2013年11月21日 星期四

Ronan Farrow : The Youngest Old Guy in the Room

Ronan Farrow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Farrow
Ronan Farrow (born Satchel Ronan O'Sullivan Farrow; December 19, 1987) is an American activist, journalist, lawyer and U.S. government advisor. He is the ...

News for ronan farrow

  1. Sydney Morning Herald ‎- 3 days ago
    But last month, in an interview with Vanity Fair, Farrow said that Ronan was ''possibly'' the son of Sinatra, adding: ''We never really split up.''.
     
     
     

    大放異彩的全能少年羅南·法羅

    人物2013年11月21日
    九月初的上東區,托里·伯奇(左)與羅南·法羅在《名利場》最佳着裝榜晚宴上。
    九月初的上東區,托里·伯奇(左)與羅南·法羅在《名利場》最佳着裝榜晚宴上。
    Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times
    「哇,他真帥,」一位出席晚餐的嘉賓從一大群攝影師的頭頂上看過去說道。
    「他差不多在30年內將會成為我們的總統,」另一位嘉賓興奮地說。
    10月21日在美國自然歷史博物館(American Museum of Natural History)舉辦的這場活動是為了給藍卡(Blue Card)募捐,藍卡是一個為納粹大屠殺倖存者提供幫助的組織,而晚餐上受到參加者集體誇獎的則是羅南·法羅(Ronan Farrow),一個25歲的律師、外交官、作家、天才少年、兩位名人的後代(雖然究竟哪兩位仍然沒有定論)、石膏雕塑般美貌的擁有者,以及本月加入 MSNBC電視頻道的最新人才;他將從明年1月起主持一個工作日節目。
    像是一位在畢業典禮上致告別辭的最優生那樣,羅南在向他表達良好祝 願的人群中慢慢前行,他金黃色的頭髮略顯凌亂。雖然羅南的履歷已與年齡兩倍於他的人相當,但作為一名公眾人物,他在過去一年中才嶄露頭角,他入選了《名利 場》全球最佳着裝榜,並開始用自己的Twitter賬戶發出尖刻評論,涉及從政治(「美國的領導都變成了南瓜」[Leadership in America just turned into a pumpkin])到大眾文化(「麥莉·賽勒斯基本上是我們這代人的西蒙娜·德·波伏娃」[Miley Cyrus is basically our generation』s Simone de Beauvoir])等各個領域。
    羅南是來領獎的,領一項表彰他的人道主義努力的獎,一起獲獎的還有他的母親、演員米婭·法羅(Mia Farrow),她在海登天文館燈光的照耀下,從一個角落裡觀察着這些喧嘩。米婭手端一杯紅葡萄酒說,「我為他感到非常地自豪。」她身穿一套深藍色的天鵝絨晚禮服,在與理乍得·C·霍爾布魯克(Richard C. Holbrooke)大使的遺孀凱蒂·馬頓(Kati Marton)交談,他們是羅南早年的提攜者。
    米婭·法羅(左)與凱蒂·馬頓和羅南·法羅坐在前排。後排左起為托馬克扎克·貝德納雷克,里奧納·卡恩和麗塔·克斯比。
    米婭·法羅(左)與凱蒂·馬頓和羅南·法羅坐在前排。後排左起為托馬克扎克·貝德納雷克,里奧納·卡恩和麗塔·克斯比。
    Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images
    馬頓說,「我和理乍得認識羅南時他還是個瘦巴巴的15歲的孩子。他曾常坐在理乍得辦公室外巨大的辦公桌旁,人們會走進來問,『那個孩子是誰?』」
    這個問題問得很好。羅南是米婭·法羅和伍迪·艾倫(Woody Allen)唯一的親生兒子,或者說他曾經是。米婭本月向《名利場》雜誌承認,她兒子的父親「可能」是她的前夫弗蘭克·西納特拉(Frank Sinatra),這條新聞令人頭暈目眩。從那時起,羅南的父親是誰,就成了小報的八卦素材,讓他自己發佈的最新消息相形見絀,羅南宣布將加入 MSNBC,而且正在寫一本名為《潘多拉的盒子》(Pandora』s Box)的書,書的出版商稱該書將揭露美國外交政策「驚人的陰暗面」。
