Inside the creative collaboration that turned JFK Jr.’s political magazine into a sexed-up cultural moment

It was 1997, and Matt Berman, the creative director of JFK Jr.’s George magazine, had just gotten back to his hotel in Los Angeles. He had left the ‘Garden of Eden’ style set he’d concocted for the cover of the September issue: lush with greenery and replete with live animals. It would reach peak ripeness once the star, Pam Anderson, arrived on set the next day as the “first woman,” to illustrate a feature on the 20 most fascinating women in politics.  But there was a problem. A note was waiting for him at the front desk of the hotel. It was from Anderson. She was canceling. “She was like, ‘I can’t, a million apologies,’” recalls Berman. “Something like that. It was just crazy.” Amazingly, he secured Kate Moss that night through her former boyfriend Mario Sorrenti, who’d arrived to photograph the shoot. You wouldn’t guess from the talent, set design, and tabloid-like plot twists that this was for a political magazine.  But that was the creative—and challenging—conceit o