Image: Arnold Newman. Gore Vidal, NY, 1947, 1947. The Gore Vidal Papers / Houghton Library, Harvard University.
GORE VIDAL, 1925-2012
"We are the United States of Amnesia, we learn nothing because we remember nothing.” —Gore Vidal
All,
Another very important and truly legendary American writer, artist, critic, and public intellectual has left us. The great Gore Vidal (1925-2012) was a major and even pivotal member of an extraordinary generation of leading writers and intellectuals born in the United States during the 1920s and early '30s--a feisty, highly independent, and dynamic group that included such iconic individuals as Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Toni Morrison, Susan Sontag, Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, John A. Williams, Frank O'Hara, and Philip Roth among others--who frequently and openly challenged their own contemporary colleagues' ideas, positions, and stances and were often deeply critical of this society and culture (especially its notoriously reactionary and oppressive racial, gender, class, and sexual politics). Like many of his radical artistic contemporaries Vidal was never afraid to use his encyclopedic erudition, stinging wit, satirical sensibility, scathing historical insight and an incisive command of language and political analysis to not only tell the down and dirty truth about the times in which he lived and worked but to joyously and brilliantly celebrate and embrace what he considered great and useful in literature and the arts. Vidal also possessed that rare combination of intellectual and emotional honesty and steadfast courage in his writing that never ceased to cut to the very core of our real desires, anxieties, fears, and ambitions--whether he was considered 'right' or 'wrong' in his wicked observations by others. Prolific and precocious (he authored over 40 books in a nearly 70 year career that began when his first novel --"Willawaw-- was published when was only 19) Gore mastered a number of literary genres including fiction, essays, playwriting, social and cultural criticism, political journalism, and film screenwriting. As an often highly quotable and outspoken critic of what he saw as the timid, dishonest, and cowardly aspects of American life, Vidal famously said (sounding not unlike another great U.S. artist and peer/contemporary Miles Davis who was born only seven months after Vidal in 1926 and was also a past master of the quickwitted aphorism) that "Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn." Amen brother. RIP Mr. Vidal...
Kofi
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/books/gore-vidal-elegant-writer-dies-at-86.html?pagewanted=all
GORE VIDAL, 1925-2012 Prolific, Elegant, Acerbic Writer
by CHARLES McGRATH
August 1, 2012
New York Times
Gore Vidal, the elegant, acerbic all-around man of letters who presided with a certain relish over what he declared to be the end of American civilization, died on Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, where he moved in 2003, after years of living in Ravello, Italy. He was 86.
GORE VIDAL in a 1969 portrait. An author, screenwriter and essayist with definite opinions and no inhibitions about sharing them, he took great pleasure in being one of the larger-than-life figures of his time.
The cause was complications of pneumonia, his nephew Burr Steers said by telephone.
Mr. Vidal was, at the end of his life, an Augustan figure who believed himself to be the last of a breed, and he was probably right. Few American writers have been more versatile or gotten more mileage from their talent. He published some 25 novels, two memoirs and several volumes of stylish, magisterial essays. He also wrote plays, television dramas and screenplays. For a while he was even a contract writer at MGM. And he could always be counted on for a spur-of-the-moment aphorism, putdown or sharply worded critique of American foreign policy.
Perhaps more than any other American writer except Norman Mailer or Truman Capote, Mr. Vidal took great pleasure in being a public figure. He twice ran for office — in 1960, when he was the Democratic Congressional candidate for the 29th District in upstate New York, and in 1982, when he campaigned in California for a seat in the Senate — and though he lost both times, he often conducted himself as a sort of unelected shadow president. He once said, “There is not one human problem that could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.”
Mr. Vidal was an occasional actor, appearing, for example, in animated form on “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy,” in the movie version of his own play “The Best Man,” and in the Tim Robbins movie “Bob Roberts,” in which he played an aging, epicene version of himself. He was a more than occasional guest on TV talk shows, where his poise, wit, looks and charm made him such a regular that Johnny Carson offered him a spot as a guest host of “The Tonight Show.”
Television was a natural medium for Mr. Vidal, who in person was often as cool and detached as he was in his prose. “Gore is a man without an unconscious,” his friend the Italian writer Italo Calvino once said. Mr. Vidal said of himself: “I’m exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.”
Mr. Vidal loved conspiracy theories of all sorts, especially the ones he imagined himself at the center of, and he was a famous feuder; he engaged in celebrated on-screen wrangles with Mailer, Capote and William F. Buckley Jr. Mr. Vidal did not lightly suffer fools — a category that for him comprised a vast swath of humanity, elected officials especially — and he was not a sentimentalist or a romantic. “Love is not my bag,” he said.
By the time he was 25, he had already had more than 1,000 sexual encounters with both men and women, he boasted in his memoir “Palimpsest.” Mr. Vidal tended toward what he called “same-sex sex,” but frequently declared that human beings were inherently bisexual, and that labels like gay (a term he particularly disliked) or straight were arbitrary and unhelpful. For 53 years, he had a live-in companion, Howard Austen, a former advertising executive, but the secret of their relationship, he often said, was that they did not sleep together.
Mr. Vidal sometimes claimed to be a populist — in theory, anyway — but he was not convincing as one. Both by temperament and by birth he was an aristocrat.
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal Jr. was born on Oct. 3, 1925, at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where his father, Eugene, had been an All-American football player and a track star and had returned as a flying instructor and assistant football coach. An aviation pioneer, Eugene Vidal Sr. went on to found three airlines, including one that became T.W.A. He was director of the Bureau of Air Commerce under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mr. Vidal’s mother, Nina, was an actress and socialite and the daughter of Thomas Pryor Gore, the Democratic senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. Vidal, who once said he had grown up in “the House of Atreus,” detested his mother, whom he frequently described as a bullying, self-pitying alcoholic. She and Mr. Vidal’s father divorced in 1935, and she married Hugh D. Auchincloss, the stepfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis — a connection that Mr. Vidal never tired of bringing up. After her remarriage, Mr. Vidal lived with his mother at Merrywood, the Auchincloss family estate in Virginia, but his fondest memories were of the years the family spent at his maternal grandfather’s sprawling home in the Rock Creek Park neighborhood of Washington. He loved to read to his grandfather, who was blind, and sometimes accompanied him onto the Senate floor. Mr. Vidal’s lifelong interest in politics began to stir back then, and from his grandfather, an America Firster, he probably also inherited his unwavering isolationist beliefs.
Mr. Vidal attended St. Albans School in Washington, where he lopped off his Christian names and became simply Gore Vidal, which he considered more literary-sounding. Though he shunned sports himself, he formed an intense romantic and sexual friendship — the most important of his life, he later said — with Jimmie Trimble, one of the school’s best athletes. Trimble was his “ideal brother,” his “other half,” Mr. Vidal said, the only person with whom he ever felt wholeness. Jimmie’s premature death at Iwo Jima in World War II at once sealed off their relationship in a glow of A. E. Housman-like early perfection, and seemingly made it impossible for Mr. Vidal ever to feel the same way about anyone else.
After leaving St. Albans in 1939, Mr. Vidal spent a year at the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico before enrolling at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He published stories and poems in the Exeter literary magazine, but he was an indifferent student who excelled mostly at debating. A classmate, the writer John Knowles, later used him as the model for Brinker Hadley, the know-it-all conspiracy theorist in “A Separate Peace,” his Exeter-based novel.
Mr. Vidal graduated from Exeter at 17 — only by cheating, he later admitted, on virtually every math exam — and enlisted in the Army, where he became first mate on a freight supply ship in the Aleutian Islands. He began work on “Williwaw,” a novel set on a troopship and published in 1946 while Mr. Vidal was an associate editor at the publishing company E. P. Dutton, a job he soon gave up. Written in a pared-down, Hemingway-like style, “Williwaw” (the title is a meteorological term for a sudden wind out of the mountains) won some admiring reviews but gave little clue to the kind of writer Mr. Vidal would become. Neither did his second book, “In a Yellow Wood” (1947), about a brokerage clerk and his wartime Italian mistress, which Mr. Vidal later said was so bad, he couldn’t bear to reread it. He nevertheless became a glamorous young literary figure, pursued by Anaïs Nin and courted by Christopher Isherwood and Tennessee Williams.
In 1948 Mr. Vidal published “The City and the Pillar,” which was dedicated to J. T. (Jimmie Trimble). It is what we would now call a coming-out story, about a handsome, athletic young Virginia man who gradually discovers that he is homosexual. By today’s standards it is tame and discreet, but at the time it caused a scandal and was denounced as corrupt and pornographic. Mr. Vidal later claimed that the literary and critical establishment, The New York Times especially, had blacklisted him because of the book, and he may have been right. He had such trouble getting subsequent novels reviewed that he turned to writing mysteries under the pseudonym Edgar Box and then, for a time, gave up novel-writing altogether. To make a living he concentrated on writing for television, then for the stage and the movies.
Work was plentiful. He wrote for most of the shows that presented hourlong original dramas in the 1950s, including “Studio One,” “Philco Television Playhouse” and “Goodyear Playhouse.” He became so adept, he could knock off an adaptation in a weekend and an original play in a week or two. He turned “Visit to a Small Planet,” his 1955 television drama about an alien who comes to earth to study the art of war, into a successful Broadway play. His most successful play was “The Best Man,” about two contenders for the presidential nomination. It ran for 520 performances on Broadway before it, too, became a successful film, in 1964, with a cast headed by Henry Fonda and a screenplay by Mr. Vidal. It was revived on Broadway in 2000 and is now being revived there again as “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man.” Mr. Vidal’s reputation as a script doctor was such that in 1956 MGM hired him as a contract writer; among other projects he helped rewrite the screenplay of “Ben-Hur,” though he was denied an official credit. He also wrote the screenplay for the movie adaptation of his friend Tennessee Williams’s play “Suddenly, Last Summer.”
By the end of the ’50s, though, Mr. Vidal, at last financially secure, had wearied of Hollywood and turned to politics. He had purchased Edgewater, a Greek Revival mansion in Dutchess County, N.Y., and it became his headquarters for his 1960 run for Congress. He was encouraged by Eleanor Roosevelt, who had become a friend and adviser.
The 29th Congressional District was a Republican stronghold, and though Mr. Vidal, running as Eugene Gore on a platform that included taxing the wealthy, lost, he received more votes in running for the seat than any Democrat in 50 years. And he never tired of pointing out he did better in the district than the Democratic presidential candidate that year, John F. Kennedy.
In the ’60s Mr. Vidal also returned to writing novels and published three books in fairly quick succession: “Julian” (1964), “Washington, D.C.” (1967) and “Myra Breckinridge” (1968). “Julian,” which some critics still consider Mr. Vidal’s best, was a painstakingly researched historical novel about the fourth-century Roman emperor who tried to convert Christians back to paganism. (Mr. Vidal himself never had much use for religion, Christianity especially, which he once called “intrinsically funny.”) “Washington, D.C.” was a political novel set in the ’40s. “Myra Breckinridge,” Mr. Vidal’s own favorite among his books, was a campy black comedy about a male homosexual who has sexual reassignment surgery.
Perhaps without intending it, Mr. Vidal had set a pattern. In the years to come his greatest successes came with historical novels, especially what became known as his American Chronicles sextet: “Washington, D.C.,” “Burr” (1973), “1876” (1976), “Lincoln” (1984), “Hollywood” (1990) and “The Golden Age” (2000). He turned out to have a particular gift for this kind of writing. These novels were learned and scrupulously based on fact, but also witty and contemporary-feeling, full of gossip and shrewd asides. Harold Bloom wrote that Mr. Vidal’s imagination of American politics “is so powerful as to compel awe.” Writing in The Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt said, “Mr. Vidal gives us an interpretation of our early history that says in effect that all the old verities were never much to begin with.”
But Mr. Vidal also persisted in writing books like “Myron” (1974), a sequel to “Myra,” and “Live From Golgotha: The Gospel According to Gore Vidal” (1992), which were clearly meant as provocations. “Live From Golgotha,” for example, rewrites the Gospels, with Saint Paul as a huckster and pederast and Jesus a buffoon. John Rechy said of it in The Los Angeles Times Book Review, “If God exists and Jesus is His son, then Gore Vidal is going to Hell.”
In the opinion of many critics, though, Mr. Vidal’s ultimate reputation is apt to rest less on his novels than on his essays, many of them written for The New York Review of Books. His collection “The Second American Revolution” won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 1982. About a later collection, “United States: Essays 1952-1992,” R. W. B. Lewis wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Vidal the essayist was “so good that we cannot do without him,” adding, “He is a treasure of state.”
Mr. Vidal’s essays were literary, resurrecting the works of forgotten writers like Dawn Powell and William Dean Howells, and also political, taking on issues like sexuality and cultural mores. The form suited him ideally: he could be learned, funny, stylish, show-offy and incisive all at once. Even Jason Epstein, Mr. Vidal’s longtime editor at Random House, once admitted that he preferred the essays to the novels, calling Mr. Vidal “an American version of Montaigne.”
“I always thought about Gore that he was not really a novelist,” Mr. Epstein wrote, “that he had too much ego to be a writer of fiction because he couldn’t subordinate himself to other people the way you have to as a novelist.”
Success did not mellow Mr. Vidal. In 1968, while covering the Democratic National Convention on television, he called William F. Buckley a “crypto-Nazi.” Buckley responded by calling Mr. Vidal a “queer,” and the two were in court for years. In a 1971 essay he compared Norman Mailer to Charles Manson, and a few months later Mailer head-butted him in the green room while the two were waiting to appear on the Dick Cavett show. They then took their quarrel on the air in a memorable exchange that ended with Mr. Cavett’s telling Mailer to take a piece of paper on the table in front of them and “fold it five ways and put it where the moon don’t shine.” In 1975 Mr. Vidal sued Truman Capote for libel after Capote wrote that Mr. Vidal had been thrown out of the Kennedy White House. Mr. Vidal won a grudging apology.
Some of his political positions were similarly quarrelsome and provocative. Mr. Vidal was an outspoken critic of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and once called Norman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary, and his wife, the journalist Midge Decter, “Israeli Fifth Columnists.” In the 1990s he wrote sympathetically about Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for the Oklahoma City bombing. And after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he wrote an essay for Vanity Fair arguing that America had brought the attacks upon itself by maintaining imperialist foreign policies. In another essay, for The Independent, he compared the attacks to the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, arguing that both Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush knew of them in advance and exploited them to advance their agendas.
As for literature, it was more or less over, he declared more than once, and he had reached a point where he no longer much cared. He became a sort of connoisseur of decline, in fact. America is “rotting away at a funereal pace,” he told The Times of London in 2009. “We’ll have a military dictatorship pretty soon, on the basis that nobody else can hold everything together.”
In 2003 Mr. Vidal and his companion, Mr. Austen, who was ill, left their cliffside Italian villa La Rondinaia (the Swallow’s Nest) on the Gulf of Salerno and moved to the Hollywood Hills to be closer to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Mr. Austen died that year, and in “Point to Point Navigation,” his second volume of memoirs, Mr. Vidal recalled that Mr. Austen asked from his deathbed, “Didn’t it go by awfully fast?”
“Of course it had,” Mr. Vidal wrote. “We had been too happy and the gods cannot bear the happiness of mortals.” Mr. Austen was buried in Washington in a plot Mr. Vidal had purchased in Rock Creek Cemetery. The gravestone was already inscribed with their names side by side.
After Mr. Austen’s death, Mr. Vidal lived alone in declining health himself. He was increasingly troubled by a knee injury he suffered in the war, and used a wheelchair to get around. In November 2009 he made a rare public appearance to attend the National Book Awards in New York, where he was given a lifetime achievement award. He evidently had not prepared any remarks, and instead delivered a long, meandering impromptu speech that was sometimes funny and sometimes a little hard to follow. At one point he even seemed to speak fondly of Buckley, his old nemesis. It sounded like a summing up.
