Truman Capote

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Truman Capote

Capote by Jack Mitchell, 1980

Born Truman Streckfus Persons

September 30, 1924
New Orleans, Louisiana,
United States

Died August 25, 1984 (aged 59)

Los Angeles, California,
United States

Resting Westwood Memorial Park, Los

place Angeles

Occupation Artist, novelist, short story

writer,screenwriter, playwright

Period 1943–84
 Literary Southern Gothic
movement

Notable In Cold Blood, Breakfast at

works Tiffany's

Partner Jack Dunphy

Signature

Truman Streckfus Persons (September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984), known as Truman
Capote /ˈtruːmən kəˈpoʊtiː/,[1] was an American author, screenwriter, playwright, actor, many of
whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including
the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966), which
he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At least 20 films and television dramas have been produced of
Capote novels, stories, and plays.
Capote rose above a childhood troubled by divorce, a long absence from his mother, and
multiple migrations. He had discovered his calling as a writer by the age of 11, and for the rest
of his childhood he honed his writing ability. Capote began his professional career writing short
stories. The critical success of one story, "Miriam" (1945), attracted the attention of Random
House publisher Bennett Cerf, and resulted in a contract to write the novelOther Voices, Other
Rooms (1948). Capote earned the most fame with In Cold Blood, a journalistic work about the
murder of a Kansas farm family in their home. Capote spent four years writing the book aided
by his lifelong friend Harper Lee, who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird (1960).[2]
A milestone in popular culture, In Cold Blood was the peak of Capote's literary career; it was to
be his final fully published book. In the 1970s, he maintained his celebrity status by appearing
on television talk shows.

Contents
[hide]

 1 Early life
o 1.1 Friendship with Harper Lee
 2 Writing career
o 2.1 Short story phase
o 2.2 Posthumously published early novel
o 2.3 First novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms
 2.3.1 Harold Halma photograph
 o 2.4 Stage and screen and magazine work
o 2.5 Breakfast at Tiffany's
o 2.6 In Cold Blood
o 2.7 Veracity of In Cold Blood and other nonfiction
 3 Celebrity
o 3.1 Years following In Cold Blood
o 3.2 Answered Prayers
o 3.3 "La Côte Basque 1965"
 4 Last years
 5 Death
 6 Permanent hometown exhibit
 7 Capote on film
o 7.1 Documentaries
 8 Portrayals of Capote
 9 Discography
 10 Works of Truman Capote
 11 References
o 11.1 Notes
o 11.2 Bibliography
 12 Further reading
o 12.1 Archival sources
 13 External links

Early life[edit]
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Capote was the son of 17-year-old Lillie Mae Faulk and
salesman Archulus Persons.[1] His parents divorced when he was four, and he was sent
to Monroeville, Alabama, where, for the following four to five years, he was raised by his
mother's relatives. He formed a fast bond with his mother's distant relative, Nanny Rumbley
Faulk, whom Truman called "Sook". "Her face is remarkable – not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like
that, and tinted by sun and wind", is how Capote described Sook in "A Christmas Memory"
(1956). In Monroeville, he was a neighbor and friend of author Harper Lee, who wrote the 1960
novel To Kill a Mockingbird, and is rumored to have based the character Dill on Capote.[3][4][5]
As a lonely child, Capote taught himself both to read and to write before he entered his first
year of school.[6] Capote was often seen at age five carrying his dictionary and notepad, and
began writing fiction at the age of 11.[7] He was given the nickname Bulldog around this age.[8]
On Saturdays, he made trips from Monroeville to the nearby city of Mobile on the Gulf Coast,
and at one point he submitted a short story, "Old Mrs. Busybody", to a children's writing contest
sponsored by the Mobile Press Register. Capote received recognition for his early work
from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in 1936.[9]
In 1933, he moved to New York City to live with his mother and her second husband, Joseph
Capote, a Cuban-born textile broker, who adopted him as his stepson and renamed him
Truman García Capote. However, Joseph was convicted ofembezzlement and shortly
afterwards, when his income crashed, the family was forced to leave Park Avenue.[citation needed]
Of his early days, Capote related, "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."[10] In 1935, he attended the Trinity School in New York City. He
then attended St. Joseph Military Academy. In 1939, the Capote family moved to Greenwich,
Connecticut, and Truman attended Greenwich High School, where he wrote for both the
school's literary journal, The Green Witch, and the school newspaper. When they returned to
New York City in 1942, he attended the Franklin School, an Upper West Sideprivate school
now known as the Dwight School, and graduated in 1943.[11] That was the end of his formal
education.
While still attending Franklin in 1943, Capote began working as copyboy in the art department
at The New Yorker,[11] a job he held for two years before being fired for angering poet Robert
Frost.[12] Years later, he reminisced, "Not a very grand job, for all it really involved was sorting
cartoons and clipping newspapers. Still, I was fortunate to have it, especially since I was
determined never to set a studious foot inside a college classroom. I felt that either one was or
wasn't a writer, and no combination of professors could influence the outcome. I still think I was
correct, at least in my own case." He left his job to live with relatives in Alabama and began
writing his first novel, Summer Crossing.[13]
Friendship with Harper Lee[edit]
Capote based the character of Idabel in Other Voices, Other Rooms on his Monroeville
neighbor and best friend, Harper Lee. Capote once acknowledged this: "Mr. and Mrs. Lee,
Harper Lee's mother and father, lived very near. She was my best friend. Did you ever read her
book, To Kill a Mockingbird? I'm a character in that book, which takes place in the same small
town in Alabama where we lived. Her father was a lawyer, and she and I used to go to trials all
the time as children. We went to the trials instead of going to the movies."[14]

