Truman Capote
As Truman Capote was working on In Cold Blood, he was already reflecting on his the two stages of his career: his earlier work, which he found “quite remarkable,” and the work of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and beyond. Yet at this point, Capote didn’t think he had even scratched the surface of what he was capable of.
Born as Truman Streckfus Persons on September 30, 1924, in New Orleans, Louisiana, Capote was sent to live with his mother’s relatives in Alabama after the divorce of his parents. He taught himself to read and write before he entered the first grade, and when he was ten, he won a children’s writing contest with his short story, Old Mr. Busybody. Capote’s mother remarried and he took his step-father’s surname after he was adopted. At the age of seventeen, he began working at The New Yorker. Capote felt that a person either was or wasn’t a writer, and no amount of schooling would turn him into one.
Capote began writing many fictional short stories, and also wrote his first novel, Summer Crossing. He later said he destroyed it, although it surfaced years after his death. Once one of his short stories, Miriam, won an O. Henry Award, Capote was given a contract by Random House to write Other Voices, Other Rooms. Though he didn't realize it at the time, this turned out to be very autobiographical for him in regards to his acceptance of his own homosexuality. Nearly fifty years after its publication, the novel was turned into a movie. This was a bestseller for Capote, and Andy Warhol was affected very much by it, making it his life’s ambition to someday meet Capote.
While growing up in Alabama, Capote had been best friends with Harper Lee, and it’s been said that the character of Idabel in Other Voices, Other Rooms was based on her. After Lee’s success writing To Kill a Mockingbird, many said that Capote had written all or part of the book; but noting the differences in storytelling, many others discounted this theory. Instead, he was writing Breakfast at Tiffany’s: A Short Novel and Three Stories. Shortly after it was published, Breakfast at Tiffany’s was filmed as a movie starring Audrey Hepburn.
After reading a short account of a multiple murder, Capote was inspired to turn this into a non-fiction novel. He and Lee traveled to the site of the murders to interview witnesses and create the story for In Cold Blood. Capote drew praise and criticism for this work. Soon after writing In Cold Blood, he was contracted to write Answered Prayers, though he was constantly pushing back the publication date. While it was originally scheduled to be released in 1968, it never was completed. Capote published excerpts of it in Esquire magazine, and the rest of the unfinished works were later published posthumously.
The 1970s were quite different for Capote; he separated from his long-time partner, Jack Dunphy, and moved to Palm Springs. He began to use cocaine, spent time with Lee Radziwill, and also spent quite a bit of time in bathhouses. Capote was also experiencing his first literary failures. The screenplay he wrote for an adaptation of The Great Gatsby was rejected. He also spent time touring the country with The Rolling Stones with the intention of writing an article for Rolling Stone magazine, but abandoned the project after a fight with Mick Jagger. It only got worse as Radziwill provided testimony against Capote in a defamation case brought to court by Gore Vidal. He retaliated by appearing on a talk show while drunk, and telling secrets about Radziwill and her sister, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Many began to think of him as a drunken caricature of himself. In a complete role reversal, Warhol was there to support his one-time hero, taking him to Studio 54 and helping him find work. Capote retreated away from the public’s eye when he began having hallucinations, crashing his car, and eventually losing his license after having a seizure. Capote died on August 25, 1984, just short of his sixtieth birthday. He had since gotten back together with Dunphy, and when Dunphy died eight years later, his and Capote’s ashes were scattered close to where they had held property together at Crooked Pond.