    對這條新聞羅南本人用含糊其辭的幽默做出回應,他發貼給自己近14萬的Twitter關注者:「聽着,我們都有可能是弗蘭克的兒子。」(這個帖子已被轉發了約1萬次。)但是,問題依然存在,甚至連他在MSNBC的同事克里斯·馬修斯(Chris Matthews)也在一周前的一次圖書會上跟他開玩笑,稱他為「年輕的藍眼睛」。
    對羅南來說,西納特拉問題是伴隨其一生的困惑的一部分:當你的家庭 歷史令人們持續不斷地感興趣時,你怎樣才能靠自己的努力出名。或許是出於一種要超越父母傳奇的渴望,羅南的人生歷程比一般人至少要提早五年,在小學時他就 讀了卡夫卡(他媽媽在募捐會上說他讀的是《變形記》[The Metamorphosis]),11歲時他成了巴德學院位於馬薩諸塞州大巴靈頓的西蒙岩石分校(Bard College at Simon』s Rock in Great Barrington, Mass)招收的最年輕的學生。
    左圖:羅南·法羅和母親。米婭·法羅近期承認弗蘭克·西納特拉可能是她兒子的父親。右圖:1995年薩奇·法羅和伍迪·艾倫在拍攝地。
    左圖:羅南·法羅和母親。米婭·法羅近期承認弗蘭克·西納特拉可能是她兒子的父親。右圖:1995年薩奇·法羅和伍迪·艾倫在拍攝地。
    Left to right: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images; Ron Galella/WireImage
    他15歲時從巴德學院拿到了大學學位,16歲時被耶魯大學法學院(Yale Law School)錄取。21歲時,他到美國國務院(State Department)工作,進入霍爾布魯克的班子,後來他在國務院成為希拉里·羅德曼·克林頓(Hillary Rodham Clinton)的全球青年問題特別顧問。
    是不是已經覺得自愧不如了?還不止這些。2011年,他獲得羅德 (Rhodes)獎學金,這筆獎學金讓他得以在牛津大學(Oxford University)攻讀國際關係學位。這筆獎學金也讓他在父母高調分手近20 年後,重新進入公眾的視野。雖然他一直就在人們的眼前,但大家似乎十分震驚地發現,伍迪·艾倫的兒子竟然長成了一個金色頭髮的「超人」,就像是在他父親的 電影中扮演高富帥對手的那種。
    母親和兒子已不再與艾倫有任何關係,艾倫在20世紀90年代初與米婭收養的一個孩子宋宜·普列文(Soon-Yi Previn)之間的戀愛分裂了這個家庭。但羅南似乎已經掌握了用風趣來消弱自己離奇家史的技巧。2012年6月,他在twitter發貼說,「父親節快樂,或者用我家人的話來說,姐夫節快樂。
    他的母親轉發了這個帖子,還加了評論:「」。
    羅南·法羅在蘭卡慈善晚宴。
    羅南·法羅在蘭卡慈善晚宴。
    Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images
    叫羅南·法羅的這個人相對來說是個新發明。他出生時叫薩奇·法羅 (Satchel Farrow),是以進入棒球名人堂(Hall of Fame)的黑人投球手薩奇·佩吉(Satchel Paige)的名字命名的。他出生時,艾倫曾開玩笑說,「唯一的問題是,他長得更像愛德華·G·羅賓遜(Edward G. Robinson)。」
    他的父母是1979年在「依蓮」(Elaine\'s,一個社會名 流聚集的餐館及酒吧——譯註)相遇的,他們成為最具紐約特色的情侶之一,在10年中一起拍了13部電影。他們一直沒有結婚,分別住在中央公園 (Central Park)的兩邊,米婭和她的寵物們(1991年時是「兩隻貓、一隻金絲雀、一隻長尾鸚鵡、幾隻毛絲鼠,還有各種各樣的熱帶魚」)以及她一大窩越來越多的 孩子們住在一起,目前她有四個親生孩子和八個收養的孩子,其中不少來自極其貧困和偏遠國家。
    1992年1月,米婭發現了在艾倫的公寓里拍攝的宋宜的裸照。之後 爆發的一場有關監護權的惡戰,極為令人震驚,這個家庭生活的方方面面都被曝露在法庭和媒體面前,包括薩奇對艾倫的桀驁不馴行為,那時艾倫與兒子見面必須是 在有人監督的情況下。一個社會工作者在法庭上作證說,薩奇會用手抹去父親的親吻,然後問這樣的問題,比如,「你為什麼不給媽媽錢?」
    艾倫失去了監護權,自那時起,羅南一直與父親保持着距離,後來他曾告訴一位採訪者說,「他是我父親,卻娶了我姐姐。這讓我既是他兒子,又是他的小舅子。這是何等的道德淪喪。」
    法庭審判結束後,米婭把她的孩子們搬到她在康涅狄格鄉下弗洛格霍洛 的家裡。她家的一個朋友戴安娜·索耶(Diane Sawyer)回憶法羅家時說,「孩子們在屋裡翻筋斗、亂跑,到處都是刺耳的叫聲」,她說薩奇小時候很「警惕」,有「極好的幽默感」。(他以前的一位保姆 曾稱他是「一個呆在傻乎乎的小孩身體里的老成之人」。)