Writing career[edit]
This section needs additional citations
for verification. Please help improve this
article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced
material may be challenged and removed. (February 2010)
Short story phase[edit]
Between 1943 and 1946, Capote wrote a continual flow of short fiction, including "Miriam", "My
Side of the Matter", and "Shut a Final Door" (for which he won the O. Henry Award in 1948, at
the age of 24). His stories were published in both literary quarterlies and well-known popular
magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Bazaar, Harper's
Magazine, Mademoiselle, The New Yorker, Prairie Schooner[15] and Story. In June 1945,
"Miriam" was published byMademoiselle and went on to win a prize, Best First-Published
Story, in 1946. In the spring of 1946, Capote was accepted at Yaddo, the artists and writers
colony at Saratoga Springs, New York. (He later endorsed Patricia Highsmith as a Yaddo
candidate, and she wrote Strangers on a Train while she was there.)
During an interview for The Paris Review in 1957, Capote said this of his short story technique:
Since each story presents its own technical problems, obviously one can't generalize about
them on a two-times-two-equals-four basis. Finding the right form for your story is simply to
realize the most natural way of telling the story. The test of whether or not a writer has defined
the natural shape of his story is just this: After reading it, can you imagine it differently, or does
it silence your imagination and seem to you absolute and final? As an orange is final. As an
orange is something nature has made just right.[16]
Random House, the publisher of his novel Other Voices, Other Rooms (see below), moved to
capitalize on this novel's success with the publication of A Tree of Night and Other Stories in
1949. In addition to "Miriam", this collection also includes "Shut a Final Door", first published
in The Atlantic Monthly (August 1947).
After A Tree of Night, Capote published a collection of his travel writings, Local Color (1950),
which included nine essays originally published in magazines between 1946 and 1950.
Posthumously published early novel[edit]
Some time in the 1940s, Capote wrote a novel set in New York City about the summer
romance of a socialite and a parking lot attendant.[17] Capote later claimed to have destroyed
the manuscript of this novel; but twenty years after his death, in 2004, it came to light that the
manuscript had been retrieved from the trash back in 1950 by a house sitter at an apartment
formerly occupied by Capote.[18] The novel was published in 2006 by Random House under the
title Summer Crossing.
First novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms[edit]
The critical success of one of his short stories, "Miriam" (1945), attracted the attention of the
publisher Bennett Cerf, resulting in a contract with Random House to write a novel. With an
advance of $1,500, Capote returned to Monroeville and began Other Voices, Other Rooms,
continuing to work on the manuscript in New Orleans, Saratoga Springs, New York, and North
Carolina, eventually completing it in Nantucket, Massachusetts. It was published in 1948.
Capote described this symbolic tale as "a poetic explosion in highly suppressed emotion". The
novel is a semi-autobiographical refraction of Capote's Alabama childhood. Decades later,
writing in The Dogs Bark (1973), he commented:
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.
The story focuses on 13-year-old Joel Knox following the loss of his mother. Joel is sent
from New Orleans to live with his father who abandoned him at the time of his birth.
Arriving at Skully's Landing, a vast, decaying mansion in rural Alabama, Joel meets his
sullen stepmother Amy, debauched transvestite Randolph, and defiant Idabel, a girl who
becomes his friend. He also sees a spectral "queer lady" with "fat dribbling curls" watching
him from a top window. Despite Joel's queries, the whereabouts of his father remain a
mystery. When he finally is allowed to see his father, Joel is stunned to find he is a
quadriplegic, having tumbled down a flight of stairs after being inadvertently shot by
Randolph. Joel runs away with Idabel but catches pneumonia and eventually returns to the
Landing where he is nursed back to health by Randolph. The implication in the final
paragraph is that the "queer lady" beckoning from the window is Randolph in his old Mardi
Grascostume. Gerald Clarke, in Capote: A Biography (1988) described the conclusion:
Finally, when he goes to join the queer lady in the window, Joel accepts his destiny,
which is to be homosexual, to always hear other voices and live in other rooms. Yet
acceptance is not a surrender; it is a liberation. "I am me", he whoops. "I am Joel, we
are the same people." So, in a sense, had Truman rejoiced when he made peace with
his own identity.

