Classic Reissue: Who the Hell is Allegra Coleman?

When is a profile not a profile? How about when the subject is a fiction?

This reissue of the Gossip Reading Club delves into a publishing experiment that tried to sell an actress who didn’t exist, all in the name of mocking the star machine that the magazine doing it was a part of.

Esquire. "Dream Girl." November 1, 1996. Martha Sherrill.

(Read the profile here.)

What are your least favourite profile tropes? The needlessly detailed descriptions of the subject’s lunch choices? The exhaustive list of questionable imagery to show how beautiful the actress is? The weird projecting of the journalist’s sex drive onto some poor woman who just wants to do her job? As we’ve detailed in this very newsletter, it’s a lot harder to write a good celebrity profile than one would initially expect. Falling into the perils and pitfalls of the genre is all too simple, and often it’s not the writer’s fault. What do you do when you’re stuck trying to pad out 4000 words after receiving 30 cagey minutes with your subject and their publicist has outlined all the stuff you’re not allowed to mention? Besides, it’s more beneficial to these publications to be kind to their cover star, if a touch over the top.