    到了1999年,薩奇已經在用謝默斯的別名,並在西蒙岩石分校學習拉丁文和生物學,他比班上大多數同學都小6歲,每天他被車送到學校,有時候是他母親開車。據傳他曾經喜歡過的一個女學生那時曾說過這樣的話:「我認為他很可愛,但對我來說他太小了點。」
    很快他就開始讀巴德學院的大學課程,其中包括傳記作家伊麗莎白·弗 蘭克(Elizabeth Frank)講授的大學二年級的文學課。弗蘭克回想起他寫的一篇關於哈克貝里·芬(Huckleberry Finn)的「絕佳」作文時說,「大家都很喜歡他、羨慕他,也極為尊重他。他處處表現出一種尋常的態度。」
    大約在那同時,他開始關心母親為之操心的人道主義事業。作為聯合國 兒童基金會(Unicef)的一位青年發言人,他曾去過安哥拉和蘇丹,並把自己在那裡拍的照片在學校作過展覽。羅南經常把自己的、由來自世界各地的人組成 的家庭描述為他對外交感興趣的基礎。「我長大的過程中,坐在我桌子對面的是摩西(Moses),他患有腦癱;坐在我旁邊的是姐姐昆西(Quincy),她 的生母是城市貧民窟里的一位吸毒成癮者;還有雙目失明的敏(Minh),」他對《名利場》雜誌這樣說,他補充道,「我看到了問題和需求,所以接下來想的 是:好吧,你能為這些做點什麼呢?」
    當他進入耶魯大學法學院時,大多數時間他已經在用自己的中間名羅 南。(謝默斯這個名字太容易被人念錯。)他在紐黑文的第一年選了一門蔡美兒(Amy Chua)講授的有關國際商務交易的課,她是育兒宣言《虎媽戰歌》(Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother)的作者。
    蔡美兒說,「不知何人曾告訴過我他只有16歲,但坦率地說,我很快就把這一點給忘了。他不可思議地早熟。我覺得沒有人注意到他的年齡,這很令人吃驚,因為耶魯大學法學院里也有30幾歲,40幾歲的學生。」
    當他身世的話題被提起時,他沉默不語。蔡美兒說,「他從一開始就幾乎一直堅持,決不沾父親或是母親的任何光兒。」(在被問及米婭是否算得上一位虎媽時,蔡美兒說,「絕對是!」)
    2009年霍爾布魯克成為奧巴馬總統(President Obama)駐阿富汗和巴基斯坦特使,他帶着羅南進了國務院。羅南在喀布爾、伊斯蘭堡和華盛頓呆了兩年後,開始為國務卿克林頓的一個特別小組工作,這個小 組後來成為全球青年問題辦公室,其目的是在40多個國家裡吸引年輕人關心國際事務。
    當他不忙於世界上的各種活動時,他也會為華盛頓的社交圈子增添光 彩,他經常與曾任奧巴馬演講稿撰寫人的喬恩·洛維特(Jon Lovett)一起出現在政治慶典上,洛維特也是《總統一家》(1600 Penn)這部電視連續劇的聯合策劃者。然而,雖然羅南在社交媒體上開玩笑,但他極少言及自己的私人生活,暗示着背後的一種比他所表現出來的要更為嚴肅的 人物形象。(媒體接連不斷地發給他要求採訪的請求,他通過MSNBC的一位女發言人婉言拒絕了為本文接受詳細採訪。)
    這種人物形象將會在MSNBC得到檢驗,作為該電視台唯一的一位20幾歲的單獨主持人,他將再次成為房間里最年輕的人。MSNBC總裁菲爾·格里芬(Phil Griffin)說,「他比自己的年齡成熟得多。」看來他給羅南在這家電視台的定位是千禧年一代的台內代表。
    他轉向電視廣播似乎暗示着他有接受自己名人身份的意願,當然這要按 照他的條件行事。索耶說,「這正是他能夠用自己聲音的時刻。」索耶幫他出過主意,是關於他需要的「那種多層次的人」支持自己剛剛起步的電視職業生涯的, 「我已經告訴他,『如果對於任何你想做的事兒,我能給你講有個警世故事的話,我會儘力而為。』」
    他在聚光燈下的從容自如在藍卡募捐會上有明顯表現,在會上他被授予 理乍得·
霍爾布魯克社會正義獎(Richard C. Holbrooke Award for Social Justice)。他談到霍爾布魯克就像是談一位父親,好像他需要更多的父親似的,霍爾布魯克是在淋浴中面試羅南,給了他國務院的工作機會。羅南開玩笑地 說,「那是一場典型的理乍得·霍爾布魯克的高壓攻勢。」他就像一個充滿自信的接受猶太教受戒禮的13歲男孩,把滿堂頭髮花白的人都逗樂了。
    羅南在台上講道,「他給我的教導之一是,無論面臨什麼樣的困難,你必須為自己所採取的立場而戰。你必須接受挑戰,把挑戰轉化為面對外部世界的力量,來喚醒他人,來糾正不公。」
    不可否認,他已經將這一教導發揮得淋漓盡致,把自己充滿逆境的童年轉變為各種事業的平台,也越來越多地轉變為自己發展的平台。後來,在服務員們正把主菜的餐具拿下時,大廳前方出現了一張顯眼的空椅子。
    晚餐主持人說,「羅南·法羅不得不告辭。他明天要上『早安,喬』(Morning Joe)的節目。」
    本文最初發表於2013年10月27日。
    翻譯:張亮亮