“Such fun, such fun,” he said.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 1, 2012
An earlier version misstated the term Mr. Vidal called William F. Buckley Jr. in a television appearance during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. It was crypto-Nazi, not crypto-fascist. It also described incorrectly Mr. Vidal’s connection with former Vice President Al Gore. Although Mr. Vidal frequently referred jokingly to Mr. Gore as his cousin, they were not related. And Mr. Vidal’s relationship with his longtime live-in companion, Howard Austen, was also described incorrectly. According to Mr. Vidal’s memoir “Palimpsest,” they had sex the night they met, but did not sleep together after they began living together. It was not true that they never had sex.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/gore-vidal-dead-author-playwright-intellectual-obituary_n_1726666.html
Gore Vidal Dead: American Intellectual, Author And Playwright Dies At 86
by HILLEL ITALIE
8/01/12 Huffington Post
In a world more to his liking, Gore Vidal might have been president, or even king. He had an aristocrat's bearing – tall, handsome and composed – and an authoritative baritone ideal for summoning an aide or courtier.
But Vidal made his living – a very good living – from challenging power, not holding it. He was wealthy and famous and committed to exposing a system often led by men he knew firsthand. During the days of Franklin Roosevelt, one of the few leaders whom Vidal admired, he might have been called a "traitor to his class." The real traitors, Vidal would respond, were the upholders of his class.
The author, playwright, politician and commentator whose vast and sharpened range of published works and public remarks were stamped by his immodest wit and unconventional wisdom, died Tuesday at age 86 in Los Angeles.
Vidal died at his home in the Hollywood Hills at about 6:45 p.m. of complications from pneumonia, his nephew Burr Steers said. Vidal had been living alone in the home and had been sick for "quite a while," Steers said.
Vidal "meant everything to me when I was learning how to write and learning how to read," Dave Eggers said at the 2009 National Book Awards ceremony, where he and Vidal received honorary citations. "His words, his intellect, his activism, his ability and willingness to always speak up and hold his government accountable, especially, has been so inspiring to me I can't articulate it."
Along with such contemporaries as Norman Mailer and Truman Capote, he was among the last generation of literary writers who were also genuine celebrities – regulars on talk shows and in gossip columns, personalities of such size and appeal that even those who hadn't read their books knew their names.
His works included hundreds of essays, the best-selling novels "Lincoln" and "Myra Breckenridge" and the Tony-nominated play "The Best Man," a melodrama about a presidential convention revived on Broadway in 2012. Vidal appeared cold and cynical on the surface, dispassionately predicting the fall of democracy, the American empire's decline or the destruction of the environment. But he bore a melancholy regard for lost worlds, for reason and the primacy of the written word, for "the ancient American sense that whatever is wrong with human society can be put right by human action."
Vidal was uncomfortable with the literary and political establishment, and the feeling was mutual. Beyond his honorary National Book Award, he won few major writing prizes, lost both times he ran for office and initially declined membership into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, joking that he already belonged to the Diners Club. (He was eventually admitted, in 1999).
But he was widely admired as an independent thinker – in the tradition of Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken – about literature, culture, politics and, as he liked to call it, "the birds and the bees." He picked apart politicians, living and dead; mocked religion and prudery; opposed wars from Vietnam to Iraq and insulted his peers like no other, once observing that the three saddest words in the English language were "Joyce Carol Oates." (The happiest words: "I told you so").
Ralph Ellison labeled him a "campy patrician." Vidal had an old-fashioned belief in honor, but a modern will to live as he pleased. He wrote in the memoir "Palimpsest" that he had more than 1,000 "sexual encounters," nothing special, he added, compared to the pursuits of such peers as John F. Kennedy and Tennessee Williams. Vidal was fond of drink and alleged that he had sampled every major drug, once. He never married and for decades shared a scenic villa in Ravello, Italy, with companion Howard Auster, who used the name Howard Austen professionally.
In print and in person, he was a shameless name dropper, but what names! John and Jacqueline Kennedy. Hillary Clinton. Tennessee Williams. Mick Jagger. Orson Welles. Frank Sinatra. Marlon Brando. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.
Vidal dined with Welles in Los Angeles, lunched with the Kennedys in Florida, clowned with the Newmans in Connecticut, drove wildly around Rome with a nearsighted Williams and escorted Jagger on a sightseeing tour along the Italian coast. He campaigned with Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman. He butted heads, literally, with Mailer. He helped director William Wyler with the script for "Ben-Hur." He made guest appearances on everything from "The Simpsons" to "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In."
Vidal formed his most unusual bond with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. The two exchanged letters after Vidal's 1998 article in Vanity Fair on "the shredding" of the Bill of Rights and their friendship inspired Edmund White's play "Terre Haute."
"He's very intelligent. He's not insane," Vidal said of McVeigh in a 2001 interview.
Vidal also bewildered his fans by saying the Bush administration likely had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks; that McVeigh was no more a killer than Dwight Eisenhower and that the U.S. would eventually be subservient to China, "The Yellow Man's Burden."
Christopher Hitchens, who once regarded Vidal as a modern Oscar Wilde, lamented in a 2010 Vanity Fair essay that Vidal's recent comments suffered from an "utter want of any grace or generosity, as well as the entire absence of any wit or profundity." Years earlier, Saul Bellow stated that "a dune of salt has grown up to season the preposterous things Gore says."
A longtime critic of American militarism, Vidal was, ironically, born at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., his father's alma mater. Vidal grew up in a political family. His grandfather, Thomas Pryor Gore, was a U.S. senator from Oklahoma. His father, Gene Vidal, served briefly in President Franklin Roosevelt's administration and was an early expert on aviation. Amelia Earhart was a family friend and reported lover of Gene Vidal.
Vidal was a learned, but primarily self-educated man. Classrooms bored him. He graduated from the elite Phillips Exeter Academy, but then enlisted in the Army and never went to college. His first book, the war novel "Williwaw," was written while he was in the service and published when he was just 20.
The New York Times' Orville Prescott praised Vidal as a "canny observer" and "Williwaw" as a "good start toward more substantial accomplishments." But "The City and the Pillar," his third book, apparently changed Prescott's mind. Published in 1948, the novel's straightforward story about two male lovers was virtually unheard of at the time and Vidal claimed that Prescott swore he would never review his books again. (The critic relented in 1964, calling Vidal's "Julian" a novel "disgusting enough to sicken many of his readers"). "City and the Pillar" was dedicated to "J.T.," Jimmie Trimble, a boarding school classmate killed during the war whom Vidal would cite as the great love of his life.
Unable to make a living from fiction, at least when identified as "Gore Vidal," he wrote a trio of mystery novels in the 1950s under the pen name "Edgar Box" and also wrote fiction as "Katherine Everard" and "Cameron Kay." He became a playwright, too, writing for the theater and television. "The Best Man," which premiered in 1960, was made into a movie starring Henry Fonda. Paul Newman starred in "The Left-Handed Gun," a film adaptation of Vidal's "The Death of Billy the Kid."
Vidal also worked in Hollywood, writing the script for "Suddenly Last Summer" and adding a subtle homoerotic context to "Ben-Hur." The author himself later appeared in a documentary about gays in Hollywood, "The Celluloid Closet." His acting credits included "Gattaca," "With Honors" and Tim Robbins' political satire, "Bob Roberts."
But Vidal saw himself foremost as a man of letters. He wrote a series of acclaimed and provocative historical novels, including "Julian," "Burr" and "Lincoln." His 1974 essay on Italo Calvino in The New York Review of Books helped introduce the Italian writer to American audiences. A 1987 essay on Dawn Powell helped restore the then-forgotten author's reputation and bring her books back in print. Fans welcomed his polished, conversational essays or his annual "State of the Union" reports for the liberal weekly "The Nation."
He adored the wisdom of Montaigne, the imagination of Calvino, the erudition and insight of Henry James and Edith Wharton. He detested Thomas Pynchon, John Barth and other authors of "teachers' novels." He once likened Mailer's views on women to those of Charles Manson. (From this the head-butting incident ensued, backstage at "The Dick Cavett Show.") He derided William F. Buckley, on television, as a "crypto Nazi." He was accused of anti-Semitism after labeling conservative Norman Podhoretz a member of "the Israeli fifth column." He labeled Ronald Reagan "The Acting President" and identified Reagan's wife, Nancy, as a social climber "born with a silver ladder in her hand."
In the 1960s, Vidal increased his involvement in politics. In 1960, he was the Democratic candidate for Congress in an upstate New York district, but was defeated despite Ms. Roosevelt's active support and a campaign appearance by Truman. (In 1982, Vidal came in second in the California Democratic senatorial primary). In consolation, he noted that he did receive more votes in his district in 1960 than did the man at the top of the Democratic ticket, John F. Kennedy.
Thanks to his friendship with Jacqueline Kennedy, with whom he shared a stepfather, Hugh Auchincloss, he became a supporter and associate of President Kennedy, and wrote a newspaper profile on him soon after his election. With tragic foresight, Vidal called the job of the presidency "literally killing" and worried that "Kennedy may very well not survive."
Before long, however, he and the Kennedys were estranged, touched off by a personal feud between Vidal and Robert Kennedy apparently sparked by a few too many drinks at a White House party. By 1967, the author was an open critic, portraying the Kennedys as cold and manipulative in the essay "The Holy Family." Vidal's politics moved ever to the left and he eventually disdained both major parties as "property" parties – even as he couldn't help noting that Hillary Clinton had visited him in Ravello.
Meanwhile, he was again writing fiction. In 1968, he published his most inventive novel, "Myra Breckenridge," a comic best seller about a transsexual movie star. The year before, with "Washington, D.C.," Vidal began the cycle of historical works that peaked in 1984 with "Lincoln."
The novel was not universally praised, with some scholars objecting to Vidal's unawed portrayal of the president. The author defended his research, including suggestions that the president had syphilis, and called his critics "scholar-squirrels," more interested in academic status than in serious history.
But "Lincoln" stands as his most notable work of historical fiction, vetted and admired by a leading Lincoln biographer, David Herbert Donald, and even cited by the conservative Newt Gingrich as a favorite book. Gingrich's praise was contrasted by fellow conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann, who alleged she was so put off by Vidal's "Burr" that she switched party affiliation from Democrat to Republican.
In recent years, Vidal wrote the novel "The Smithsonian Institution" and the nonfiction best sellers "Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace" and "Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta." A second memoir, "Point to Point Navigation," came out in 2006. In 2009, "Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare" featured pictures of Vidal with Newman, Jagger, Johnny Carson, Jack Nicholson and Bruce Springsteen.
Vidal and Auster chose cemetery plots in Washington, D.C., between Jimmie Trimble and one of Vidal's literary heroes, Henry Adams. But age and illness did not bring Vidal closer to God. Wheelchair-bound in his 80s and saddened by the death of Auster and many peers and close friends, the author still looked to no existence beyond this one.
"Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust at galaxy's edge," he once wrote, "all the more reason for us to maintain in proper balance what we have here. "Because there is nothing else. No thing. This is it. And quite enough, all in all."
Vidal is survived by his half-sister Nina Straight and half brother Tommy Auchincloss.
Writer Gore Vidal dead at 86 August 1, 2012 CBS NEWS
(AP) Gore Vidal, the author, playwright, politician and commentator whose novels, essays, plays and opinions were stamped by his immodest wit and unconventional wisdom, has died at the age of 86, his nephew said Tuesday.
Vidal died at his home in the Hollywood Hills at about 6:45 p.m. Tuesday of complications from pneumonia, Burr Steers said. Vidal had been living alone in the home and had been sick for "quite a while," he said.
Along with such contemporaries as Norman Mailer and Truman Capote, Vidal was among the last generation of literary writers who were also genuine celebrities — fixtures on talk shows and in gossip columns, personalities of such size and appeal that even those who hadn't read their books knew who they were.
His works included hundreds of essays; the best-selling novels "Lincoln" and "Myra Breckenridge"; the groundbreaking "The City and the Pillar," among the first novels about openly gay characters; and the Tony-nominated play "The Best Man," revived on Broadway in 2012.
Tall and distinguished looking, with a haughty baritone not unlike that of his conservative arch-enemy William F. Buckley, Vidal appeared cold and cynical on the surface. But he bore a melancholy regard for lost worlds, for the primacy of the written word, for "the ancient American sense that whatever is wrong with human society can be put right by human action."
Vidal was uncomfortable with the literary and political establishment, and the feeling was mutual. Beyond an honorary National Book Award in 2009, he won few major writing prizes, lost both times he ran for office and initially declined membership into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, joking that he already belonged to the Diners Club. (He was eventually admitted, in 1999).
But he was widely admired as an independent thinker — in the tradition of Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken — about literature, culture, politics and, as he liked to call it, "the birds and the bees." He picked apart politicians, living and dead; mocked religion and prudery; opposed wars from Vietnam to Iraq and insulted his peers like no other, once observing that the three saddest words in the English language were "Joyce Carol Oates." (The happiest words: "I told you so").
TIMELINE:
Gore Vidal
The author and playwright known for his acerbic political and social commentary dies at age 86
1925-2012:
Life of Gore Vidal
July 31, 2012
Vidal dies in Los Angeles. He is 86.
2012
"The Best Man" makes its Broadway run for the third time.
2009
2002
Bestsellers "Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace" and "Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta" are published.
2000
Vidal releases "Golden Age," a fictional novel with himself as one of the characters. "The Best Man" is revived on Broadway.
1984
Vidal publishes "Lincoln," about president Abraham Lincoln. It is vetted and admired by a leading Lincoln biographer, David Herbert Donald, and even cited by the conservative Newt Gingrich as a favorite book.
1983
Vidal's novel "Duluth," a comic portrait of the Minnesota city, is published.
March 1982
Vidal files his nominating papers to become an official contender for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate. He loses to California Gov. Edmond G. Brown Jr. in the Democratic primary.
1976
Vidal's historical novel "1876" is published.
1974
Vidal publishes "Myron," a sequel to "Myra." ABOVE: Vidal poses with his book "Myron." (AP File Photo)
1972
Vidal's acclaimed novel "Burr" is published.
1968
Vidal founds the People's Part, an antiwar group, with Dr. Benjamin Spock. He also publishes his most inventive novel, "Myra Breckenridge," a comic best seller about a transsexual movie star.
1967
AP Photo Though Vidal was previously a supporter of the the Kennedys, by this time he becomes an open critic, portraying them as as cold and manipulative in the essay "The Holy Family." ABOVE: President-elect John F. Kennedy looks at a button that Vidal wears backstage after attending the Broadway show “The Best Man” in New York on Dec. 6, 1960.
"The Best Man" becomes a Hollywood film.
1960
Vidal runs unsuccessfully as the Democratic-Liberal candidate for Congress from New York in 1960. His play, "The Best Man," about a political convention where the two most likely candidates are locked in a bitter battle, opens on Broadway. It runs for more than a year. Another one of his plays, "Visit to a Small Planet," is broadcasted on television, starring Jerry Lewis.
1948
Vidal writes "The City and The Pillar," known as the first American novel to deal openly with homosexuality.
1943
Vidal enters the Army. While stationed in the Pacific he writes his first novel, "Williwaw." He leaves the Army in 1946.
1942
Vidal graduates from Phillips Exeter Academy at age 17.
Oct. 3, 1925
Gore Vidal is born. As a child Vidal becomes interested in politics when he reads the Congressional Digest to his grandfather, a powerful senator from Oklahoma who is blind.
AP Photo/Tina Fineberg, File Vidal wins the Lifetime Achievement award at the 60th annual National Book Awards. ABOVE: Gore Vidal speaks at the National Book Awards in New York after Joanne Woodward, left presents him with the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
The author "meant everything to me when I was learning how to write and learning how to read," Dave Eggers said at the 2009 National Book Awards ceremony, when he and Vidal received honorary citations. "His words, his intellect, his activism, his ability and willingness to always speak up and hold his government accountable, especially, has been so inspiring to me I can't articulate it." Ralph Ellison labeled him a "campy patrician."
