Vanity Fair's annual "New Establishment" list is out—the highly subjective guide to the 100 most important people in the Information Age, or in Graydon Carter's (Editor-in-Chief's) world.
At the top of the list are the world's corporate power players - CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Apple, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, Google, BlackRock, and News Corp. Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt come in at #8, the highest ranked celebrities on the power list:
8. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (Actors, activists) LAST YEAR: 9.
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The tabloid-haunted, globe-trotting couple reminded us that they both can really act with Pitt’s Oscar-nominated performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Jolie’s in Clint Eastwood’s Changeling.
VOX POPULI: A campaign formed on the Web to recruit Pitt to run for New Orleans mayor even though Pitt hasn’t lived there the requisite five years—Pitt, 45, and Jolie, 34, spent $3.5 million for a French Quarter house in 2007. He isn’t even registered to vote there, and when asked by the Today show’s Ann Curry whether he would enter the election, he replied, “I’m running on the gay-marriage, no-religion, legalization-and-taxation-on-marijuana platform. I don’t have a chance.”
BRAGGING RIGHTS: Jolie’s $27 million in earnings put her atop this year’s Forbes “Celebrity 100” list and ahead of erstwhile romantic rival Jennifer Aniston (who was quoted in Vogue as saying that it was “uncool” for Jolie to talk about how her relationship with Pitt developed while he was married to Aniston). Pitt, meanwhile, scored box office success with Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.
LATEST ACTS OF DO-GOODERY: The couple’s foundation donated $1 million to the United Nations to help the hundreds of thousands of refugees from violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It also donated $1 million for a cancer center in Springfield, Missouri, named after Pitt’s mother, Jane. Pitt gave $100,000 to the No on Prop 8 campaign in California and said that he and Jolie won’t get married until gay people can, too.
Others on the power list: Steven Spielberg (#11), JJ Abrams (#27), Judd Apatow (#29), Oprah (#38), George Clooney (#39), Meryl Streep (#40), AND STEPHENIE MEYER (#100)
Sources: Vanity Fair