    Ronan Farrow: The Youngest Old Guy in the Room

    November 21, 2013
     
     
    “Wow, he’s handsome,” one dinner guest said, peering over a throng of photographers.
    “He’s going to be our president in, like, 30 years,” another gushed.
    The event, last Monday at the American Museum of Natural History, was a benefit for the Blue Card, which aids Holocaust survivors, and the object of the room’s collective kvelling was Ronan Farrow, the 25-year-old lawyer, diplomat, author, boy genius, offspring of two celebrities (though which two is an open question), possessor of alabaster good looks and, as of this month, the latest talent to join MSNBC, where he will host a weekday show starting in January.
    Like a styled valedictorian, Mr. Farrow worked his way through the well wishers, his corn-colored hair lightly tousled. Though he already has the résumé of someone twice his age, in the last year Mr. Farrow has come into his own as a public figure, appearing on Vanity Fair’s international best-dressed list and applying his spiky Twitter commentary to everything from politics (“Leadership in America just turned into a pumpkin”) to pop culture (“Miley Cyrus is basically our generation’s Simone de Beauvoir”).
    Mr. Farrow was there to receive an award for his humanitarian efforts, along with his mother, the actress Mia Farrow, who observed the hoopla from a corner, illuminated by the glow of the Hayden Planetarium. “I’m very proud of him,” Ms. Farrow said, cradling a glass of red wine. Dressed in dark-blue velvet, she was talking with Kati Marton, the widow of the ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, an early mentor of Mr. Farrow.