Vidal had an old-fashioned belief in honor, but a modern will to live as he pleased. He wrote in the memoir "Palimpsest" that he had more than 1,000 "sexual encounters," nothing special, he added, compared to the pursuits of such peers as John F. Kennedy and Tennessee Williams.
Vidal was fond of drink and alleged that he had sampled every major drug, once. He never married and for decades shared a scenic villa in Ravello, Italy, with companion Howard Austen.
Vidal would say that his decision to live abroad damaged his literary reputation in the United States. In print and in person, he was a shameless name dropper, but what names! John and Jacqueline Kennedy. Hillary Clinton. Tennessee Williams. Mick Jagger. Orson Welles. Frank Sinatra. Marlon Brando. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.
Mike Wallace is pictured with author Gore Vidal in the CBS newsroom, April 6, 1978. (Credit: CBS Photo Archives)© 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/02/gore-vidal-epitomized-an-era-when-writers-were-like-rock-stars.html
GORE VIDAL
1925-2012
Gore Vidal Epitomized an Era When Writers Were Like Rock Stars
by Malcolm Jones
Aug 2, 2012
THE DAILY BEAST
The late Gore Vidal was in his prime when books were central to the culture in a way they no longer are, and to mourn him is to mourn the world of which he was a part, writes Malcolm Jones.Did all the pundits and critics rush to say something about Gore Vidal’s passing because they thought it might be the last time they got to do something like this? You couldn’t blame them for thinking so. To call Vidal the last grand old man of American letters, you would have to first back up and explain to that portion of your audience under, say, 40, what a grand old man of American letters is. Eulogizing Vidal was to eulogize the now long-gone epoch he typified.
AP PhotoDo great writers still walk among us? Of course. Toni Morrison published a new novel just this year. Lately it seems that Joan Didion publishes a book every year. Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo—all productive writers, but every one of these authors is at least a little bit reticent, and all of them are private people. Reporters don’t call them for quotes, or if they do, they don’t call twice. These authors seem to think a writer’s job is to stay home and write.
When Vidal hit his stride as an author in the middle ‘60s, writers had the cachet of rock stars. People who never read a word he or Truman Capote wrote knew who they were, because they, along with Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe and a few others, took the trouble to promote themselves at least a little bit. They lived out their spats and quarrels in public and in the papers. They hustled their books on Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett, where they were at least as entertaining as Buddy Hackett and Phyllis Diller.
Vidal had the best of all this because he was quick-witted and by far the funniest. Mailer was mostly bluster, and Capote was just catty (“That’s not writing, that’s typing”), but Vidal could make you laugh, as he does—and always will—every time, for instance, that I have reason to remember his telegram responding to a request from Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward that he be godfather to their child: “Always a godfather, never a god.”
Thirty or 40 years ago, books and the people who wrote them were at the center of the culture in a way they no longer are. People argued fiercely about whether In Cold Blood was nonfiction, fiction, or some weird hybrid, and whether it was right to blur genres like that. Newsweek put Capote on its cover. About the only way a writer makes the front page today is if he gets arrested for plagiarism.
Vidal liked the spotlight, liked to perform (fascinating question: in all the interviews he ever gave, is he ever there or is it always just the public man putting on a show? He would have been the first to say that there was no inner man, that what you saw was all there was). But could he have had the same success in an era where people didn’t care if they saw authors in public or not? Maybe not. He wasn’t a great novelist, and that was his one bitter pill, since the culture then still craved a Great American Novel and authors were still trying to deliver some version of that chimera. His historical novels are good; Burr and Lincoln are very good. But everyone says his essays are what he’ll be remembered for, and this time everyone is right. He was an exquisite stylist. But he was also an excellent playwright and screenplay writer and script doctor. A man of letters, a man who made his living off what he wrote. Not many people can make that claim.
Thirty or forty ago, books and the people who wrote them were at the center of the culture in a way they no longer are.
I interviewed him once, over breakfast at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. He admitted that Lincoln mystified him. He showed me the bungalow used by Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth. This, I remember thinking, is where the stars hang out. He seemed completely at home.
Malcolm Jones writes about books, music, and photography for The Daily Beast and Newsweek, where he has written about subjects ranging from A. Lincoln to R. Crumb. He is the author of a memoir, Little Boy Blues, and collaborated with the songwriter and composer Van Dyke Parks and the illustrator Barry Moser on Jump!, a retelling of Brer Rabbit stories.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Gore Vidal’s Best Quotes: Sex, Politics, and More
Aug 1, 2012
The author and playwright was known for his politically and socially controversial novels and essays, as well as his quotable quips. The Daily Beast recalls some of Vidal’s most memorable comments.
On Sex:
"I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television."
"Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex certainly gives no meaning to anything in life but itself."
"There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices."
On Envy:
"Envy is the central fact of American life."
"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."
"Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little."
On Politics:
"Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so."
"Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice like, Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin."
"Fifty percent of people won't vote, and fifty percent don't read newspapers. I hope it's the same fifty percent."
"Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates."
"Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or woman President everything will be all right. But it won't be."
"As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days."
General:
"The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country— and we haven't seen them since."
"Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an I.Q. of 60"
"A good deed never goes unpunished."
"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn."
"The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes."
"The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so."
"There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise."
"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
http://www.gorevidalpages.com/2011/01/gore-vidal-bibliography.html
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS BY GORE VIDAL:
Essays and non-fiction:
Rocking the Boat (1963)
Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship (1969)
Sex, Death and Money (1969) (paperback compilation)
Homage to Daniel Shays (1972)
Matters of Fact and of Fiction (1977)
Views from a Window Co-Editor (1981)
The Second American Revolution (1982)
Vidal in Venice (1985)
Armageddon? (1987) (UK only)
At Home (1988)
A View From The Diner's Club (1991) (UK only)
Screening History (1992) ISBN 0-233-98803-3
Decline and Fall of the American Empire (1992) ISBN 1-878825-00-3
United States: essays 1952–1992 (1993) ISBN 0-7679-0806-6
Palimpsest: a memoir (1995) ISBN 0-679-44038-0
Virgin Islands (1997) (UK only)
The American Presidency (1998) ISBN 1-878825-15-1
Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings (1999)
The Last Empire: essays 1992–2000 (2001) ISBN 0-375-72639-X
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace or How We Came To Be So Hated, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002, (2002) ISBN 1-56025-405-X
Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, Thunder's Mouth Press, (2002) ISBN 1-56025-502-1
Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson (2003) ISBN 0-300-10171-6
Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia (2004) ISBN 1-56025-744-X
Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir (2006) ISBN 0-385-51721-1
The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal (2008) ISBN 0-385-52484-6
Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare (2009) ISBN 0-810-95049-9
Novels:
(*Part of the Narratives of Empire series.*)
Williwaw (1946; University Of Chicago Press, 2003) ISBN 0-226-85585-6
In a Yellow Wood (1947)
The City and the Pillar (1948; Vintage 2003) ISBN 1-4000-3037-4
The Season of Comfort (1949) ISBN 0-233-98971-4
A Search for the King (1950) ISBN 0-345-25455-4
Dark Green, Bright Red (1950) ISBN 0-233-98913-7
The Judgment of Paris (1952) ISBN 0-345-33458-2
Messiah (1954; Penguin Classics 1998) ISBN 0-14-118039-0
A Thirsty Evil (1956) (short stories)
Julian (1964; Vintage 2003) ISBN 0-375-72706-X
*Washington, D.C. (1967; Vintage 2000) ISBN 0-316-90257-8*
Myra Breckinridge (1968; Penguin Classics with Myron, 1997) ISBN 1125979488
Two Sisters (1970) ISBN 0-434-82958-7
*Burr (1973; Vintage 2000) ISBN 0-375-70873-1*
Myron (1974; Penguin Classics with Myra Breckinridge, 1997) ISBN 0-586-04300-4
*1876 (1976) ISBN 0-375-70872-3*
Kalki (1978) ISBN 0-14-118037-4
Creation (1981; Vintage 2002) ISBN 0-349-10475-1
Duluth (1983) ISBN 0-394-52738-0
*Lincoln (1984; Vintage 2000) ISBN 0-375-70876-6*
*Empire (1987) ISBN 0-375-70874-X*
*Hollywood (1990; Vintage 2000) ISBN 0-375-70875-8*
Live from Golgotha: The Gospel according to Gore Vidal (1992) ISBN 0-14-023119-6
The Smithsonian Institution (1998) ISBN 0-375-50121-5
*The Golden Age (2000) ISBN 0-375-72481-8*
Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories (2006) ISBN 978-0786718108
Screenplays:
Climax!: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1954) (TV adaptation)
The Catered Affair (1956)
I Accuse! (1958)
The Scapegoat (1959)
Ben Hur (1959) (uncredited)
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
The Best Man (1964)
Is Paris Burning? (1966)
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970)
Caligula (1979)
Dress Gray (1986)
The Sicilian (1987) (uncredited)
Billy the Kid (1989)
Dimenticare Palermo (1989)
Plays
Visit to a Small Planet (1957) ISBN 0-8222-1211-0
The Best Man (1960)
On the March to the Sea (1960–1961, 2004)
Romulus (adapted from Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1950 play Romulus der Große) (1962)
Weekend (1968)
Drawing Room Comedy (1970)
An Evening with Richard Nixon (1970) ISBN 0-394-71869-0
On the March to the Sea (2005)
Novels under pseudonyms:
A Star's Progress (aka Cry Shame!) (1950) as Katherine Everard
Thieves Fall Out (1953) as Cameron Kay
Death in the Fifth Position (1952; Vintage/Black Lizard 2011) as Edgar Box
Death Before Bedtime (1953; Vintage/Black Lizard 2011) as Edgar Box
Death Likes It Hot (1954; Vintage/Black Lizard 2011) as Edgar Box
Principal source: Wikipedia, February 2011.
Gore Vidal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vidal in New York City to discuss his 2009 book, Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare
Born Eugene Louis Vidal
October 3, 1925
West Point, New York, U.S.
Died July 31, 2012 (aged 86)
Hollywood Hills, California, U.S.
Pen name Edgar Box
Cameron Kay
Katherine Everard
Occupation Novelist, essayist, journalist, playwright
Nationality American
Period 1944–2012
Genres Drama, fictional prose, essay, literary criticism
Literary movement Postmodernism
Partner(s) Howard Austen
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( /ˌɡɔr vɨˈdɑːl/;[1][2] October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer known for his essays, novels, screenplays, and Broadway plays. He was also known for his patrician manner, Transatlantic accent, and witty aphorisms. Vidal came from a distinguished political lineage; his grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, and he later became a relation (through marriage) to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Vidal ran for political office twice and was a longtime political critic. He was a lifelong isolationist Democrat. As well known for his essays as his novels, Vidal wrote for The Nation, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the New York Review of Books and Esquire. Through his essays and media appearances, Vidal was a long time critic of American foreign policy. In addition to this, he characterised the United States as a decaying empire from the 1980s onwards. Additionally he was known for his well publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Truman Capote.
Vidal's novels fell into two distinct camps: social and historical. His best known social novel was Myra Breckinridge; his best known historical novels included Julian, Burr and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality. Vidal always rejected the terms of "homosexual" and "heterosexual" as inherently false, claiming that the vast majority of individuals had the potential to be pansexual. His screenwriting credits included the epic historical drama Ben-Hur (1959), involved a back story that spoke of a past affair, between two young men, but the content of the affair was left unsaid. Though mistaken by some as a "gay sub-plot", Vidal, in an interview with NPR, dismissed this notion by stating that the so called "affair" could have consisted of a number of various events within a young boys life, that it may have never involved physical contact, in his mind, and the only point to involving this was to draw more emotional power to a then weak script, since Vidal felt a mere political subject could not carry the film. Ben-Hur won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
At the time of his death he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J. D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and has been described as the 20th century's answer to Oscar Wilde.[3]
Early life
Vidal was born Eugene Louis Vidal, Jr. in West Point, New York, the only child of Eugene Luther Vidal (1895–1969) and Nina Gore (1903–1978).[4] The middle name, Louis, was a mistake on the part of his father, "who could not remember for certain whether his own name was Eugene Louis or Eugene Luther."[5] As Vidal explained in his memoir Palimpsest (Deutsch, 1995), "... my birth certificate says 'Eugene Louis Vidal': this was changed to Eugene Luther Vidal, Jr.; then Gore was added at my christening [in 1938]; then at fourteen I got rid of the first two names."[6]
Vidal was born in the Cadet Hospital of the United States Military Academy (West Point), where his father, a 1st Lieutenant, was the first aeronautics instructor. He was christened by the headmaster of St. Albans preparatory school, his future alma mater.[7] According to "West Point and the Third Loyalty", an article Vidal wrote for The New York Review of Books (October 18, 1973),[4] he later decided to be called Gore in honor of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Gore, Democratic senator from Oklahoma. Vidal biographer Fred Kaplan states in Gore Vidal: A Biography (1999) that Vidal added the middle name Gore at the time of his baptism in 1938, as well the correct Luther, becoming Eugene Luther Gore Vidal.[5] Later, at the age of 16, again according to Kaplan, Vidal dropped both of his first two names, saying, he "wanted a sharp, distinctive name, appropriate for an aspiring author or national political leader. 'I wasn't going to write as Gene since there was already one. I didn't want to use the Jr.'"[5]
Photo of Vidal by Carl Van Vechten, 1948
Vidal's father, a West Point football quarterback and captain, and an all-American basketball player, was director of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Air Commerce (1933–1937) in the Roosevelt administration,[8] was one of the first Army Air Corps pilots and, according to biographer Susan Butler, was the great love of Amelia Earhart's life.[9] In the 1920s and 1930s, he was a co-founder of three American airlines: the Ludington Line, which merged with others and became Eastern Airlines, Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT, which became TWA), and Northeast Airlines, which he founded with Earhart, as well as the Boston and Maine Railroad. The elder Vidal was also an athlete in the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics (seventh in the decathlon; U.S. pentathlon team coach).[10][11]
Gore Vidal's mother was a socialite who made her Broadway debut as an extra[12] in Sign of the Leopard in 1928.[13] She married Eugene Luther Vidal, Sr. in 1922 and divorced him in 1935.[14] She later married twice more; one husband, Hugh D. Auchincloss, was later the stepfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and, according to Gore Vidal, she had "a long off-and-on affair" with actor Clark Gable.[15] She was an alternate delegate to the 1940 Democratic National Convention.[16]
Vidal had four half-siblings from his parents' later marriages (the Rev. Vance Vidal, Valerie Vidal Hewitt, Thomas Gore Auchincloss, and Nina Gore Auchincloss Steers Straight) and four stepbrothers from his mother's third marriage to Army Air Forces Major General Robert Olds, who died in 1943, ten months after marrying Vidal's mother.[17] Vidal's nephews include the brothers Burr Steers, writer and film director, and painter Hugh Auchincloss Steers (1963–1995).[18][19]
Vidal was raised in Washington, D.C., where he attended Sidwell Friends School and then St. Albans School. Since Senator Gore was blind, his grandson read aloud to him and was often his guide. The senator's isolationism contributed a major principle of his grandson's political philosophy, which is critical of foreign and domestic policies shaped by American imperialism.[20] Gore attended St. Albans in 1939, but left to study in France. He returned following the outbreak of World War II and studied at the Los Alamos Ranch School in 1940, later transferring to Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire.[21] Roy Hattersley writes, "for reasons he never explained, he did not go on to Harvard, Yale or Princeton with other members of his social class."[22] Instead, Vidal enlisted in the US Navy, serving as a warrant officer, mostly in the North Pacific.[22] After three years, he contracted hypothermia, developed rheumatoid arthritis and became a mess officer.
