Mad Men Vanity Fair (I Wish I Still Had Cable)

Don and Betty’s Paradise Lost

Entering its third season on a fresh wave of Emmy nominations, AMC’s Mad Men is the most stylish—and perhaps best—show on television. Inside its meticulous reconstruction of the precipice that was New York advertising circa 1960, where the men and women of Sterling Cooper smoke, drink, love, and lie, the author learns about the struggle of Mad Men creator (and former Sopranos writer) Matthew Weiner, the casting of Jon Hamm and January Jones as Don and Betty Draper, and the obsession that fuels each episode. Photographs by Annie Leibovitz.

By Bruce Handy September 2009

Hamm “has this wonderful sadness and lost quality in his eyes,” said director Alan Taylor. “It’s a rare quality for a strapping leading man.”

And I say... Jon Hamm can look into my eyes any day...