    “Richard and I met Ronan when he was a scrawny 15-year-old,” Ms. Marton said. “He used to sit at a huge desk outside Richard’s office, and people would come in and say, ‘Who’s that kid?’ ”
    Good question. Mr. Farrow is the only biological son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen. Or at least he used to be. In Vanity Fair this month, Ms. Farrow made the head-spinning admission that her son’s father is “possibly” her ex-husband Frank Sinatra. Since then, Mr. Farrow’s paternity has become tabloid fodder, upstaging his announcements: that he would join MSNBC and that he is writing a book, “Pandora’s Box,” which its publisher said will expose the “surprising dark side” of American foreign policy.
    Mr. Farrow, for his part, responded to the speculation with coy humor, tweeting to his nearly 140,000 followers: “Listen, we’re all *possibly* Frank Sinatra’s son.” (The comment has been retweeted almost 10,000 times.) Nevertheless, the issue persisted, even from his new MSNBC colleague Chris Matthews, who teased him at a book party a week ago by calling him “Young blue eyes.”
    For Mr. Farrow, the Sinatra question is part of a lifelong quandary: how to make a name based on your accomplishments when your family history is so relentlessly interesting. Perhaps driven by a desire to outpace his parental saga, Mr. Farrow has barreled through life at least five years ahead of schedule, reading Kafka in elementary school (“The Metamorphosis,” his mother said at the benefit) and becoming, at 11, the youngest student to enroll in Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Mass.


    At 15, he received a college degree from Bard, and at 16 was accepted to Yale Law School. At 21, he joined Mr. Holbrooke at the State Department, where he later became Hillary Rodham Clinton’s special adviser for global youth issues.
    Feel bad about yourself yet? There’s more. In 2011, he was awarded a Rhodes scholarship, for which he studied international relations at Oxford University. The scholarship marked the beginning of his drift back into the public eye, decades after his parents’ well-documented breakup. Though he had been hiding in plain sight, the world seemed stunned to discover that Woody Allen’s son had somehow turned into a fair-haired Übermensch, like the WASP rival in one of his father’s movies.
    Mother and son no longer talk to Mr. Allen, whose affair with one of Ms. Farrow’s adopted children, Soon-Yi Previn, tore the family asunder in the early ’90s. But Mr. Farrow seems to have mastered the art of deflating his eccentric history with dry wit. In June 2012, he tweeted, “Happy father’s day — or as they call it in my family, happy brother-in-law’s day.”
    His mother retweeted the comment, adding: “Boom.”

