Know Your History: Truman Capote
LGBT, NewsBites, Society & Culture — By Speak Equal on October 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Truman Capote
Rising above a troubled childhood characterized by divorce, a long absence from his mother, and multiple migrations, he discovered his calling by the age of eleven and for the rest of his childhood honed his craft. As a professional writer, Capote started out as a composer of short stories. The critical success of one story, “Miriam” (1945) attracted the attention of the publisher Bennett Cerf, resulting in a contract with Random House to write a novel. The result was Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948). He attained instant celebrity as a result of the portrait photo which was used in promoting this first novel: in it he gazes smolderingly into the camera while reclining. He was invited to be a screenwriter. In the 1950s, his greatest success was a novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which was made into a very popular film starring Audrey Hepburn in the role of Holly Golightly. Capote’s earned the most fame with In Cold Blood (1965), a journalistic work about the murder of four members of a Kansas farm family in their home, a book Capote spent four years writing. It was the peak of his career, although it was not his final book. In the 1970s, he maintained his celebrity by appearing on television talk shows. He spent years “on the skids” as an alcoholic.
Capote was openly homosexual. One of his first serious lovers was Smith College literature professor Newton Arvin, who won the National Book Award for his Herman Melville biography.
Capote was well known for his distinctive, high-pitched voice and odd vocal mannerisms, his offbeat manner of dress and his fabrications. He often claimed to intimately know people he had in fact never met, such as Greta Garbo. He professed to have had numerous liaisons with men thought to be heterosexual, including, he claimed, Errol Flynn. He traveled in an eclectic array of social circles, hobnobbing with authors, critics, business tycoons, philanthropists, Hollywood and theatrical celebrities, royalty, and members of high society, both in the U.S. and abroad. Part of his public persona was a longstanding rivalry with writer Gore Vidal. Their rivalry prompted Tennessee Williams to complain: “You would think they were running neck-and-neck for some fabulous gold prize.” Apart from his favorite authors (Willa Cather, Isak Dinesen, Marcel Proust), Capote had faint praise for other writers. However, one who did get his favorable endorsement was journalist Lacey Fosburgh, author of Closing Time: The True Story of the Goodbar Murder (1977). He also claimed an admiration for Andy Warhol’s The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B & Back Again.
Capote died in Los Angeles, California, on August 25, 1984, aged 59. According to the coroner’s report the cause of death was “liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication”. He died at the home of his old friend Joanne Carson, ex-wife of late-night TV host Johnny Carson, on whose program Capote had been a frequent guest. He was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, leaving behind his longtime companion, author Jack Dunphy.
[1] Wikipedia – http://wikipedia.org
Tags: gays in history, GLBT, Grand Rapids, Know Your History, LGBT, LGBT, LGBTQ, Michigan, Speak Equal, Truman Capote
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