They were both famous authors and professional celebrities,
vain and gay, catty literary lions who concealed a claw behind every purr and
competed for attention on several levels at once. Having so much in common
wasn’t entirely a good thing for Gore Vidal and Truman Capote.
In the late 1940s, Vidal was visiting composer/author Paul
Bowles in Morocco, and his frenemy Capote was coming but didn't know Vidal was already
there. Vidal, delighted at the idea, insisted on going to the ship with Bowles
to surprise Capote. There was Capote on deck, waving in his Dr. Who scarf,
right up to the moment when he saw Vidal. Then his face fell like Daffy Duck's
and he literally sank beneath the railing.
“When he assumed a standing position again, he was no longer
grinning and waving,” Bowles recalled.
They crossed paths at a party in New York, where Vidal recounted that, not wearing his glasses, he sat down "on what I thought was a stool and it was Capote."
"Of course, I'm always sad about Gore," Capote told David Susskind. "Very sad that he has to breathe every day." Vidal later called Capote's death a "good career move."
Vidal dryly observed that Capote had "raised lying into an art — a minor art" and that he "belongs less to the history of literature than the history of public relations."
"I find on TV I am often supposed to talk about fashions and famous society ladies," Vidal said. "I then remind the host that I am the one who talks about politics and Capote is the one who tells naughty stories about the rich and Mailer is the messiah."
As for Norman Mailer, he famously threw the contents of a drink and an ineffectual punch into Vidal's face at a glitterati gala thrown in honor of Princess Margaret (who had sent her regrets, perhaps wisely). The incident prompted Russell Baker to write a column about the beatings that the "bloodthirsty" Henry James had delivered to his literary rivals. "James finally retired from pugilism after Edith Wharton knocked him out for 35 minutes with her famous powder-puff uppercut during a chance meeting at Alice Roosevelt's coming-out party," Baker wrote.
They crossed paths at a party in New York, where Vidal recounted that, not wearing his glasses, he sat down "on what I thought was a stool and it was Capote."
"Of course, I'm always sad about Gore," Capote told David Susskind. "Very sad that he has to breathe every day." Vidal later called Capote's death a "good career move."
Vidal dryly observed that Capote had "raised lying into an art — a minor art" and that he "belongs less to the history of literature than the history of public relations."
"I find on TV I am often supposed to talk about fashions and famous society ladies," Vidal said. "I then remind the host that I am the one who talks about politics and Capote is the one who tells naughty stories about the rich and Mailer is the messiah."
As for Norman Mailer, he famously threw the contents of a drink and an ineffectual punch into Vidal's face at a glitterati gala thrown in honor of Princess Margaret (who had sent her regrets, perhaps wisely). The incident prompted Russell Baker to write a column about the beatings that the "bloodthirsty" Henry James had delivered to his literary rivals. "James finally retired from pugilism after Edith Wharton knocked him out for 35 minutes with her famous powder-puff uppercut during a chance meeting at Alice Roosevelt's coming-out party," Baker wrote.
In 1965, Capote showed up in Rome, where Vidal was living.
“We had a pleasant drunken evening recalling who said what about whom, and I
must say my blood pressure began to rise, but then all ended well,” Vidal
recalled. “He has apparently finished that book (‘In Cold Blood’), though the
last two times I saw him he had just finished the book on each of those
occasions.”
“I can’t get over how his appearance has changed (I can hear
him on the subject of me), but he is an interesting brackish color now, rather
lined, with a jaw worthy of Somerset Maugham. For the first time in 20 years I
suspect that he is intelligent.”
“I found him positively affectionate, which is sinister,”
Vidal said. “What can he be up to?”
Vidal found he became even more popular once he acquired
that apartment in Rome with Howard Austen. "Dear Maureen O'Hara," he once
wrote. "Yes, you .... will be welcome (to come stay) ... You had better
have a lot of gossip and better than your meagre letter suggests. Meanwhile I
remain, as always, a Great American."
Vidal was a godfather to the children of Joanne Woodward, Kathleen Tynan, Claire Bloom and Susan Sarandon. "Always a godfather, never a god," he said.
Vidal was a godfather to the children of Joanne Woodward, Kathleen Tynan, Claire Bloom and Susan Sarandon. "Always a godfather, never a god," he said.
— Source: “Gore Vidal: A
Biography” by Fred Kaplan
No comments:
Post a Comment