Writing career
Fiction
Vidal, whom a Newsweek critic called "the best all-around American man of letters since Edmund Wilson,"[23] began his writing career in 1946 aged nineteen, with the publication of the military novel Williwaw, based upon his Alaskan Harbor Detachment duty. The novel was the first about World War II and proved a success for Vidal.[24] Published two years later in 1948, The City and the Pillar caused a furor for its dispassionate presentation of homosexuality. The novel was dedicated to "J.T." Decades later, after a magazine published rumors about J.T.'s identity, Vidal confirmed they were the initials of his alleged St. Albans-era love, James "Jimmy" Trimble III, killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima on March 1, 1945;[25] Vidal later said that Trimble was the only person he had ever loved.[26]
Orville Prescott, the book critic for the New York Times, found The City and the Pillar so objectionable that he refused to review or allow the Times to review Vidal's next five books.[27] In response, Vidal wrote several mystery novels in the early 1950s under the pseudonym Edgar Box. Featuring public relations man Peter Cutler Sargeant II,[28] their success financed Vidal for more than a decade.[29]
Gore Vidal in 2008 at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
He wrote plays, films, and television series. Two plays, The Best Man (1960) and Visit to a Small Planet (1955), were both Broadway and film successes.
In 1956, Vidal was hired as a contract screenwriter for Metro Goldwyn Mayer. In 1959, director William Wyler needed script doctors to re-write the script for Ben-Hur, originally written by Karl Tunberg. Vidal collaborated with Christopher Fry, reworking the screenplay on condition that MGM release him from the last two years of his contract. Producer Sam Zimbalist's death complicated the screenwriting credit. The Screen Writers Guild resolved the matter by listing Tunberg as sole screenwriter, denying credit to both Vidal and Fry. This decision was based on the WGA screenwriting credit system which favors original authors. Vidal later claimed in the documentary film The Celluloid Closet that to explain the animosity between Ben-Hur and Messala, he had inserted a gay subtext suggesting that the two had had a prior relationship, but that actor Charlton Heston was oblivious.[30] Heston denied that Vidal contributed significantly to the script.[31]
In the 1960s, Vidal wrote three novels. The first, Julian (1964) dealt with the apostate Roman emperor, while the second, Washington, D.C. (1967) focused on a political family during the Franklin D. Roosevelt era. The third was the satirical transsexual comedy Myra Breckinridge (1968), a variation on Vidal's familiar themes of sex, gender, and popular culture. In the novel, Vidal showcased his love of the American films of the 30s and 40s, and he resurrected interest in the careers of the forgotten players of the time including, for example, that of the late Richard Cromwell, who, he wrote, "was so satisfyingly tortured in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer."
After the staging of the plays Weekend (1968) and An Evening With Richard Nixon (1972), and the publication of the novel Two Sisters: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir (1970), Vidal focused on essays and two distinct themes in his fiction. The first strain comprises novels dealing with American history, specifically with the nature of national politics.[32] Critic Harold Bloom wrote, "Vidal's imagination of American politics ... is so powerful as to compel awe." Titles in this series, the Narratives of Empire, include Burr (1973), 1876 (1976), Lincoln (1984), Empire (1987), Hollywood (1990), The Golden Age (2000). Another title devoted to the ancient world, Creation, appeared in 1981 and then in expanded form in 2002.
The second strain consists of the comedic "satirical inventions": Myron (1974, a sequel to Myra Breckinridge), Kalki (1978), Duluth (1983), Live from Golgotha: The Gospel according to Gore Vidal (1992), and The Smithsonian Institution (1998).
Vidal occasionally returned to writing for film and television, including the television movie Gore Vidal's Billy the Kid with Val Kilmer and the mini-series Lincoln. He also wrote the original draft for the controversial film Caligula, but later had his name removed when director Tinto Brass and actor Malcolm McDowell rewrote the script, changing the tone and themes significantly. The producers later made an attempt to salvage some of Vidal's vision in the film's post-production.[33]
Essays and memoirs
Vidal is — at least in the U.S. — respected more for his essays than his novels.[34] Even an occasionally hostile critic like Martin Amis admitted, "Essays are what he is good at ... [h]e is learned, funny and exceptionally clear-sighted. Even his blind spots are illuminating."
For six decades, Gore Vidal applied himself to a wide variety of sociopolitical, sexual, historical and literary themes. In 1987, Vidal wrote the essays titled Armageddon?, exploring the intricacies of power in contemporary America. He pilloried the incumbent president Ronald Reagan as a "triumph of the embalmer's art." In 1993, he won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for the collection United States: Essays 1952–1992[35] According to the citation, "Whatever his subject, he addresses it with an artist's resonant appreciation, a scholar's conscience and the persuasive powers of a great essayist."[citation needed]
A subsequent collection of essays, published in 2000, is The Last Empire. He subsequently published such self-described "pamphlets" as Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, and Imperial America, critiques of American expansionism, the military-industrial complex, the national security state and the George W. Bush administration. Vidal also wrote an historical essay about the U.S.'s founding fathers, Inventing a Nation. In 1995, he published a memoir Palimpsest, and in 2006 its follow-up volume, Point to Point Navigation. Earlier that year, Vidal also published Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories.
Because of his matter-of-fact treatment of same-sex relations in such books as The City and The Pillar, Vidal is often seen as an early champion of sexual liberation.[36]
In the September 1969 edition of Esquire, for example, Vidal wrote:
We are all bisexual to begin with. That is a fact of our condition. And we are all responsive to sexual stimuli from our own as well as from the opposite sex. Certain societies at certain times, usually in the interest of maintaining the baby supply, have discouraged homosexuality. Other societies, particularly militaristic ones, have exalted it. But regardless of tribal taboos, homosexuality is a constant fact of the human condition and it is not a sickness, not a sin, not a crime ... despite the best efforts of our puritan tribe to make it all three. Homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality. Notice I use the word 'natural,' not normal.[37]
In 2005, Jay Parini was appointed as Vidal's literary executor.[38]
In 2009, he won the annual Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation, which called him a "prominent social critic on politics, history, literature and culture".[39]
Acting and popular culture
In the 1960s, Vidal moved to Italy; he gave a cameo appearance in Federico Fellini's film Roma. In 1992, Vidal appeared in the film Bob Roberts (starring Tim Robbins) and appeared in other films, notably Gattaca, With Honors, and Igby Goes Down, which was directed by his nephew Burr Steers. In 2005 he appeared as himself in artist Francesco Vezzoli's "Trailer for the Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula" piece of video art which was included in the 2005 Venice Biennale and is in the permanent collection of the Guggenheim Museum.[40] Vidal voiced himself on both The Simpsons and Family Guy and appeared on the Da Ali G Show, where Ali G mistakes him for Vidal Sassoon. He provided the narrative for the Royal National Theatre's production of Brecht's Mother Courage in the autumn of 2009.
Vidal was portrayed as a child in Amelia (2009) by Canadian actor William Cuddy, and as a young adult in Infamous (2006), the story of Truman Capote, by American actor Michael Panes.
Comedian Robin Williams depicted him as a drunk trying to push Thunderbird wine in a commercial on his first stand-up album, Reality...What a Concept. The weekly American sketch comedy television program; Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in did a recurring theme covertly featuring his personality by Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the Telephone Operator, such as one titled: "Mr. Veedul, this is the Phone Company calling! (snort! snort!)" (but other citations are spelled as; "Veedle").[41][42] This skit theme was also recorded other places such as Lily Tomlin's album; "This Is A Recording" titled "Mr. Veedle" by Rhapsody records.[43]
Political views and activities
Besides his politician grandfather, Vidal had other connections with the Democratic Party: his mother, Nina, married Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr., who later was stepfather of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Gore Vidal is a fifth cousin of Jimmy Carter.[citation needed] Vidal also may have been a distant cousin of Al Gore.[44][45]
As a political activist, in 1960, Gore Vidal was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress, losing an election in New York's 29th congressional district, a traditionally Republican district on the Hudson River, encompassing all of Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Schoharie, and Ulster Counties to J. Ernest Wharton, by a margin of 57% to 43%.[46] Campaigning with a slogan of "You'll get more with Gore", he received the most votes any Democrat in 50 years received in that district. Among his supporters were Eleanor Roosevelt, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward; the latter two, longtime friends of Vidal's, campaigned for him and spoke on his behalf.[47]
On the December 15, 1971 taping of The Dick Cavett Show, with Janet Flanner, Norman Mailer allegedly head-butted Vidal during an altercation prior to their appearance on the show.[48]
From 1970 to 1972, Vidal was one of the chairmen of the People's Party.[49] In 1971, he wrote an article in Esquire advocating consumer advocate Ralph Nader for president in the 1972 election.[50]
In 1982 he campaigned against incumbent Governor Jerry Brown for the Democratic primary election to the United States Senate from California. This was documented in the film, Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No directed by Gary Conklin. Vidal lost to Brown in the primary election.
Frequently identified with Democratic causes and personalities,[51][52] Vidal wrote in the 1970s:
"There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party ... and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently ... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties."[53]
Vidal had a protective, almost proprietary attitude toward his native land and its politics: "My family helped start [this country]", he wrote, "and we've been in political life ... since the 1690s, and I have a very possessive sense about this country."[55] At a 1999 lecture in Dublin, Vidal said:
"A characteristic of our present chaos is the dramatic migration of tribes. They are on the move from east to west, from south to north. Liberal tradition requires that borders must always be open to those in search of safety or even the pursuit of happiness. But now with so many millions of people on the move, even the great-hearted are becoming edgy. Norway is large enough and empty enough to take in 40 to 50 million homeless Bengalis. If the Norwegians say that, all in all, they would rather not take them in, is this to be considered racism? I think not. It is simply self-preservation, the first law of species.”[56]
He suggested that President Roosevelt deliberately provoked the Japanese to attack the U.S. at Pearl Harbor to facilitate American entry to the war, and believes FDR had advance knowledge of the attack.[57] During an interview in the 2005 documentary Why We Fight, Vidal asserts that during the final months of World War II, the Japanese had tried to surrender to the United States, to no avail. He said, "They were trying to surrender all that summer, but Truman wouldn't listen, because Truman wanted to drop the bombs." When the interviewer asked why, Vidal replied, "To show off. To frighten Stalin. To change the balance of power in the world. To declare war on communism. Perhaps we were starting a pre-emptive world war."[58]
During domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh's imprisonment, Vidal corresponded with McVeigh and concluded that he bombed the federal building as retribution for the FBI's role in the 1993 Branch Davidian Compound massacre near Waco in Elk, Texas.[59]
Vidal was a member of the advisory board of The World Can't Wait, a left-wing organization seeking to repudiate the Bush administration's program, and advocated the impeachment of George W. Bush for war crimes.[60]
Gore Vidal and former U.S. Senator George McGovern at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, August 26, 2009
In 1997, Vidal was one of 34 celebrities to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, published as a newspaper advertisement in the International Herald Tribune, which protested the treatment of Scientologists in Germany.[61] Despite this, Vidal was fundamentally critical of scientology.[62]
Vidal contributed an article to The Nation in which he expressed support for Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, citing him as "the most eloquent of the lot" and that Kucinich "is very much a favorite out there in the amber fields of grain".[63]
In April 2009, Vidal accepted appointment to the position of honorary president of the American Humanist Association, succeeding Kurt Vonnegut.[64]
On September 30, 2009, The Times of London published a lengthy interview with him headlined "We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US — The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it", which brings up-to-date his views on his own life, and a variety of political subjects.[65]
Vidal versus Buckley
In 1968, ABC News invited Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. to be political analysts of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions.[66] Verbal and nearly physical combat ensued. After days of mutual bickering, their debates degraded to vitriolic, ad hominem attacks. During discussions of the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, the men were arguing about freedom of speech with regard to American protesters displaying a Viet Cong flag when Vidal told Buckley to "shut up a minute" and, in response to Buckley's reference to "pro-Nazi" protesters, went on to say: "As far as I'm concerned, the only sort of pro-crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself." The visibly livid Buckley replied, "Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered." After an interruption by anchor and facilitator Howard K. Smith, the men continued to discuss the topic in a less hostile manner.[67] Buckley later expressed regret for having called Vidal a "queer," but nonetheless described Vidal as an "evangelist for bisexuality."[68]
Later, in 1969, the feud was continued as Buckley further attacked Vidal in the lengthy essay, "On Experiencing Gore Vidal", published in the August 1969 issue of Esquire. The essay is collected in The Governor Listeth, an anthology of Buckley's writings of the time. In a key passage attacking Vidal as an apologist for homosexuality, Buckley wrote, "The man who in his essays proclaims the normalcy of his affliction [i.e., homosexuality], and in his art the desirability of it, is not to be confused with the man who bears his sorrow quietly. The addict is to be pitied and even respected, not the pusher."
Vidal responded in the September 1969 issue of Esquire, variously characterizing Buckley as "anti-black", "anti-semitic", and a "warmonger".[37] The presiding judge in Buckley's subsequent libel suit against Vidal initially concluded that "[t]he court must conclude that Vidal's comments in these paragraphs meet the minimal standard of fair comment. The inferences made by Vidal from Buckley's [earlier editorial] statements cannot be said to be completely unreasonable."[citation needed] However, Vidal also strongly implied that, in 1944, Buckley and unnamed siblings had vandalized a Protestant church in their Sharon, Connecticut, hometown after the pastor's wife had sold a house to a Jewish family. Buckley sued Vidal and Esquire for libel. Vidal counter-claimed for libel against Buckley, citing Buckley's characterization of Vidal's novel Myra Breckinridge as pornography.[citation needed]
The court dismissed Vidal's counter-claim.[69] Buckley settled for $115,000 in attorney's fees and an editorial statement from Esquire magazine that they were "utterly convinced" of the untruthfulness of Vidal's assertion.[70] However, in a letter to Newsweek, the Esquire publisher stated that "the settlement of Buckley's suit against us" was not "a 'disavowal' of Vidal's article. On the contrary, it clearly states that we published that article because we believed that Vidal had a right to assert his opinions, even though we did not share them."
As Vidal's biographer, Fred Kaplan, later commented, "The court had 'not' sustained Buckley's case against Esquire ... [t]he court had 'not' ruled that Vidal's article was 'defamatory.' It had ruled that the case would have to go to trial in order to determine as a matter of fact whether or not it was defamatory. [italics original.] The cash value of the settlement with Esquire represented 'only' Buckley's legal expenses [not damages based on libel] ... " Ultimately, Vidal bore the cost of his own attorney's fees.[12]
In 2003, this affair re-surfaced when Esquire published Esquire's Big Book of Great Writing, an anthology that included Vidal's essay. Buckley again sued for libel, and Esquire again settled for $55,000 in attorney's fees and $10,000 in personal damages to Buckley.[citation needed]
After Buckley's death on February 27, 2008, Vidal summed up his impressions of his rival with the following obituary on March 20, 2008: "RIP WFB — in hell."[71] In a June 15, 2008, interview with the New York Times, Vidal was asked by Deborah Solomon, "How did you feel when you heard that Buckley died this year?" Vidal responded:
"I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred".[72]
Criticism of the George W. Bush administration
Vidal was strongly critical of the George W. Bush administration, once describing Bush as "the stupidest man in the United States"[73] and listing his administration as one of those he considered to have either an explicit or implicit expansionist agenda.[74] He also subscribed to the view that for several years the Bush administration and their associates aimed to control the petroleum of Central Asia (after gaining effective control of the petroleum of the Persian Gulf in 1991).[75]
In May 2007, discussing the many conspiracy theories surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Vidal said:
"I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I'm a conspiracy analyst. Everything the Bushites touch is screwed up. They could never have pulled off 9/11, even if they wanted to. Even if they longed to. They could step aside, though, or just go out to lunch while these terrible things were happening to the nation. I believe that of them."[76]
Personal life
A photo of Vidal by Carl Van Vechten
Vidal had affairs with both men and women. The novelist Anaïs Nin claimed an involvement with Vidal in her memoir The Diary of Anaïs Nin but Vidal denied it in his memoir Palimpsest. Vidal also discussed having dalliances with people such as actress Diana Lynn, and alluded to the possibility that he may have a daughter.[77] He was briefly engaged to Joanne Woodward, before she married Paul Newman; after eloping, the couple shared a house with Vidal in Los Angeles for a short time. In 1950, he met his long-term partner Howard Austen.[78] Vidal once reported that the secret to his lengthy relationship with Austen was that they did not have sex with each other: "It's easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part & impossible, I have observed, when it does."[79]
According to literary critic Harold Bloom, Vidal believed his homosexuality had denied him the full recognition of the literary community. Bloom, meanwhile, claimed this had more to do with Vidal's association with the unfashionable genre of historical fiction.[80]
During the latter part of the twentieth century Vidal divided his time between Italy and California. In 2003, he sold his 5,000-square-foot (460 m²) Italian Villa, La Rondinaia (The Swallow's Nest) on the Amalfi Coast, and moved to Los Angeles. Austen died in November 2003 and, in February 2005, was buried in a plot for himself and Vidal at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
Vidal died at his home in Hollywood Hills, California, at about 6:45 p.m. PDT July 31, 2012, of complications from pneumonia.[81][82] He was 86.
