She was the only journalist to report from the notoriously chaotic Philippines set of Apocalypse Now.[18]

In 1975, Orth took a brief leave of absence from Newsweek to be the assistant to director Lina Wertmuller, in Italy, during the filming of Seven Beauties, an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film.[19] She later wrote about the experience in an article for the magazine.[20]

When news broke in August of 1977 that Elvis Presley had died, Orth requested to be sent to Memphis, TN to cover the story. She ultimately ended up writing the first news piece to suggest that Presley’s official cause of death might not have been a heart attack.[21] She also was a contestant on The Gong Show and wrote about it for the magazine.[22]

Between 1978-80 Orth was a senior editor at New York, and New West Magazines. In 1981-1982 she was the principal correspondent of Newsweek Woman on Lifetime Television. From 1983 to 1984 she was a network correspondent for NBC News. Orth was a contributing editor at Vogue from 1984 to 1989 and a columnist for New York Woman from 1986 to 1990.[23] She has also freelanced for the New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.[23]

Orth has written for Vanity Fair since 1988 and has been a Special Correspondent for that magazine since 1993.[23] Among the heads of state she has interviewed are Russian President Vladimir Putin,[24] German Chancellor Angela Merkel,[25] British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,[26] Argentinian President Carlos Menem,[27] and Irish President Mary Robinson.[28] Orth secured the fist interview with Thatcher just months after leaving office.[29]

Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Orth traveled to Central Asia to investigate the connection between drugs and terrorism for a piece titled "Afghanistan's Deadly Habit."

Orth has reported extensively on the child molestation charges against both Woody Allen and Michael Jackson. In January 1994 she wrote "Nightmare in Neverland," the first of five articles from 1994 through 2005[30] which investigated the charges stemming from Jackson's alleged behavior towards underage boys beginning initially brought by then minor Jordan Chandler.[31] For more than a decade Orth continued to report on Jackson[32] including his treatment in the media.[33] pegged to Jackson’s appearance on ABC News’ Primetime Live. She observed and wrote about two of Jackson’s trials including a civil lawsuit filed against him in 2003 by concert promoter Marcel Avram, and the 2005 criminal trial on child molestation, for which Jackson was acquitted.[34]

Orth's November 1992 piece, "Mia's Story" broke the news that Woody Allen was in therapy for inappropriate behavior towards his then 7 year-old adopted daughter Dylan. In 2013,[35] Orth obtained the first on the record interview with then 28 year-old Dylan Farrow about the effects of the child molestation case against Allen on the Farrow family[36] in a piece titled "Momma Mia!."[37]

Orth has investigated pedophile priest Paul Shanley.[38] as well as the Laci Peterson murder. Orth has also written articles on Tom Cruise[39] and Scientology, Madonna,[40] Tina Turner,[41] Karl Lagerfeld[42] and Conrad Black.[43]

She chronicled the Colombian hostage rescue of Ingrid Betancourt in a November 2008 piece titled "Inside Colombia's Hostage War" [44] and wrote about Elda Neyis, aka Karina, Colombia's most notorious FARC female revolutionary.

In the spring of 1997, Orth read a news story about how the police were looking for a serial killer who did not fit the typical profile of a murderer.[45] She then spent nine weeks researching and gathering information for an article about the serial killer before designer Gianni Versace became his fifth victim in July of 1997.[46] [47]

During the 8-day manhunt for Cunanan following the murder of Versace, Orth told NBC News that, according to her research, Versace and Cunanan had met each other backstage at the San Francisco Opera in 1990 when the designer created the costumes for the opera's production of "Capriccio."[48]

While Vanity Fair was fact-checking Orth's article, Versace was killed in Miami.[46] The piece, “The Killer’s Trail,” appeared in the September 1997 issue of the magazine. Book publisher Delacorte was rumored to have paid Orth a significant advance for a book-length reworking of the story even before the piece in Vanity Fair was published.[49]

Two years later, Orth published Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest failed Manhunt in U.S. History.[50] She dedicated the book to her late husband, Tim Russert, and their son Luke, as well as Orth’s mother.[46] In the book, Orth claimed that Gianni Versace had AIDS and that his health was deteriorating but that he kept it a secret to avoid putting a public listing of the company at risk.[51]

In October of 2016, reports began circulating that FX would be developing a television miniseries based on Orth’s book as part of the American Crime Story franchise.[52] In January of 2018, FX debuted a nine-episode miniseries, "American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace" starring Darren Criss, Edgar Ramirez, Penelope Cruz and Ricky Martin. Orth was a creative consultant on the series.[46]

The Versace family was unhappy with how Gianni Versace was portrayed in both the book and the television show,[53] stating that it presented a distorted[54] and fictionalized account of the designer’s life.[55] At the time of the television show’s premier, the publisher of the book vigorously defended Orth’s reporting saying:

"First published almost 19 years ago, Vulgar Favors is a carefully reported and extensively-sourced work of investigative journalism by an award-winning journalist with impeccable credentials. The book has stood the test of time and is widely regarded as the definitive account of Andrew Cunanan's chilling crime spree.  Random House stands by the book and its author, Maureen Orth."[56]

At the 2018 Emmy Awards, the series based on Orth's reporting won three Emmy Awards including Outstanding Limited Series, Outstanding Casting, and Outstanding Contemporary Costumes. The series scored 15 nominations in total.[57] Orth appeared onstage with the cast and producers to accept the award.[58]