This much-discussed 1947 Harold Halma photo on the back of Other

Voices, Other Rooms (1948) was a key factor in Capote's rise to fame
during the 1940s.

Harold Halma photograph[edit]

Other Voices, Other Rooms made The New York Times bestseller list and stayed
there for nine weeks, selling more than 26,000 copies. The promotion and controversy
surrounding this novel catapulted Capote to fame. A 1947 Harold Halma photograph
used to promote the book showed a reclining Capote gazing fiercely into the camera.
Gerald Clarke, in Capote: A Biography (1988), wrote, "The famous photograph: Harold
Halma's picture on the dustjacket of Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) caused as
much comment and controversy as the prose inside. Truman claimed that the camera
had caught him off guard, but in fact he had posed himself and was responsible for
both the picture and the publicity." Much of the early attention to Capote centered on
different interpretations of this photograph, which was viewed as a suggestive pose by
some. According to Clarke, the photo created an "uproar" and gave Capote "not only
the literary, but also the public personality he had always wanted." The photo made a
huge impression on the 20-year-old Andy Warhol, who often talked about the picture
and wrote fan letters to Capote.[19] When Warhol moved to New York in 1949, he made
numerous attempts to meet Capote, and Warhol's fascination with the author led to
Warhol's first New York one-man show, Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of
Truman Capote at the Hugo Gallery (June 16 – July 3, 1952).[20]
Capote photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1948
When the picture was reprinted along with reviews in magazines and newspapers,
some readers were amused, but others were outraged and offended. The Los Angeles
Times reported that Capote looked "as if he were dreamily contemplating some
outrage against conventional morality". The novelist Merle Miller issued a complaint
about the picture at a publishing forum, and the photo of "Truman Remote" was
satirized in the third issue of Mad (making Capote one of the first four celebrities to be
spoofed in Mad). The humorist Max Shulman struck an identical pose for the
dustjacket photo on his collection, Max Shulman's Large Economy Size (1948). The
Broadway stage revue New Faces (and the subsequent film version) featured a skit in
which Ronny Graham parodied Capote, deliberately copying his pose in the Halma
photo. Random House featured the Halma photo in its "This is Truman Capote" ads,
and large blowups were displayed in bookstore windows. Walking on Fifth Avenue,
Halma overheard two middle-aged women looking at a Capote blowup in the window
of a bookstore. When one woman said, "I'm telling you: he's just young", the other
woman responded, "And I'm telling you, if he isn't young, he's dangerous!" Capote
delighted in retelling this anecdote.
Stage and screen and magazine work[edit]
In the early 1950s, Capote took on Broadway and films, adapting his 1951
novella, The Grass Harp, into a 1952 play (later a 1971 musical and a 1995 film),
followed by the musical House of Flowers (1954), which spawned the song "A Sleepin'
Bee". Capote co-wrote with John Huston the screenplay for Huston's film Beat the
Devil (1953). Traveling through theSoviet Union with a touring production of Porgy and
Bess, he produced a series of articles for The New Yorker that became his first book-
length work of nonfiction, The Muses Are Heard (1956). In this period he also wrote an
autobiographical essay for Holiday Magazine about his life in Brooklyn Heights in the
late 1950's, entitled Brooklyn Heights: A Personal Memoir (1959).
Breakfast at Tiffany's[edit]
 Truman Capote in 1959
Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories (1958) brought together the
title novella and three shorter tales: "House of Flowers", "A Diamond Guitar" and "A
Christmas Memory". The heroine of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly Golightly, became one
of Capote's best known creations, and the book's prose style prompted Norman
Mailer to call Capote "the most perfect writer of my generation".
The novella itself was originally supposed to be published in Harper's Bazaar's July,
1958 issue, several months before its publication in book form by Random House. But
the publisher of Harper's, the Hearst Corporation, began demanding changes to
Capote's tart language, which he reluctantly made because he had liked the photos
by David Attie and the design work by Harper's art director Alexey Brodovitch that
were to accompany the text.[21] But despite his compliance, Hearst ordered Harper's
not to run the novella anyway. Its language and subject matter were still deemed "not
suitable", and there was concern that Tiffany's, a major advertiser, would react
negatively.[22] An outraged Capote took the novella to Esquire for its November, 1958
issue, and it was published by Random House shortly afterwards.
For Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's was a turning point, as he explained to Roy
Newquist (Counterpoint, 1964):
I think I've had two careers. One was the career of precocity, the young person who
published a series of books that were really quite remarkable. I can even read them