Vidal was an atheist,[83] and in 2009 was named honorary president of the American Humanist Association.[84]
Legacy
After Vidal's death tributes immediately poured in from various media sources. The New York Times described him in his obituary as being in his old age "an Augustan figure who believed himself to be the last of a breed, and he was probably right. Few American writers have been more versatile or gotten more mileage from their talent."[85] The Los Angeles Times described him as a "literary juggernaut" whose novels and essays were considered "among the most elegant in the English language".[86] The Washington Post remembered him as a "major writer of the modern era" and an "astonishingly versatile man of letters".[87]
UK's The Guardian said "Vidal's critics disparaged his tendency to formulate an aphorism rather than to argue, finding in his work an underlying note of contempt for those who did not agree with him. His fans, on the other hand, delighted in his unflagging wit and elegant style."[88] The Daily Telegraph described him as "an icy iconoclast" who "delighted in chronicling what he perceived as the disintegration of civilisation around him",[89] while BBC News said he was "one of the finest post-war American writers... an indefatigable critic of the whole American system. Writing in Los Angeles, BBC journalist Alastair Leithead said: "Gore Vidal saw himself as the last of the breed of literary figures who became celebrities in their own right. Never a stranger to chat shows, his wry and witty opinions were sought after as much as his writing."[90]
Popular Spanish publication Ideal reported Vidal's death as a loss to the "culture of the United States" and described him as a "Huge American novelist and essayist".[91] The Italian Il Corriere described him as "the enfant terrible of American culture" and said that he was "one of the giants of American literature".[92] French paper Le Figaro described him as "the Killjoy of America" but also said that he was an "outstanding polemicist" and that he used phrases "like high precision weapons."[93]
Following his death, despite generally positive appraisals by many, Vidal has been criticized by at least one commentator as "racist and elitist" and as "forever mourning the decline of his era of aristocratic privilege".[94]
Bibliography
Essays and non-fiction:
Rocking the Boat (1963)
Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship (1969)
Sex, Death and Money (1969) (paperback compilation)
Homage to Daniel Shays (1972)
Matters of Fact and of Fiction (1977)
Views from a Window Co-Editor (1981)
The Second American Revolution (1983)
Vidal In Venice (1985) ISBN 0-671-60691-3
Armageddon? (1987) (UK only)
At Home (1988)
A View From The Diner's Club (1991) (UK only)
Screening History (1992) ISBN 0-233-98803-3
Decline and Fall of the American Empire (1992) ISBN 1-878825-00-3
United States: Essays 1952–1992 (1993) ISBN 0-7679-0806-6 — National Book Award[35]
Palimpsest: a memoir (1995) ISBN 0-679-44038-0
Virgin Islands (1997) (UK only)
The American Presidency (1998) ISBN 1-878825-15-1
Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings (1999)
The Last Empire: essays 1992–2000 (2001) ISBN 0-375-72639-X (there is also a much shorter UK edition)
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace or How We Came To Be So Hated, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002, (2002) ISBN 1-56025-405-X
Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, Thunder's Mouth Press, (2002) ISBN 1-56025-502-1
Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson (2003) ISBN 0-300-10171-6
Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia (2004) ISBN 1-56025-744-X
Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir (2006) ISBN 0-385-51721-1
The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal (2008) ISBN 0-385-52484-6
Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare (2009) ISBN 0-8109-5049-9
Plays
Visit to a Small Planet (1957) ISBN 0-8222-1211-0
The Best Man (1960)
On the March to the Sea (1960–1961, 2004)
Romulus (adapted from Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1950 play Romulus der Große) (1962)
Weekend (1968)
Drawing Room Comedy (1970)
An Evening with Richard Nixon (1970) ISBN 0-394-71869-0
On the March to the Sea (2005)
Novels
Williwaw (1946) ISBN 0-226-85585-6
In a Yellow Wood (1947)
The City and the Pillar (1948) ISBN 1-4000-3037-4
The Season of Comfort (1949) ISBN 0-233-98971-4
A Search for the King (1950) ISBN 0-345-25455-4
Dark Green, Bright Red (1950) ISBN 0-233-98913-7 (prophecy of the Guatemala coup d'état of 1954, see "In the Lair of the Octopus" Dreaming War)
The Judgment of Paris (1952) ISBN 0-345-33458-2
Messiah (1954) ISBN 0-14-118039-0
A Thirsty Evil (1956) (short stories)
Julian (1964) ISBN 0-375-72706-X
Washington, D.C. (1967) ISBN 0-316-90257-8
Myra Breckinridge (1968) ISBN 1-125-97948-8
Two Sisters (1970) ISBN 0-434-82958-7
Burr (1973) ISBN 0-375-70873-1
Myron (1974) ISBN 0-586-04300-4
1876 (1976) ISBN 0-375-70872-3
Kalki (1978) ISBN 0-14-118037-4
Creation (1981) ISBN 0-349-10475-1
Duluth (1983) ISBN 0-394-52738-0
Lincoln (1984) ISBN 0-375-70876-6
Empire (1987) ISBN 0-375-70874-X
Hollywood (1990) ISBN 0-375-70875-8
Live from Golgotha: The Gospel according to Gore Vidal (1992) ISBN 0-14-023119-6
The Smithsonian Institution (1998) ISBN 0-375-50121-5
The Golden Age (2000) ISBN 0-375-72481-8
Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories (2006) (short stories, this is the same collection as A Thirsty Evil (1956), with one previously unpublished short story — Clouds and Eclipses — added)
Screenplays
Climax!: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1954) (TV adaptation)
The Catered Affair (1956)
I Accuse! (1958)
The Scapegoat (1959)
Ben Hur (1959) (uncredited)
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
The Best Man (1964)
Is Paris Burning? (1966)
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970)
Caligula (1979)
Dress Gray (1986)
The Sicilian (1987) (uncredited)
Billy the Kid (1989)
Dimenticare Palermo (1989)
Works under pseudonyms
A Star's Progress (aka Cry Shame!) (1950) as Katherine Everard
Thieves Fall Out (1953) as Cameron Kay
Death Before Bedtime (1953) as Edgar Box
Death in the Fifth Position (1952) as Edgar Box
Death Likes It Hot (1954) as Edgar Box
Media appearances
CBS Reports: The Homosexuals (1967)
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976 — 7 episodes) — as himself
Profile of a Writer: Gore Vidal — RM Productions (1979 documentary film)
Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No (1983 documentary film)
Weekend In Wallop (1984)
Vidal in Venice — Antelope Films for Channel Four Television (1987 documentary film)
Bob Roberts — as Senator Brickley Paiste (1992 film)
With Honors — Plays the pessimistic and right-wing Prof. Pitkannan (1994 film)
The Celluloid Closet (1995 documentary film)[95]
Gattaca — Plays Director Josef in science-fiction film (1997)
Shadow Conspiracy — Plays Congressman Paige Political Thriller (1997)
Igby Goes Down (2001 film) — School headmaster (uncredited)
The Education of Gore Vidal (2003) Documentary by Deborah Dickson, aired in the US on PBS
Thinking XXX (2004 documentary)
Da Ali G Show (2004 TV)
Why We Fight (2005 film)
Inside Deep Throat (2005 film)
One Bright Shining Moment (2005 film)
Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula (2005 spoof trailer)
Foreign Correspondent — with former NSW premier Bob Carr
The U.S. Versus John Lennon (2006 film)
Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra concert, August 2, 2007 — Narrated Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait (conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas) from a wheelchair.
The Henry Rollins Show (2007 TV)
The Simpsons episode: "Moe'N'a Lisa"
Family Guy episode: "Mother Tucker"
Alex Jones radio show
Jon Wiener's radio program in Los Angeles[96]
Terrorstorm: Final Cut Special Edition (2007)
Lateline — ABC Television Australia Interview (May 2, 2008)
Democracy Now — interview: on the Bush Presidency, History and the "United States of Amnesia"[97] (May 14, 2008)
The South Bank Show (May 18, 2008)
Hardtalk — BBC News (May 22, 2008)
The Andrew Marr Show (May 25, 2008)
The US is not a republic anymore[98] (June, 2008)
Zero: An Investigation Into 9/11[99] (June, 2008)
Interview on the BBC's US Presidential Election Coverage with David Dimbleby (November 04, 2008)[100]
"Writer Against the Grain": Gore Vidal in conversation with Jay Parini at the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar (audio, 59:09)[101]
Real Time with Bill Maher (April 10, 2009)
Shrink (2009 film)
"Gore Vidal's America"[102] on The Real News Network (December 24, 2010)
What's My Line? occasional guest panelist (early 1960s)
See also
Politics in fiction
References
^ "NLS Other Writings". Loc.gov. February 2011. Retrieved November 7, 2011. "Vidal, Gore (və-DÄL)"
^ "Gore Vidal Biography". BookBrowse. July 25, 2011. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Gore Vidal Obituary - Channel 4 News (1st August 2012)
^ a b Vidal, Gore, "West Point and the Third Loyalty", The New York Review of Books, Volume 20, Number 16, October 18, 1973.
^ a b c http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kaplan-vidal.html
^ Gore Vidal, Palimpsest (Deutsch, 1995), page 401
^ Gore Vidal, Point to Point Navigation (New York: Doubleday, 2006), p. 245.
^ "Aeronatics: $8,073.61", Time, September 28, 1931
^ "Booknotes". Booknotes. Retrieved December 31, 2011.
^ "Eugene L. Vidal, Aviation Leader". The New York Times: p. 43. February 21, 1969.
^ South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame Profile: Gene Vidal.
^ a b gorevidalnow.com, in which Gore Vidal corrects his Wikipedia page
^ "General Robert Olds Marries". The New York Times: p. 6. June 7, 1942.
^ "Miss Nina Gore Marries". The New York Times. January 12, 1922.
^ Gore Vidal, Point to Point Navigation, New York: Doubleday, 2006, p. 135.
^ "Politicians: Aubertine to Austern". The Political Graveyard. 2008. Retrieved October 31, 2008.
^ "Maj. Gen. Olds, 46, of Air Force, Dies". The New York Times. April 29, 1943.
^ "Hugh Steers, 32, Figurative Painter". New York Times. March 4, 1995.
^ "A Family's Legacy: Pain and Humor (and a Movie)". New York Times. September 15, 2002.
^ Rutten, Tim, "'The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal'", Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2008.
^ Gore Vidal: a critical companion. Susan Baker, Curtis S. Gibson. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997. ISBN 0-313-29579-4. Page 3
^ a b Hattersley, Roy. "Gore Vidal: Sharpest tongue in the West". Daily Mail.
^ "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace". Web.archive.org. February 7, 2008. Archived from the original on February 7, 2008. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Vidal, Gore. The City and the Pillar and Seven Early Stories (NY: Random House), xiii
^ Roberts, James "The Legacy of Jimmy Trimble", ESPN, March 14, 2002.
^ Chalmers, Robert, "Gore Vidal: Literary feuds, his 'vicious' mother and rumours of a secret love child", The Independent, May 25, 2008.
^ Gore Vidal, Point to Point Navigation (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 245
^ Boston Globe: Diane White, "Murder, he wrote, before becoming a man of letters," March 25, 2011, Retrieved July 11, 2011
^ Gore Vidal, "Introduction to Death in the Fifth Position", in Edgar Box, Death in the Fifth Position (Vintage, 2011), 5–6
^ Ned Rorem (December 12, 1999). "Gore Vidal, aloof in art and in life". Chicago Sun-Times. p. 18S.
^ Mick LaSalle (October 2, 1995). "A Commanding Presence: Actor Charlton Heston sets his epic career in stone – or at least on paper". The San Francisco Chronicle. p. E1.
^ John Leonard (July 7, 1970). "Not Enough Blood, Not Enough Gore". The New York Times. Retrieved October 30, 2008.
^ "Show Business: Will the Real Caligula Stand Up?", Time, January 3, 1977.
^ Solomon, Deborah (June 15, 2008). "Literary Lion". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved June 29, 2008.
^ a b "National Book Awards – 1993". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-12.
(With acceptance speech by Vidal, read by Harry Evans.)
^ Décoration de l’écrivain Gore Vidal.
^ a b Gore Vidal (September, 1969). "A Distasteful Encounter with William F. Buckley Jr.". Esquire. p. 140.
^ "Sundance Resort — Create, Creative Happenings, Films, Literary". Sundanceresort.com. Retrieved October 20, 2008.
^ "Distinguished Contribution to American Letters". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
(With acceptance speech by Vidal and official blurb.)
^ "Collection Online, Francesco Vezzoli. Trailer for the Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula. 2005". The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
^ StarNewsOnline.com (blog) - On “Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In,” [[Lily Tomlin]] as Ernestine the telephone operator would often call “Mr. Veedle”
^ Ernestine the Operator - TV Acres www.tvacres.com - Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the Telephone Operator - ...a conversation with writer Gore Vidal as Ernestine says "Mr. Veedle, you owe us ..."
^ Record album: This Is A Recording, by Lily Tomlin, title: "Mr. Veedle" Rhapsody
^ Rafael, George (September 20, 2000). "The Golden Age". Salon. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Tapper, Jake (September 20, 2000). "The Other Gore". Salon. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
^ "Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 8, 1960". Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives. 1960. p. 31, item #29. Retrieved August 04, 2012.
^ Freeman, Ira Henry (September 15, 1960). "The Playwright, the Lawyer, and the Voters". New York Times: p. 20.
^ Veitch, Jonathan (May 24, 1998). "Raging Bull; THE TIME OF OUR TIME. By Norman Mailer". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "Gore Vidal". Wtp.org. Retrieved October 20, 2008.
^ Vidal, Gore The Best Man/'72, Esquire
^ "Gore Vidal". Thenation.com. Retrieved January 22, 2009.
^ Ira Henry Freeman, "Gore Vidal Conducts Campaign of Quips and Liberal Views", The New York Times, September 15, 1960
^ Gore Vidal (1977). Matters of Fact and of Fiction: Essays 1973–1976. Random House. p. 268. ISBN 0-394-41128-5.
^ Real Time With Bill Maher, Season 7, Episode 149, April 10, 2009
^ Gore Vidal, "Sexually Speaking: Collected Sexual Writings", Cleis Press, 1999.
