Letter from the Editor

With the entertainment industry squarely in the middle of its trophy-giving season, you’ve been watching a lot of actors, directors, musicians, and artisans trying to sound humble while clutching a statuette. So it seems an appropriate time to talk, just for a moment, about an honor of our own. Since many of you wrote to tell us how much you enjoyed our Special Year-End Double Issue, ”Best of 1990,” which we published at the end of December, it gives us immense pleasure to report that the issue is a finalist for a National Magazine Award. These prizes, sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors, are the Oscars of magazine journalism, and a nomination for work done in a publication’s first year of existence is exceedingly rare. In fact, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY is the only start-up publication among the 48 magazines nominated this year in 14 categories. Our fellow finalists for Best Single-Topic Issue are American Lawyer, Money, The New Republic, and Newsweek — heady company indeed for a fledgling magazine. The winners will be announced at a ceremony this week at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Whether or not our name is called, the nomination alone is a victory for a staff that has labored hard to make this magazine a success, and it is singularly gratifying to be recognized for an issue that drew on the talents of nearly everyone here.

We think that our special reports, which have ranged from a look at ”35 Years of Rock & Roll” to a rundown of the most powerful people in entertainment to ”The 100 Best Movies on Video,” have been among our strongest issues, and we’re delighted to be honored for this one. Meanwhile, we’re hard at work on another one. Within the next few weeks we’ll publish our special report on ”Cinema Literacy,” which will include an analysis of those movies everyone needs to have seen, a quiz to test your movie IQ, and a film encyclopedia that will allow even a beginner to shine at cocktail parties like a true movie buff. We think it will be as much fun to read as it has been to create, so don’t miss it.

We’re excited by many other projects now on the drawing board, but we’ll keep in mind a lesson. Several years ago, a brash young actor on a popular TV series unveiled to reporters a career plan that he called EGOT that would allow him to win, in order, the Emmy, the Grammy, the Oscar, and the Tony. Perhaps he thought that ego alone would take him most of the way toward EGOT; it probably won’t surprise you that he never even got to E. We’ll try to avoid that kind of overconfidence and just express our gratitude for the encouragement we’ve received from our colleagues and, most of all, for the support of our readers. You’re the most important judges of all.

James W. Seymore Jr.
Managing Editor