He added that it can eventually translate not just to film roles but to advertising contracts. Barrymore, who wrote directly to Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor, to campaign for a cover in 2005, according to Miller, is the current face of Gucci fine jewelry and the latest face of CoverGirl cosmetics. "That first cover was a power tool in putting her out there," Miller said.
More than a talk show appearance or a stroll along the red carpet, a magazine photo shoot, with its army of enablers to select the right clothing and makeup, casts a performer in the best light. "It's a safe atmosphere where the star has some control of her image, her words and the fashion that she is putting out there," Sloane Zelnik said.
Winona Ryder must have thought so. Last August, five years after a humiliating trial and conviction for shoplifting, she was persuaded by Vogue's editors to pose for the cover. It was Singer's job to reassure her. "Before the shoot I told her, 'You can show your face to the world in the context of clothes in which you look beautiful,'" she recalled. If an actress is hoping to dust herself off after a fall, she added, "this is a good way to do it."
Of course it also pays returns for the magazines, as scandal-craving readers snap up the issues, which often promise a star's first on-the-record account of her troubles. And if the interview is anodyne - or even nonexistent - there are always the pictures. Lohan's Marilyn Monroe-inspired striptease for New York was the magazine's biggest selling issue of the past four years, a company spokeswoman said.
RSS