^ Browne, Anthony (April 30, 2003). "The folly of mass immigration". Opendemocracy.net. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Gore Vidal, "Three Lies to Rule By" and "Japanese Intentions in the Second World War", from Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, New York, 2002, ISBN 1-56025-502-1
^ "Why We Fight (9 of 48)". Say2.org (Series of Subtitles for Documentary Video). Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Gore Vidal, "The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh". Vanity Fair, September 2001.
^ "World Can't Wait Advisory Board". Retrieved July 29, 2002.
^ Drozdiak, William (1997-01-14). U.S. Celebrities Defend Scientology in Germany, The Washington Post, p. A11.
^ Baker, Russ; April 1997. "Clash of the Titans: Scientology vs. Germany", George
^ "Dennis Kucinich". The Nation. November 8, 2007. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
^ "Gore Vidal Accepts Title of American Humanist Association Honorary President". American Humanist Association. April 20, 2009. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Interview The Times September 30, 2009
^ "Political Animals: Vidal, Buckley and the '68 Conventions". Retrieved November 2, 2009.
^ "William Buckley/Gore Vidal Debate". Retrieved August 03, 2012.
^ "Feuds: Wasted Talent". Time. August 22, 1969. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Buckley v. Vidal 327 F. Supp. 1051 (1971)
^ "Buckley Drops Vidal Suit, Settles With Esquire", The New York Times, September 26, 1972, page 40
^ "Reports — Gore Vidal Speaks Seriously Ill of the Dead". Truthdig. Retrieved January 22, 2009.
^ Solomon, Deborah. "Literary Lion: Questions for Gore Vidal". New York Times. June 15, 2008.
^ Osborne, Kevin. "Obama a Disappointment". City Beat. Retrieved June 2, 2010.
^ "YouTube — The Henry Rollins Show — The Corruption of Election 2008". Youtube.com. Retrieved October 20, 2008.
^ "Gore Vidal Interview with Alex Jones Infowars, October 29, 2006 Texas Book Fest". Video.google.com. November 1, 2006. Retrieved January 22, 2009.
^ Close (May 5, 2007). "Diary: May 5 | Books | The Guardian". The Guardian. Retrieved August 17, 2009.
^ Joy Do Lico and Andrew Johnson, "The rumours about my love child may be true, says Gore Vidal", The Independent, May 25, 2008.
^ "What I've Learned", Esquire, June, 2008, p. 132.
^ Robinson, Charlotte. "Outtake Blog Author & Gay Icon Gore Vidal Dies". Outtake Blog. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
^ Bloom, Harold (1994). The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. Riverhead Books. p. 20. ISBN 9781573225144. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
^ "Gore Vidal, celebrated author, playwright, dies" by Tina Fineberg, USA Today, August 1, 2012
^ Hillel Italie and Andrew Dalton, "Gore Vidal, celebrated author, playwright, dies", Associated Press, August 1, 2012.
^ "Gore Vidal: The Death of a Legend | American Atheists". Atheists.org. August 1, 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ Duke, Barry (2012-08-01). "Farewell Gore Vidal, gay atheist extraordinary". Freethinker.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ Charles McGrath (August 1, 2012). "Prolific, Elegant, Acerbic Writer". The New York Times. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
^ Elaine Woo (August 1, 2012). "Gore Vidal, iconoclastic author, dies at 86". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
^ Michael Dirda (August 1, 2012). "Gore Vidal dies; imperious gadfly and prolific, graceful writer was 86". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
^ Jay Parini. "Gore Vidal obituary". Guardian. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ "Gore Vidal". Telegraph.co.uk. 2012-08-01. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ Alastair Leithead (2012-08-01). "Obituary: Gore Vidal". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ Efe. "La cultura de Estados Unidos lamenta la muerte de Gore Vidal". Ideal.es. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
^ Redazione online. "Los Angeles, è morto lo scrittore Gore Vidal". Corriere.it. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
^ "Gore Vidal : le trouble-fête de l'Amérique [Gore Vidal: the killjoy of America]" (in French). Lefigaro.fr. 01/08/2012. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
^ Weigel, David. "Stop Eulogizing Gore Vidal". Slate.com. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ Bryant, Christopher (August 15, 2009). "The Celluloid Closet". Polari Magazine. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "Jon Wiener (biography)". The Nation. May 21, 2012. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
^ "Legendary Author Gore Vidal on the Bush Presidency, History and the "United States of Amnesia"". Democracy Now!. May 14, 2008. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "'The US is not a republic anymore'". Insight-info.com. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "Zero: an investigation into 9/11". Zero 9/11 Movie. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "Gore Vidal vs David Dimbleby on Election Night". BBC. November 04, 2008. Retrieved August 04, 2012.
^ Haskell, Arlo (July 3, 2009). "Audio Archives: Gore Vidal | Writer Against the Grain". Key West Literary Seminar. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "Gore Vidal's America". The Real News. December 24, 2010. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
[edit]External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Gore Vidal
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gore Vidal
Official website of Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal Index, by Harry Kloman
Gore Vidal Pages
Gore Vidal at the Internet Movie Database
Gore Vidal at the Internet Broadway Database
Gore Vidal at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
Gore Vidal at AllRovi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vidal in New York City to discuss his 2009 book, Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare
Born Eugene Louis Vidal
October 3, 1925
West Point, New York, U.S.
Died July 31, 2012 (aged 86)
Hollywood Hills, California, U.S.
Pen name Edgar Box
Cameron Kay
Katherine Everard
Occupation Novelist, essayist, journalist, playwright
Nationality American
Period 1944–2012
Genres Drama, fictional prose, essay, literary criticism
Literary movement Postmodernism
Partner(s) Howard Austen
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( /ˌɡɔr vɨˈdɑːl/;[1][2] October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer known for his essays, novels, screenplays, and Broadway plays. He was also known for his patrician manner, Transatlantic accent, and witty aphorisms. Vidal came from a distinguished political lineage; his grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, and he later became a relation (through marriage) to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Vidal ran for political office twice and was a longtime political critic. He was a lifelong isolationist Democrat. As well known for his essays as his novels, Vidal wrote for The Nation, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the New York Review of Books and Esquire. Through his essays and media appearances, Vidal was a long time critic of American foreign policy. In addition to this, he characterised the United States as a decaying empire from the 1980s onwards. Additionally he was known for his well publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Truman Capote.
Vidal's novels fell into two distinct camps: social and historical. His best known social novel was Myra Breckinridge; his best known historical novels included Julian, Burr and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality. Vidal always rejected the terms of "homosexual" and "heterosexual" as inherently false, claiming that the vast majority of individuals had the potential to be pansexual. His screenwriting credits included the epic historical drama Ben-Hur (1959), involved a back story that spoke of a past affair, between two young men, but the content of the affair was left unsaid. Though mistaken by some as a "gay sub-plot", Vidal, in an interview with NPR, dismissed this notion by stating that the so called "affair" could have consisted of a number of various events within a young boys life, that it may have never involved physical contact, in his mind, and the only point to involving this was to draw more emotional power to a then weak script, since Vidal felt a mere political subject could not carry the film. Ben-Hur won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
At the time of his death he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J. D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and has been described as the 20th century's answer to Oscar Wilde.[3]
Early life
Vidal was born Eugene Louis Vidal, Jr. in West Point, New York, the only child of Eugene Luther Vidal (1895–1969) and Nina Gore (1903–1978).[4] The middle name, Louis, was a mistake on the part of his father, "who could not remember for certain whether his own name was Eugene Louis or Eugene Luther."[5] As Vidal explained in his memoir Palimpsest (Deutsch, 1995), "... my birth certificate says 'Eugene Louis Vidal': this was changed to Eugene Luther Vidal, Jr.; then Gore was added at my christening [in 1938]; then at fourteen I got rid of the first two names."[6]
Vidal was born in the Cadet Hospital of the United States Military Academy (West Point), where his father, a 1st Lieutenant, was the first aeronautics instructor. He was christened by the headmaster of St. Albans preparatory school, his future alma mater.[7] According to "West Point and the Third Loyalty", an article Vidal wrote for The New York Review of Books (October 18, 1973),[4] he later decided to be called Gore in honor of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Gore, Democratic senator from Oklahoma. Vidal biographer Fred Kaplan states in Gore Vidal: A Biography (1999) that Vidal added the middle name Gore at the time of his baptism in 1938, as well the correct Luther, becoming Eugene Luther Gore Vidal.[5] Later, at the age of 16, again according to Kaplan, Vidal dropped both of his first two names, saying, he "wanted a sharp, distinctive name, appropriate for an aspiring author or national political leader. 'I wasn't going to write as Gene since there was already one. I didn't want to use the Jr.'"[5]
Photo of Vidal by Carl Van Vechten, 1948
Vidal's father, a West Point football quarterback and captain, and an all-American basketball player, was director of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Air Commerce (1933–1937) in the Roosevelt administration,[8] was one of the first Army Air Corps pilots and, according to biographer Susan Butler, was the great love of Amelia Earhart's life.[9] In the 1920s and 1930s, he was a co-founder of three American airlines: the Ludington Line, which merged with others and became Eastern Airlines, Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT, which became TWA), and Northeast Airlines, which he founded with Earhart, as well as the Boston and Maine Railroad. The elder Vidal was also an athlete in the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics (seventh in the decathlon; U.S. pentathlon team coach).[10][11]
Gore Vidal's mother was a socialite who made her Broadway debut as an extra[12] in Sign of the Leopard in 1928.[13] She married Eugene Luther Vidal, Sr. in 1922 and divorced him in 1935.[14] She later married twice more; one husband, Hugh D. Auchincloss, was later the stepfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and, according to Gore Vidal, she had "a long off-and-on affair" with actor Clark Gable.[15] She was an alternate delegate to the 1940 Democratic National Convention.[16]
Vidal had four half-siblings from his parents' later marriages (the Rev. Vance Vidal, Valerie Vidal Hewitt, Thomas Gore Auchincloss, and Nina Gore Auchincloss Steers Straight) and four stepbrothers from his mother's third marriage to Army Air Forces Major General Robert Olds, who died in 1943, ten months after marrying Vidal's mother.[17] Vidal's nephews include the brothers Burr Steers, writer and film director, and painter Hugh Auchincloss Steers (1963–1995).[18][19]
Vidal was raised in Washington, D.C., where he attended Sidwell Friends School and then St. Albans School. Since Senator Gore was blind, his grandson read aloud to him and was often his guide. The senator's isolationism contributed a major principle of his grandson's political philosophy, which is critical of foreign and domestic policies shaped by American imperialism.[20] Gore attended St. Albans in 1939, but left to study in France. He returned following the outbreak of World War II and studied at the Los Alamos Ranch School in 1940, later transferring to Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire.[21] Roy Hattersley writes, "for reasons he never explained, he did not go on to Harvard, Yale or Princeton with other members of his social class."[22] Instead, Vidal enlisted in the US Navy, serving as a warrant officer, mostly in the North Pacific.[22] After three years, he contracted hypothermia, developed rheumatoid arthritis and became a mess officer.
Writing career
Fiction
Vidal, whom a Newsweek critic called "the best all-around American man of letters since Edmund Wilson,"[23] began his writing career in 1946 aged nineteen, with the publication of the military novel Williwaw, based upon his Alaskan Harbor Detachment duty. The novel was the first about World War II and proved a success for Vidal.[24] Published two years later in 1948, The City and the Pillar caused a furor for its dispassionate presentation of homosexuality. The novel was dedicated to "J.T." Decades later, after a magazine published rumors about J.T.'s identity, Vidal confirmed they were the initials of his alleged St. Albans-era love, James "Jimmy" Trimble III, killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima on March 1, 1945;[25] Vidal later said that Trimble was the only person he had ever loved.[26]
Orville Prescott, the book critic for the New York Times, found The City and the Pillar so objectionable that he refused to review or allow the Times to review Vidal's next five books.[27] In response, Vidal wrote several mystery novels in the early 1950s under the pseudonym Edgar Box. Featuring public relations man Peter Cutler Sargeant II,[28] their success financed Vidal for more than a decade.[29]
Gore Vidal in 2008 at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
He wrote plays, films, and television series. Two plays, The Best Man (1960) and Visit to a Small Planet (1955), were both Broadway and film successes.
In 1956, Vidal was hired as a contract screenwriter for Metro Goldwyn Mayer. In 1959, director William Wyler needed script doctors to re-write the script for Ben-Hur, originally written by Karl Tunberg. Vidal collaborated with Christopher Fry, reworking the screenplay on condition that MGM release him from the last two years of his contract. Producer Sam Zimbalist's death complicated the screenwriting credit. The Screen Writers Guild resolved the matter by listing Tunberg as sole screenwriter, denying credit to both Vidal and Fry. This decision was based on the WGA screenwriting credit system which favors original authors. Vidal later claimed in the documentary film The Celluloid Closet that to explain the animosity between Ben-Hur and Messala, he had inserted a gay subtext suggesting that the two had had a prior relationship, but that actor Charlton Heston was oblivious.[30] Heston denied that Vidal contributed significantly to the script.[31]
In the 1960s, Vidal wrote three novels. The first, Julian (1964) dealt with the apostate Roman emperor, while the second, Washington, D.C. (1967) focused on a political family during the Franklin D. Roosevelt era. The third was the satirical transsexual comedy Myra Breckinridge (1968), a variation on Vidal's familiar themes of sex, gender, and popular culture. In the novel, Vidal showcased his love of the American films of the 30s and 40s, and he resurrected interest in the careers of the forgotten players of the time including, for example, that of the late Richard Cromwell, who, he wrote, "was so satisfyingly tortured in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer."
After the staging of the plays Weekend (1968) and An Evening With Richard Nixon (1972), and the publication of the novel Two Sisters: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir (1970), Vidal focused on essays and two distinct themes in his fiction. The first strain comprises novels dealing with American history, specifically with the nature of national politics.[32] Critic Harold Bloom wrote, "Vidal's imagination of American politics ... is so powerful as to compel awe." Titles in this series, the Narratives of Empire, include Burr (1973), 1876 (1976), Lincoln (1984), Empire (1987), Hollywood (1990), The Golden Age (2000). Another title devoted to the ancient world, Creation, appeared in 1981 and then in expanded form in 2002.
The second strain consists of the comedic "satirical inventions": Myron (1974, a sequel to Myra Breckinridge), Kalki (1978), Duluth (1983), Live from Golgotha: The Gospel according to Gore Vidal (1992), and The Smithsonian Institution (1998).
Vidal occasionally returned to writing for film and television, including the television movie Gore Vidal's Billy the Kid with Val Kilmer and the mini-series Lincoln. He also wrote the original draft for the controversial film Caligula, but later had his name removed when director Tinto Brass and actor Malcolm McDowell rewrote the script, changing the tone and themes significantly. The producers later made an attempt to salvage some of Vidal's vision in the film's post-production.[33]
Essays and memoirs
Vidal is — at least in the U.S. — respected more for his essays than his novels.[34] Even an occasionally hostile critic like Martin Amis admitted, "Essays are what he is good at ... [h]e is learned, funny and exceptionally clear-sighted. Even his blind spots are illuminating."
For six decades, Gore Vidal applied himself to a wide variety of sociopolitical, sexual, historical and literary themes. In 1987, Vidal wrote the essays titled Armageddon?, exploring the intricacies of power in contemporary America. He pilloried the incumbent president Ronald Reagan as a "triumph of the embalmer's art." In 1993, he won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for the collection United States: Essays 1952–1992[35] According to the citation, "Whatever his subject, he addresses it with an artist's resonant appreciation, a scholar's conscience and the persuasive powers of a great essayist."[citation needed]
A subsequent collection of essays, published in 2000, is The Last Empire. He subsequently published such self-described "pamphlets" as Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, and Imperial America, critiques of American expansionism, the military-industrial complex, the national security state and the George W. Bush administration. Vidal also wrote an historical essay about the U.S.'s founding fathers, Inventing a Nation. In 1995, he published a memoir Palimpsest, and in 2006 its follow-up volume, Point to Point Navigation. Earlier that year, Vidal also published Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories.
