Inside the creative collaboration that turned JFK Jr.’s political magazine into a sexed-up cultural moment

‘We got really good at taking something completely not visual and making it visual.’

It was 1997, and Matt Berman, the creative director of JFK Jr.’s George magazine, had just gotten back to his hotel in Los Angeles. He had left the ‘Garden of Eden’ style set he’d concocted for the cover of the September issue: lush with greenery and replete with live animals. It would reach peak ripeness once the star, Pam Anderson, arrived on set the next day as the “first woman,” to illustrate a feature on the 20 most fascinating women in politics.