“Fame is only good for one thing”
A Truman Capote Biography
Liane Lagacé
When people are at the end of their lives, the majority of them can’t say that they won a prize for their ground-breaking writing, that they were a socialite and had one of the most lavish parties of their era, or that they were friends with real-life country folk and Hollywood starlets alike. Most people can’t say that they were the ring leader of Hollywood’s It-List and of the Best Seller’s charts or that they befriended the rich and famous and then sent their stories to press in a tell-all exposé. Nobody can say this, unless they are Truman Capote.
Born on September 30, 1924 in New Orleans, Louisiana as Truman Streckfus Persons, Capote’s childhood included multiple states and multiple parent figures. Capote’s seventeen-year-old mother, Lillie Mae Falk, had an attraction to con-men, like Truman’s father, Arch Persons, which led her to put her own problems over those of her son. During Truman’s youth, his mother and father had a turbulent relationship – his father was not responsible and his mother was unfaithful.
Perhaps for his benefit, Lillie Mae sent Truman to live with relatives in Monroeville, Alabama just before his sixth birthday. He was raised by his three great-cousins – Jennie, Callie and Sook, and his bachelor uncle, Bud. Young Truman became closest to Sook, who acted as his stand-in mother in his biological mother’s absence.
He also found friendship in his neighbor, Harper Lee, who was only a year younger than he was. They became a fast friends and their friendship lasted into adult-hood when Lee based her character “Dill” in To Kill a Mockingbird after Truman and she accompanied him on his trip to Holcomb, Kansas to research for his “non-fiction novel” In Cold Blood.
Truman was an avid writer as a child, writing for hours each day. He has said that “I began writing really sort of seriously when I was about eleven. I say seriously in the sense that like other kids go home and practice the violin or the piano or whatever, I used to go home from school every day and I would write for about three hours. I was obsessed by it.” Without his obsession with writing as a child, he may have never gotten to the status that he reached in the literary world as an adult.
After his mother divorced his father and changed her name to Nina, in 1931 she brought Truman to Manhattan with her new husband Joseph Capote. He was a Cuban textile-worker on Wall Street and he adopted Truman in 1935, renaming him Truman Garcia Capote.
In 1939, the Capotes moved to Greenwich, Connecticut where Truman started a high school education at Greenwich High School, which was put on hold when the Capotes moved back to New York, this time to a classy apartment on Park Ave. Truman finished his high school education at a private school on the West Side, the Franklin School, in 1943.
After graduating, Capote took a job at The New Yorker, with hopes of being published. When The New Yorker failed to achieve his publishing dreams, he went to Mademoiselle and Harper’s Bazaar, two magazines that published the best stories and short fiction. Capote had his first serious story “Miriam” published in Mademoiselle in 1946, which won him the O. Henry Award.
Following the publication of “Miriam,” Random House contracted Capote for Other Voices, Other Rooms, a story about 13-year-old Joel Knox living in a situation eerily similar to Truman’s own childhood. Later in life, while writing The Dogs Bark in 1973 Capote looked back and said of his first book “Other Voices, Other Rooms was an attempt to exorcise demons, an unconscious, altogether intuitive attempt, for I was not aware, except for a few incidents and descriptions, of its being in any serious degree autobiographical. Rereading it now, I find such self-deception unpardonable.” As Capote grew older, he came to terms with who he was and who he wanted to be.
Along with Other Voices being met with controversial reviews due to its content, Harold Halma’s dust jacket photo of Truman gazing into and reclining in front of the camera caused a stir among people. The image sent people into shock with its “immorality” and the altogether unprofessional manner of it. The photo was used to promote Other Voices and was distributed in magazines and papers, and when the general public saw it, some were outraged, and others were intrigued by Capote’s guts for using the photo. But Capote wanted the publicity that the photo caused – he’d intended for it to call attention all along.
After Other Voices, “Shut a Final Door” (1947) was published in August edition of The Atlantic Monthly. “Shut a Final Door” won the O. Henry Award in 1948. Random House followed up the success of Other Voices with A Tree of Night and Other Stories (1949) including “Miriam” and “Shut a Final Door.”
Capote traveled to Europe for two years writing a series of travel essays and journals. In the early 1950s, he took on a Broadway play adaptation of his novella The Grass Harp (1951), and a musical of House of Flowers in 1954 working with Harold Arlen. While traveling with a Porgy and Bess show in 1958 through the Soviet Union, Capote wrote his first book-length non-fiction The Muses are Heard.
In 1958, Capote’s most influential work was published – Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The novella featured the infamous Upper East Side eccentric socialite Holly Golightly, easily Capote’s most well known and imitated character. Holly was brought to life through Audrey Hepburn in the movie based on the story in 1961. Breakfast at Tiffany’s was also a turning point for Capote as a writer. He said to Roy Newquist in 1964 that he felt that there he had two careers – one before Breakfast at Tiffany’s and one starting with it and that Breakfast at Tiffany’s defined the change in his writing style.