Because of his matter-of-fact treatment of same-sex relations in such books as The City and The Pillar, Vidal is often seen as an early champion of sexual liberation.[36]
In the September 1969 edition of Esquire, for example, Vidal wrote:
We are all bisexual to begin with. That is a fact of our condition. And we are all responsive to sexual stimuli from our own as well as from the opposite sex. Certain societies at certain times, usually in the interest of maintaining the baby supply, have discouraged homosexuality. Other societies, particularly militaristic ones, have exalted it. But regardless of tribal taboos, homosexuality is a constant fact of the human condition and it is not a sickness, not a sin, not a crime ... despite the best efforts of our puritan tribe to make it all three. Homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality. Notice I use the word 'natural,' not normal.[37]
In 2005, Jay Parini was appointed as Vidal's literary executor.[38]
In 2009, he won the annual Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation, which called him a "prominent social critic on politics, history, literature and culture".[39]
Acting and popular culture
In the 1960s, Vidal moved to Italy; he gave a cameo appearance in Federico Fellini's film Roma. In 1992, Vidal appeared in the film Bob Roberts (starring Tim Robbins) and appeared in other films, notably Gattaca, With Honors, and Igby Goes Down, which was directed by his nephew Burr Steers. In 2005 he appeared as himself in artist Francesco Vezzoli's "Trailer for the Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula" piece of video art which was included in the 2005 Venice Biennale and is in the permanent collection of the Guggenheim Museum.[40] Vidal voiced himself on both The Simpsons and Family Guy and appeared on the Da Ali G Show, where Ali G mistakes him for Vidal Sassoon. He provided the narrative for the Royal National Theatre's production of Brecht's Mother Courage in the autumn of 2009.
Vidal was portrayed as a child in Amelia (2009) by Canadian actor William Cuddy, and as a young adult in Infamous (2006), the story of Truman Capote, by American actor Michael Panes.
Comedian Robin Williams depicted him as a drunk trying to push Thunderbird wine in a commercial on his first stand-up album, Reality...What a Concept. The weekly American sketch comedy television program; Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in did a recurring theme covertly featuring his personality by Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the Telephone Operator, such as one titled: "Mr. Veedul, this is the Phone Company calling! (snort! snort!)" (but other citations are spelled as; "Veedle").[41][42] This skit theme was also recorded other places such as Lily Tomlin's album; "This Is A Recording" titled "Mr. Veedle" by Rhapsody records.[43]
Political views and activities
Besides his politician grandfather, Vidal had other connections with the Democratic Party: his mother, Nina, married Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr., who later was stepfather of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Gore Vidal is a fifth cousin of Jimmy Carter.[citation needed] Vidal also may have been a distant cousin of Al Gore.[44][45]
As a political activist, in 1960, Gore Vidal was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress, losing an election in New York's 29th congressional district, a traditionally Republican district on the Hudson River, encompassing all of Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Schoharie, and Ulster Counties to J. Ernest Wharton, by a margin of 57% to 43%.[46] Campaigning with a slogan of "You'll get more with Gore", he received the most votes any Democrat in 50 years received in that district. Among his supporters were Eleanor Roosevelt, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward; the latter two, longtime friends of Vidal's, campaigned for him and spoke on his behalf.[47]
On the December 15, 1971 taping of The Dick Cavett Show, with Janet Flanner, Norman Mailer allegedly head-butted Vidal during an altercation prior to their appearance on the show.[48]
From 1970 to 1972, Vidal was one of the chairmen of the People's Party.[49] In 1971, he wrote an article in Esquire advocating consumer advocate Ralph Nader for president in the 1972 election.[50]
In 1982 he campaigned against incumbent Governor Jerry Brown for the Democratic primary election to the United States Senate from California. This was documented in the film, Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No directed by Gary Conklin. Vidal lost to Brown in the primary election.
Frequently identified with Democratic causes and personalities,[51][52] Vidal wrote in the 1970s:
"There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party ... and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently ... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties."[53]
Vidal had a protective, almost proprietary attitude toward his native land and its politics: "My family helped start [this country]", he wrote, "and we've been in political life ... since the 1690s, and I have a very possessive sense about this country."[55] At a 1999 lecture in Dublin, Vidal said:
"A characteristic of our present chaos is the dramatic migration of tribes. They are on the move from east to west, from south to north. Liberal tradition requires that borders must always be open to those in search of safety or even the pursuit of happiness. But now with so many millions of people on the move, even the great-hearted are becoming edgy. Norway is large enough and empty enough to take in 40 to 50 million homeless Bengalis. If the Norwegians say that, all in all, they would rather not take them in, is this to be considered racism? I think not. It is simply self-preservation, the first law of species.”[56]
He suggested that President Roosevelt deliberately provoked the Japanese to attack the U.S. at Pearl Harbor to facilitate American entry to the war, and believes FDR had advance knowledge of the attack.[57] During an interview in the 2005 documentary Why We Fight, Vidal asserts that during the final months of World War II, the Japanese had tried to surrender to the United States, to no avail. He said, "They were trying to surrender all that summer, but Truman wouldn't listen, because Truman wanted to drop the bombs." When the interviewer asked why, Vidal replied, "To show off. To frighten Stalin. To change the balance of power in the world. To declare war on communism. Perhaps we were starting a pre-emptive world war."[58]
During domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh's imprisonment, Vidal corresponded with McVeigh and concluded that he bombed the federal building as retribution for the FBI's role in the 1993 Branch Davidian Compound massacre near Waco in Elk, Texas.[59]
Vidal was a member of the advisory board of The World Can't Wait, a left-wing organization seeking to repudiate the Bush administration's program, and advocated the impeachment of George W. Bush for war crimes.[60]
Gore Vidal and former U.S. Senator George McGovern at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, August 26, 2009
In 1997, Vidal was one of 34 celebrities to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, published as a newspaper advertisement in the International Herald Tribune, which protested the treatment of Scientologists in Germany.[61] Despite this, Vidal was fundamentally critical of scientology.[62]
Vidal contributed an article to The Nation in which he expressed support for Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, citing him as "the most eloquent of the lot" and that Kucinich "is very much a favorite out there in the amber fields of grain".[63]
In April 2009, Vidal accepted appointment to the position of honorary president of the American Humanist Association, succeeding Kurt Vonnegut.[64]
On September 30, 2009, The Times of London published a lengthy interview with him headlined "We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US — The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it", which brings up-to-date his views on his own life, and a variety of political subjects.[65]
Vidal versus Buckley
In 1968, ABC News invited Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. to be political analysts of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions.[66] Verbal and nearly physical combat ensued. After days of mutual bickering, their debates degraded to vitriolic, ad hominem attacks. During discussions of the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, the men were arguing about freedom of speech with regard to American protesters displaying a Viet Cong flag when Vidal told Buckley to "shut up a minute" and, in response to Buckley's reference to "pro-Nazi" protesters, went on to say: "As far as I'm concerned, the only sort of pro-crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself." The visibly livid Buckley replied, "Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered." After an interruption by anchor and facilitator Howard K. Smith, the men continued to discuss the topic in a less hostile manner.[67] Buckley later expressed regret for having called Vidal a "queer," but nonetheless described Vidal as an "evangelist for bisexuality."[68]
Later, in 1969, the feud was continued as Buckley further attacked Vidal in the lengthy essay, "On Experiencing Gore Vidal", published in the August 1969 issue of Esquire. The essay is collected in The Governor Listeth, an anthology of Buckley's writings of the time. In a key passage attacking Vidal as an apologist for homosexuality, Buckley wrote, "The man who in his essays proclaims the normalcy of his affliction [i.e., homosexuality], and in his art the desirability of it, is not to be confused with the man who bears his sorrow quietly. The addict is to be pitied and even respected, not the pusher."
Vidal responded in the September 1969 issue of Esquire, variously characterizing Buckley as "anti-black", "anti-semitic", and a "warmonger".[37] The presiding judge in Buckley's subsequent libel suit against Vidal initially concluded that "[t]he court must conclude that Vidal's comments in these paragraphs meet the minimal standard of fair comment. The inferences made by Vidal from Buckley's [earlier editorial] statements cannot be said to be completely unreasonable."[citation needed] However, Vidal also strongly implied that, in 1944, Buckley and unnamed siblings had vandalized a Protestant church in their Sharon, Connecticut, hometown after the pastor's wife had sold a house to a Jewish family. Buckley sued Vidal and Esquire for libel. Vidal counter-claimed for libel against Buckley, citing Buckley's characterization of Vidal's novel Myra Breckinridge as pornography.[citation needed]
The court dismissed Vidal's counter-claim.[69] Buckley settled for $115,000 in attorney's fees and an editorial statement from Esquire magazine that they were "utterly convinced" of the untruthfulness of Vidal's assertion.[70] However, in a letter to Newsweek, the Esquire publisher stated that "the settlement of Buckley's suit against us" was not "a 'disavowal' of Vidal's article. On the contrary, it clearly states that we published that article because we believed that Vidal had a right to assert his opinions, even though we did not share them."
As Vidal's biographer, Fred Kaplan, later commented, "The court had 'not' sustained Buckley's case against Esquire ... [t]he court had 'not' ruled that Vidal's article was 'defamatory.' It had ruled that the case would have to go to trial in order to determine as a matter of fact whether or not it was defamatory. [italics original.] The cash value of the settlement with Esquire represented 'only' Buckley's legal expenses [not damages based on libel] ... " Ultimately, Vidal bore the cost of his own attorney's fees.[12]
In 2003, this affair re-surfaced when Esquire published Esquire's Big Book of Great Writing, an anthology that included Vidal's essay. Buckley again sued for libel, and Esquire again settled for $55,000 in attorney's fees and $10,000 in personal damages to Buckley.[citation needed]
After Buckley's death on February 27, 2008, Vidal summed up his impressions of his rival with the following obituary on March 20, 2008: "RIP WFB — in hell."[71] In a June 15, 2008, interview with the New York Times, Vidal was asked by Deborah Solomon, "How did you feel when you heard that Buckley died this year?" Vidal responded:
"I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred".[72]
Criticism of the George W. Bush administration
Vidal was strongly critical of the George W. Bush administration, once describing Bush as "the stupidest man in the United States"[73] and listing his administration as one of those he considered to have either an explicit or implicit expansionist agenda.[74] He also subscribed to the view that for several years the Bush administration and their associates aimed to control the petroleum of Central Asia (after gaining effective control of the petroleum of the Persian Gulf in 1991).[75]
In May 2007, discussing the many conspiracy theories surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Vidal said:
"I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I'm a conspiracy analyst. Everything the Bushites touch is screwed up. They could never have pulled off 9/11, even if they wanted to. Even if they longed to. They could step aside, though, or just go out to lunch while these terrible things were happening to the nation. I believe that of them."[76]
Personal life
A photo of Vidal by Carl Van Vechten
Vidal had affairs with both men and women. The novelist Anaïs Nin claimed an involvement with Vidal in her memoir The Diary of Anaïs Nin but Vidal denied it in his memoir Palimpsest. Vidal also discussed having dalliances with people such as actress Diana Lynn, and alluded to the possibility that he may have a daughter.[77] He was briefly engaged to Joanne Woodward, before she married Paul Newman; after eloping, the couple shared a house with Vidal in Los Angeles for a short time. In 1950, he met his long-term partner Howard Austen.[78] Vidal once reported that the secret to his lengthy relationship with Austen was that they did not have sex with each other: "It's easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part & impossible, I have observed, when it does."[79]
According to literary critic Harold Bloom, Vidal believed his homosexuality had denied him the full recognition of the literary community. Bloom, meanwhile, claimed this had more to do with Vidal's association with the unfashionable genre of historical fiction.[80]
During the latter part of the twentieth century Vidal divided his time between Italy and California. In 2003, he sold his 5,000-square-foot (460 m²) Italian Villa, La Rondinaia (The Swallow's Nest) on the Amalfi Coast, and moved to Los Angeles. Austen died in November 2003 and, in February 2005, was buried in a plot for himself and Vidal at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
Vidal died at his home in Hollywood Hills, California, at about 6:45 p.m. PDT July 31, 2012, of complications from pneumonia.[81][82] He was 86.