    Ronan Farrow is a relatively recent invention. He was born Satchel Farrow, named after the Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige. At his birth, Mr. Allen joked, “The only problem is, he looks like Edward G. Robinson.”
    His parents had met at Elaine’s in 1979 and become one of New York’s defining couples, making 13 movies together in 10 years. They never married, and lived on opposite sides of Central Park, Ms. Farrow with her pets (“two cats, a canary, a parakeet, several chinchillas and assorted tropical fish,” as of 1991) and her ever-expanding brood of children — now four biological and eight adopted, many from extreme poverty and far-flung countries.
    In January 1992, Ms. Farrow discovered nude pictures of Ms. Previn taken in Mr. Allen’s apartment. In the nasty and transfixing custody battle that ensued, every aspect of the family’s life was aired in court and in the news media, including Satchel’s recalcitrant behavior toward Mr. Allen, who was limited to supervised visits with his son. A social worker testified that the boy would wipe away his father’s kisses and ask questions like, “Why don’t you give mommy money?”
    Mr. Allen lost custody, and since then Mr. Farrow has kept his distance, later telling an interviewer, “He’s my father married to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral transgression.”
    After the trial, Ms. Farrow moved her children to Frog Hollow, her home in rural Connecticut. Diane Sawyer, a family friend, recalled the “tumbling around and racing and kid cacophony” of the Farrow household, describing young Satchel as “watchful,” with a “wicked sense of humor.” (A former nanny once called him “an old soul in a goofy little body.”)
    By 1999, Satchel was going by the nickname Seamus and studying Latin and biology at Simon’s Rock. Six years younger than most of his classmates, Seamus would be driven to campus each day, sometimes by his mother. A female student, whom he was reportedly sweet on, said at the time, “I think he’s adorable, but he’s just a little too young for me.”
    He soon transitioned into college classes at Bard, including a sophomore-level literature class taught by the biographer Elizabeth Frank. “Everyone liked him and admired him and respected him enormously,” Ms. Frank said, recalling a “wonderful” paper he wrote on Huckleberry Finn. “He just had this normality about him.”
    Around the same time, he embraced his mother’s humanitarian concerns. As a youth spokesman for Unicef, he traveled to Angola and Sudan and exhibited his photographs back at school. Mr. Farrow often describes his multinational family as the basis of his diplomatic interests. “I grew up across the table from Moses, who has cerebral palsy, and next to my sister Quincy, born of a drug-addicted inner-city mother, and Minh, who is blind,” he told Vanity Fair, adding: “I saw problems and needs, so the next thing you think is: O.K., what are you going to do about it?”
    By the time he entered Yale Law School, he was going mostly by his middle name, Ronan. (Seamus was too easily mispronounced.) His first year in New Haven, he took a class on international business transactions taught by Amy Chua, author of the child-rearing manifesto “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”
    “I was told somehow that he was 16, but honestly I just quickly forgot about that,” Ms. Chua said. “He was incredibly precocious. I don’t think anybody noticed, which is amazing, because we have students at Yale Law School who are in their 30s and 40s.”
    When the subject of his origins came up, he was reticent. “He has been almost adamant from the beginning about not ever riding on the coattails of either of his parents,” Ms. Chua said. (Asked if Ms. Farrow qualified as a tiger mother, she said, “Absolutely!”)
    When Mr. Holbrooke became President Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009, he took Mr. Farrow with him to the State Department. After spending two years in Kabul, Islamabad and Washington, Mr. Farrow began working on a task force for Secretary Clinton (which became the Office of Global Youth Issues) aimed at engaging young people in more than 40 countries.
    When he wasn’t busy navigating world events, he was adding some panache to the Washington social scene, often appearing at political fetes with Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter and a co-creator of “1600 Penn.” Still, despite his waggish social-media presence, he is guarded about his private life, suggesting a persona more carefully calibrated than he lets on. (He has been bombarded with interview requests and, through an MSNBC spokeswoman, declined to be interviewed at length for this article.)
    That persona will be tested at MSNBC, where, as the only solo host in his 20s, he will again be the youngest in the room. “He’s a man beyond his years,” said Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, who seems to be positioning Mr. Farrow as the network’s in-house millennial.
    His pivot to broadcasting seems to signal a willingness to embrace his celebrity — on his terms. “This is just a moment where he is able to use his voice,” said Ms. Sawyer, who has advised him on the “the kind of layered people” he needs to support his fledgling TV career. “I’ve told him, ‘If there is anything you want to do that I have a cautionary tale about, I’ll be there.’ ”
    His comfort in the spotlight was evident at the Blue Card benefit, where he received the Richard C. Holbrooke Award for Social Justice. He spoke of Mr. Holbrooke like a father — as if he needed more — who interviewed him for the State Department from the shower. “That was a classic Richard Holbrooke power play,” he joked, working the gray-haired crowd like a self-assured bar mitzvah boy.
    “Part of what he taught me is that you have to fight to take a stand no matter what adversity you face,” Mr. Farrow said onstage. “And you have to take adversity and turn it outward toward the world, to educate others and to right wrongs.”
    Certainly, he has taken that lesson to its extreme, turning his adversity-filled early childhood into a platform for various causes — and, increasingly, for himself. Later, as the wait staff cleared the main course, there was a conspicuous empty chair at the front of the hall.
    “Ronan Farrow had to leave,” the M.C. announced. “He’s going to be on ‘Morning Joe’ tomorrow.”

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