On November 16, 1959 Capote was inspired by a 300-word article in the New York Times about the murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. He was so inspired that he took Harper Lee with him to Kansas to start his next writing expedition. He spent the next four years getting to know the people of Holcomb, with Lee’s help, taking down notes and stories, and eventually producing the first “non-fiction novel.” Though Capote said that he quoted the people in his novel accurately, other authors who considered his story a “fabrication”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–> and “a work of art”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]<!–[endif]–> did research of their own, and many of the Holcomb residents supported their claims.
In honor of the success of In Cold Blood, Truman Capote held his legendary Black and White Ball on November 28, 1966 in the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel in New York. Capote controlled who was “in” or “out” with his robin’s egg blue Tiffany invitations. It is said that Capote “invited 500 friends but made 15,000 enemies”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[3]<!–[endif]–> with the guest list for his ball. Some of his esteemed guests included Frank Sinatra and his new wife Mia Farrow, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Cronkite, designer Oscar de la Renta, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Fonda, Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn, personal friend Harper Lee, residents from Holcomb, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Miller, Lee Radziwill and her husband Polish Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł, up-and-coming model Penelope Tree and Andy Warhol.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[4]<!–[endif]–>
Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball is said to be the “party of the century” where celebrities and socialites of Hollywood mixed with country-folks from Kansas and New York starlets danced with Plaza doormen into the morning.
At this time, Truman Capote had achieved the social life that he had fantasized about for years. He had new famous friends including Lee Radziwell, Jacqueline Kennedy’s sister. But his new fame-driven lifestyle caused riffs in his long-time relationship with author Jack Dunphy. Dunphy was ten years Capote’s senior and his personality-opposite.
In Cold Blood was undoubtedly Capote’s most famous and well-received piece of work. He became one of the most sought after writers for magazines, but his writings were scarce and his reliability waned. In 1972, Capote traveled with the Rolling Stones on their 1972 American Tour, but because of feuds with Mick Jagger, never completed the article. Capote started dabbling in alcohol and reckless decisions, frequently appearing on talk shows, often under the influence, and becoming his own cliché and a caricature of himself.
Though in the years following In Cold Blood, Capote had been creating an idea for a new book – an exposé of the rich and famous. He had been taking mental notes on all of his friends, acquaintances and enemies, preparing to tell their stories, all without them knowing.
With friends including Andy Warhol, Lee Radziwill, Harper Lee, and Babe and William S. Paley, material for Answered Prayers was easy to come across. The contract was signed in 1966 with Plume, and before the ink had dried, there was hype surrounding Capote’s next master work. But there weren’t any words even written yet, only thoughts and stories going around in Capote’s extensive imagination.
By 1975, people were speculating that Answered Prayers was a rumor spread for publicity and that it did not even exist. Capote allowed Esquire to publish the first four chapters (“Mojave”, “La Côte Basque 1965”, “Unspoiled Monsters” and “Kate McCloud”) were published between 1975 and 1976. **I haven’t read Answered Prayers yet, so I’ll fill in descriptions once I’ve read them**
The stories stressed, or entirely ended, friendships that Capote had made throughout the years. “La Côte Basque 1965” cut ties between Capote and the Paleys altogether.
In Truman Capote’s last years, he fell into a swirl of alcohol, drugs, rehab programs and hospital stays. He became anti-social and reclusive, keeping to himself and becoming only a portion of the person he had once been. One of his final attempts at writing was for Andy Warhol’s magazine, Interview, but very few articles were ever finished. However they gave him inspiration to write Music For Chameleons in 1980. He also wrote an essay, “Remembering Tennessee,” for Tennessee Williams that was published in Playboy in 1983. This would be his last published work.
On August 25, 1984, Truman Capote was found dead in the home of his long-time friend, Joanna Carson (ex-wife of Johnny Carson), at the age of 59. Capote died from “liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxications” according to the coroner’s report. His ashes were spread at Crooked Pond, between Bridgehamton, New York and Sag Harbor on Long Island. He left everything to Jack Dunphy, who passed away eight years later in 1992, even though they had a strained relationship.
Though a fantastic, groundbreaking writer, Truman Capote led a life that ultimately ended him and his career. With a thirst for fame and a need for attention, Capote was an undeniable presence in the world of literature and of socialites alike. He was his own biggest fan and critic all in one and he created a standard that very few people can come close to even in today’s world. Truman Capote will be remembered as an author, socialite and an all around influential force in both worlds.
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<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–> True crime writer Jack Olsen
<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]<!–[endif]–> Phillip K. Thompkins in Esquire magazine, 1966
<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[3]<!–[endif]–> R. Couri Hay of Capote’s Black and White Ball guest list
<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[4]<!–[endif]–> “Party of the Century” Deborah Davis (2006)