Vidal was an atheist,[83] and in 2009 was named honorary president of the American Humanist Association.[84]
Legacy
After Vidal's death tributes immediately poured in from various media sources. The New York Times described him in his obituary as being in his old age "an Augustan figure who believed himself to be the last of a breed, and he was probably right. Few American writers have been more versatile or gotten more mileage from their talent."[85] The Los Angeles Times described him as a "literary juggernaut" whose novels and essays were considered "among the most elegant in the English language".[86] The Washington Post remembered him as a "major writer of the modern era" and an "astonishingly versatile man of letters".[87]
UK's The Guardian said "Vidal's critics disparaged his tendency to formulate an aphorism rather than to argue, finding in his work an underlying note of contempt for those who did not agree with him. His fans, on the other hand, delighted in his unflagging wit and elegant style."[88] The Daily Telegraph described him as "an icy iconoclast" who "delighted in chronicling what he perceived as the disintegration of civilisation around him",[89] while BBC News said he was "one of the finest post-war American writers... an indefatigable critic of the whole American system. Writing in Los Angeles, BBC journalist Alastair Leithead said: "Gore Vidal saw himself as the last of the breed of literary figures who became celebrities in their own right. Never a stranger to chat shows, his wry and witty opinions were sought after as much as his writing."[90]
Popular Spanish publication Ideal reported Vidal's death as a loss to the "culture of the United States" and described him as a "Huge American novelist and essayist".[91] The Italian Il Corriere described him as "the enfant terrible of American culture" and said that he was "one of the giants of American literature".[92] French paper Le Figaro described him as "the Killjoy of America" but also said that he was an "outstanding polemicist" and that he used phrases "like high precision weapons."[93]
Following his death, despite generally positive appraisals by many, Vidal has been criticized by at least one commentator as "racist and elitist" and as "forever mourning the decline of his era of aristocratic privilege".[94]
Bibliography
Essays and non-fiction:
Rocking the Boat (1963)
Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship (1969)
Sex, Death and Money (1969) (paperback compilation)
Homage to Daniel Shays (1972)
Matters of Fact and of Fiction (1977)
Views from a Window Co-Editor (1981)
The Second American Revolution (1983)
Vidal In Venice (1985) ISBN 0-671-60691-3
Armageddon? (1987) (UK only)
At Home (1988)
A View From The Diner's Club (1991) (UK only)
Screening History (1992) ISBN 0-233-98803-3
Decline and Fall of the American Empire (1992) ISBN 1-878825-00-3
United States: Essays 1952–1992 (1993) ISBN 0-7679-0806-6 — National Book Award[35]
Palimpsest: a memoir (1995) ISBN 0-679-44038-0
Virgin Islands (1997) (UK only)
The American Presidency (1998) ISBN 1-878825-15-1
Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings (1999)
The Last Empire: essays 1992–2000 (2001) ISBN 0-375-72639-X (there is also a much shorter UK edition)
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace or How We Came To Be So Hated, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002, (2002) ISBN 1-56025-405-X
Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, Thunder's Mouth Press, (2002) ISBN 1-56025-502-1
Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson (2003) ISBN 0-300-10171-6
Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia (2004) ISBN 1-56025-744-X
Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir (2006) ISBN 0-385-51721-1
The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal (2008) ISBN 0-385-52484-6
Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare (2009) ISBN 0-8109-5049-9
Plays
Visit to a Small Planet (1957) ISBN 0-8222-1211-0
The Best Man (1960)
On the March to the Sea (1960–1961, 2004)
Romulus (adapted from Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1950 play Romulus der Große) (1962)
Weekend (1968)
Drawing Room Comedy (1970)
An Evening with Richard Nixon (1970) ISBN 0-394-71869-0
On the March to the Sea (2005)
Novels
Williwaw (1946) ISBN 0-226-85585-6
In a Yellow Wood (1947)
The City and the Pillar (1948) ISBN 1-4000-3037-4
The Season of Comfort (1949) ISBN 0-233-98971-4
A Search for the King (1950) ISBN 0-345-25455-4
Dark Green, Bright Red (1950) ISBN 0-233-98913-7 (prophecy of the Guatemala coup d'état of 1954, see "In the Lair of the Octopus" Dreaming War)
The Judgment of Paris (1952) ISBN 0-345-33458-2
Messiah (1954) ISBN 0-14-118039-0
A Thirsty Evil (1956) (short stories)
Julian (1964) ISBN 0-375-72706-X
Washington, D.C. (1967) ISBN 0-316-90257-8
Myra Breckinridge (1968) ISBN 1-125-97948-8
Two Sisters (1970) ISBN 0-434-82958-7
Burr (1973) ISBN 0-375-70873-1
Myron (1974) ISBN 0-586-04300-4
1876 (1976) ISBN 0-375-70872-3
Kalki (1978) ISBN 0-14-118037-4
Creation (1981) ISBN 0-349-10475-1
Duluth (1983) ISBN 0-394-52738-0
Lincoln (1984) ISBN 0-375-70876-6
Empire (1987) ISBN 0-375-70874-X
Hollywood (1990) ISBN 0-375-70875-8
Live from Golgotha: The Gospel according to Gore Vidal (1992) ISBN 0-14-023119-6
The Smithsonian Institution (1998) ISBN 0-375-50121-5
The Golden Age (2000) ISBN 0-375-72481-8
Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories (2006) (short stories, this is the same collection as A Thirsty Evil (1956), with one previously unpublished short story — Clouds and Eclipses — added)
Screenplays
Climax!: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1954) (TV adaptation)
The Catered Affair (1956)
I Accuse! (1958)
The Scapegoat (1959)
Ben Hur (1959) (uncredited)
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
The Best Man (1964)
Is Paris Burning? (1966)
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970)
Caligula (1979)
Dress Gray (1986)
The Sicilian (1987) (uncredited)
Billy the Kid (1989)
Dimenticare Palermo (1989)
Works under pseudonyms
A Star's Progress (aka Cry Shame!) (1950) as Katherine Everard
Thieves Fall Out (1953) as Cameron Kay
Death Before Bedtime (1953) as Edgar Box
Death in the Fifth Position (1952) as Edgar Box
Death Likes It Hot (1954) as Edgar Box
Media appearances
CBS Reports: The Homosexuals (1967)
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976 — 7 episodes) — as himself
Profile of a Writer: Gore Vidal — RM Productions (1979 documentary film)
Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No (1983 documentary film)
Weekend In Wallop (1984)
Vidal in Venice — Antelope Films for Channel Four Television (1987 documentary film)
Bob Roberts — as Senator Brickley Paiste (1992 film)
With Honors — Plays the pessimistic and right-wing Prof. Pitkannan (1994 film)
The Celluloid Closet (1995 documentary film)[95]
Gattaca — Plays Director Josef in science-fiction film (1997)
Shadow Conspiracy — Plays Congressman Paige Political Thriller (1997)
Igby Goes Down (2001 film) — School headmaster (uncredited)
The Education of Gore Vidal (2003) Documentary by Deborah Dickson, aired in the US on PBS
Thinking XXX (2004 documentary)
Da Ali G Show (2004 TV)
Why We Fight (2005 film)
Inside Deep Throat (2005 film)
One Bright Shining Moment (2005 film)
Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula (2005 spoof trailer)
Foreign Correspondent — with former NSW premier Bob Carr
The U.S. Versus John Lennon (2006 film)
Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra concert, August 2, 2007 — Narrated Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait (conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas) from a wheelchair.
The Henry Rollins Show (2007 TV)
The Simpsons episode: "Moe'N'a Lisa"
Family Guy episode: "Mother Tucker"
Alex Jones radio show
Jon Wiener's radio program in Los Angeles[96]
Terrorstorm: Final Cut Special Edition (2007)
Lateline — ABC Television Australia Interview (May 2, 2008)
Democracy Now — interview: on the Bush Presidency, History and the "United States of Amnesia"[97] (May 14, 2008)
The South Bank Show (May 18, 2008)
Hardtalk — BBC News (May 22, 2008)
The Andrew Marr Show (May 25, 2008)
The US is not a republic anymore[98] (June, 2008)
Zero: An Investigation Into 9/11[99] (June, 2008)
Interview on the BBC's US Presidential Election Coverage with David Dimbleby (November 04, 2008)[100]
"Writer Against the Grain": Gore Vidal in conversation with Jay Parini at the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar (audio, 59:09)[101]
Real Time with Bill Maher (April 10, 2009)
Shrink (2009 film)
"Gore Vidal's America"[102] on The Real News Network (December 24, 2010)
What's My Line? occasional guest panelist (early 1960s)
See also
Politics in fiction
References
^ "NLS Other Writings". Loc.gov. February 2011. Retrieved November 7, 2011. "Vidal, Gore (və-DÄL)"
^ "Gore Vidal Biography". BookBrowse. July 25, 2011. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Gore Vidal Obituary - Channel 4 News (1st August 2012)
^ a b Vidal, Gore, "West Point and the Third Loyalty", The New York Review of Books, Volume 20, Number 16, October 18, 1973.
^ a b c http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kaplan-vidal.html
^ Gore Vidal, Palimpsest (Deutsch, 1995), page 401
^ Gore Vidal, Point to Point Navigation (New York: Doubleday, 2006), p. 245.
^ "Aeronatics: $8,073.61", Time, September 28, 1931
^ "Booknotes". Booknotes. Retrieved December 31, 2011.
^ "Eugene L. Vidal, Aviation Leader". The New York Times: p. 43. February 21, 1969.
^ South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame Profile: Gene Vidal.
^ a b gorevidalnow.com, in which Gore Vidal corrects his Wikipedia page
^ "General Robert Olds Marries". The New York Times: p. 6. June 7, 1942.
^ "Miss Nina Gore Marries". The New York Times. January 12, 1922.
^ Gore Vidal, Point to Point Navigation, New York: Doubleday, 2006, p. 135.
^ "Politicians: Aubertine to Austern". The Political Graveyard. 2008. Retrieved October 31, 2008.
^ "Maj. Gen. Olds, 46, of Air Force, Dies". The New York Times. April 29, 1943.
^ "Hugh Steers, 32, Figurative Painter". New York Times. March 4, 1995.
^ "A Family's Legacy: Pain and Humor (and a Movie)". New York Times. September 15, 2002.
^ Rutten, Tim, "'The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal'", Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2008.
^ Gore Vidal: a critical companion. Susan Baker, Curtis S. Gibson. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997. ISBN 0-313-29579-4. Page 3
^ a b Hattersley, Roy. "Gore Vidal: Sharpest tongue in the West". Daily Mail.
^ "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace". Web.archive.org. February 7, 2008. Archived from the original on February 7, 2008. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Vidal, Gore. The City and the Pillar and Seven Early Stories (NY: Random House), xiii
^ Roberts, James "The Legacy of Jimmy Trimble", ESPN, March 14, 2002.
^ Chalmers, Robert, "Gore Vidal: Literary feuds, his 'vicious' mother and rumours of a secret love child", The Independent, May 25, 2008.
^ Gore Vidal, Point to Point Navigation (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 245
^ Boston Globe: Diane White, "Murder, he wrote, before becoming a man of letters," March 25, 2011, Retrieved July 11, 2011
^ Gore Vidal, "Introduction to Death in the Fifth Position", in Edgar Box, Death in the Fifth Position (Vintage, 2011), 5–6
^ Ned Rorem (December 12, 1999). "Gore Vidal, aloof in art and in life". Chicago Sun-Times. p. 18S.
^ Mick LaSalle (October 2, 1995). "A Commanding Presence: Actor Charlton Heston sets his epic career in stone – or at least on paper". The San Francisco Chronicle. p. E1.
^ John Leonard (July 7, 1970). "Not Enough Blood, Not Enough Gore". The New York Times. Retrieved October 30, 2008.
^ "Show Business: Will the Real Caligula Stand Up?", Time, January 3, 1977.
^ Solomon, Deborah (June 15, 2008). "Literary Lion". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved June 29, 2008.
^ a b "National Book Awards – 1993". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-12.
(With acceptance speech by Vidal, read by Harry Evans.)
^ Décoration de l’écrivain Gore Vidal.
^ a b Gore Vidal (September, 1969). "A Distasteful Encounter with William F. Buckley Jr.". Esquire. p. 140.
^ "Sundance Resort — Create, Creative Happenings, Films, Literary". Sundanceresort.com. Retrieved October 20, 2008.
^ "Distinguished Contribution to American Letters". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
(With acceptance speech by Vidal and official blurb.)
^ "Collection Online, Francesco Vezzoli. Trailer for the Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula. 2005". The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
^ StarNewsOnline.com (blog) - On “Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In,” [[Lily Tomlin]] as Ernestine the telephone operator would often call “Mr. Veedle”
^ Ernestine the Operator - TV Acres www.tvacres.com - Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the Telephone Operator - ...a conversation with writer Gore Vidal as Ernestine says "Mr. Veedle, you owe us ..."
^ Record album: This Is A Recording, by Lily Tomlin, title: "Mr. Veedle" Rhapsody
^ Rafael, George (September 20, 2000). "The Golden Age". Salon. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Tapper, Jake (September 20, 2000). "The Other Gore". Salon. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
^ "Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 8, 1960". Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives. 1960. p. 31, item #29. Retrieved August 04, 2012.
^ Freeman, Ira Henry (September 15, 1960). "The Playwright, the Lawyer, and the Voters". New York Times: p. 20.
^ Veitch, Jonathan (May 24, 1998). "Raging Bull; THE TIME OF OUR TIME. By Norman Mailer". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "Gore Vidal". Wtp.org. Retrieved October 20, 2008.
^ Vidal, Gore The Best Man/'72, Esquire
^ "Gore Vidal". Thenation.com. Retrieved January 22, 2009.
^ Ira Henry Freeman, "Gore Vidal Conducts Campaign of Quips and Liberal Views", The New York Times, September 15, 1960
^ Gore Vidal (1977). Matters of Fact and of Fiction: Essays 1973–1976. Random House. p. 268. ISBN 0-394-41128-5.
^ Real Time With Bill Maher, Season 7, Episode 149, April 10, 2009
^ Gore Vidal, "Sexually Speaking: Collected Sexual Writings", Cleis Press, 1999.
^ Browne, Anthony (April 30, 2003). "The folly of mass immigration". Opendemocracy.net. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Gore Vidal, "Three Lies to Rule By" and "Japanese Intentions in the Second World War", from Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, New York, 2002, ISBN 1-56025-502-1
^ "Why We Fight (9 of 48)". Say2.org (Series of Subtitles for Documentary Video). Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Gore Vidal, "The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh". Vanity Fair, September 2001.
^ "World Can't Wait Advisory Board". Retrieved July 29, 2002.
^ Drozdiak, William (1997-01-14). U.S. Celebrities Defend Scientology in Germany, The Washington Post, p. A11.
^ Baker, Russ; April 1997. "Clash of the Titans: Scientology vs. Germany", George
^ "Dennis Kucinich". The Nation. November 8, 2007. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
^ "Gore Vidal Accepts Title of American Humanist Association Honorary President". American Humanist Association. April 20, 2009. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Interview The Times September 30, 2009
^ "Political Animals: Vidal, Buckley and the '68 Conventions". Retrieved November 2, 2009.
^ "William Buckley/Gore Vidal Debate". Retrieved August 03, 2012.
^ "Feuds: Wasted Talent". Time. August 22, 1969. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ Buckley v. Vidal 327 F. Supp. 1051 (1971)
^ "Buckley Drops Vidal Suit, Settles With Esquire", The New York Times, September 26, 1972, page 40
^ "Reports — Gore Vidal Speaks Seriously Ill of the Dead". Truthdig. Retrieved January 22, 2009.
^ Solomon, Deborah. "Literary Lion: Questions for Gore Vidal". New York Times. June 15, 2008.
^ Osborne, Kevin. "Obama a Disappointment". City Beat. Retrieved June 2, 2010.
^ "YouTube — The Henry Rollins Show — The Corruption of Election 2008". Youtube.com. Retrieved October 20, 2008.
^ "Gore Vidal Interview with Alex Jones Infowars, October 29, 2006 Texas Book Fest". Video.google.com. November 1, 2006. Retrieved January 22, 2009.
^ Close (May 5, 2007). "Diary: May 5 | Books | The Guardian". The Guardian. Retrieved August 17, 2009.
^ Joy Do Lico and Andrew Johnson, "The rumours about my love child may be true, says Gore Vidal", The Independent, May 25, 2008.
^ "What I've Learned", Esquire, June, 2008, p. 132.
^ Robinson, Charlotte. "Outtake Blog Author & Gay Icon Gore Vidal Dies". Outtake Blog. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
^ Bloom, Harold (1994). The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. Riverhead Books. p. 20. ISBN 9781573225144. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
^ "Gore Vidal, celebrated author, playwright, dies" by Tina Fineberg, USA Today, August 1, 2012
^ Hillel Italie and Andrew Dalton, "Gore Vidal, celebrated author, playwright, dies", Associated Press, August 1, 2012.
^ "Gore Vidal: The Death of a Legend | American Atheists". Atheists.org. August 1, 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ Duke, Barry (2012-08-01). "Farewell Gore Vidal, gay atheist extraordinary". Freethinker.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ Charles McGrath (August 1, 2012). "Prolific, Elegant, Acerbic Writer". The New York Times. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
^ Elaine Woo (August 1, 2012). "Gore Vidal, iconoclastic author, dies at 86". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
^ Michael Dirda (August 1, 2012). "Gore Vidal dies; imperious gadfly and prolific, graceful writer was 86". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
^ Jay Parini. "Gore Vidal obituary". Guardian. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ "Gore Vidal". Telegraph.co.uk. 2012-08-01. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ Alastair Leithead (2012-08-01). "Obituary: Gore Vidal". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ Efe. "La cultura de Estados Unidos lamenta la muerte de Gore Vidal". Ideal.es. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
^ Redazione online. "Los Angeles, è morto lo scrittore Gore Vidal". Corriere.it. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
^ "Gore Vidal : le trouble-fête de l'Amérique [Gore Vidal: the killjoy of America]" (in French). Lefigaro.fr. 01/08/2012. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
^ Weigel, David. "Stop Eulogizing Gore Vidal". Slate.com. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
^ Bryant, Christopher (August 15, 2009). "The Celluloid Closet". Polari Magazine. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "Jon Wiener (biography)". The Nation. May 21, 2012. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
^ "Legendary Author Gore Vidal on the Bush Presidency, History and the "United States of Amnesia"". Democracy Now!. May 14, 2008. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "'The US is not a republic anymore'". Insight-info.com. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "Zero: an investigation into 9/11". Zero 9/11 Movie. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "Gore Vidal vs David Dimbleby on Election Night". BBC. November 04, 2008. Retrieved August 04, 2012.
^ Haskell, Arlo (July 3, 2009). "Audio Archives: Gore Vidal | Writer Against the Grain". Key West Literary Seminar. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
^ "Gore Vidal's America". The Real News. December 24, 2010. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
[edit]External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Gore Vidal
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gore Vidal
Official website of Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal Index, by Harry Kloman
Gore Vidal Pages
Gore Vidal at the Internet Movie Database
Gore Vidal at the Internet Broadway Database
Gore Vidal at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
Gore Vidal at AllRovi