now and evaluate them favorably, as though they were the work of a stranger ... My
second career began, I guess it really began with Breakfast at Tiffany's. It involves a
different point of view, a different prose style to some degree. Actually, the prose style
is an evolvement from one to the other – a pruning and thinning-out to a more
subdued, clearer prose. I don't find it as evocative, in many respects, as the other, or
even as original, but it is more difficult to do. But I'm nowhere near reaching what I
want to do, where I want to go. Presumably this new book is as close as I'm going to
get, at least strategically.[23]
In Cold Blood[edit]
The "new book", In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its
Consequences (1965), was inspired by a 300-word article that ran on page 39
of The New York Times on November 16, 1959 (reproduced below). The story
described the unexplained murder of the Clutter family in rural Holcomb, Kansas.
Wealthy Farmer, 3 of Family Slain
A wealthy wheat farmer, his wife, and their two young children were found shot to
death today in their home. They had been killed by shotgun blasts at close range after
being bound and gagged. The father, 48-year-old Herbert W. Clutter, was found in the
basement with his son, Kenyon, 15. His wife Bonnie, 45, and a daughter, Nancy, 16,
were in their beds. There were no signs of a struggle and nothing had been stolen. The
telephone lines had been cut. "This is apparently the case of a psychopathic
killer", Sheriff Earl Robinson said. Mr. Clutter was founder of The Kansas Wheat
Growers Association. In 1954, President Eisenhower appointed him to the Farm Credit
Administration, but he never lived in Washington. The board represents the twelve farm
credit districts in the country. Mr. Clutter served from December 1953 until April 1957.
He declined a reappointment. He was also a local member of the Agriculture
Department's Price Stabilization Board and was active with the Great Plains Wheat
Growers Association. The Clutter farm and ranch cover almost 1,000 acres[24] in one of
the richest wheat areas. Mr. Clutter, his wife and daughter were clad in pajamas. The
boy was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. The bodies were discovered by two of
Nancy's classmates, Susan Kidwell and Nancy Ewalt. Sheriff Robinson said the last
reported communication with Mr. Clutter took place last night about 9:30 PM, when the
victim called Gerald Van Vleet, his business partner, who lives near by. Mr. Van Vleet
said the conversation had concerned the farm and ranch. Two daughters were away.
They are Beverly, a student at the University of Kansas, and Mrs. Donald G. Jarchow
of Mount Carroll, Illinois.[25]
Fascinated by this brief news item, Capote traveled with Harper Lee to
Holcomb and visited the scene of the massacre. Over the course of the
next few years, he became acquainted with everyone involved in the
investigation and most of the residents of the small town. Rather than
taking notes during interviews, Capote committed conversations to
memory and immediately wrote quotes as soon as an interview ended. He
claimed his memory retention for verbatim conversations had been tested
at "over 90%".[26] Lee made inroads into the community by befriending the
wives of those Capote wanted to interview. Capote recalled his years in
Kansas when he spoke at the 1974 San Francisco International Film
Festival:
I spent four years on and off in that part of Western Kansas there during the research
for that book and then the film. What was it like? It was very lonely. And difficult.
Although I made a lot of friends there. I had to, otherwise I never could have
researched the book properly. The reason was I wanted to make an experiment in
journalistic writing, and I was looking for a subject that would have sufficient
proportions. I'd already done a great deal of narrative journalistic writing in this
experimental vein in the 1950s for The New Yorker... But I was looking for something
very special that would give me a lot of scope. I had come up with two or three different
subjects and each of them for whatever reasons was a dry run after I'd done a lot of
work on them. And one day I was gleaning The New York Times, and way on the back
page I saw this very small item. And it just said, "Kansas Farmer Slain. Family of Four
Is Slain in Kansas". A little item just about like that. And the community was completely
nonplussed, and it was this total mystery of how it could have been, and what
happened. And I don't know what it was. I think it was that I knew nothing about
Kansas or that part of the country or anything. And I thought, "Well, that will be a fresh
perspective for me"... And I said, "Well, I'm just going to go out there and just look
around and see what this is." And so maybe this is the subject I've been looking for.
Maybe a crime of this kind is ... in a small town. It has no publicity around it and yet had
some strange ordinariness about it. So I went out there, and I arrived just two days
after the Clutters' funeral. The whole thing was a complete mystery and was for two
and a half months. Nothing happened. I stayed there and kept researching it and
researching it and got very friendly with the various authorities and the detectives on
the case. But I never knew whether it was going to be interesting or not. You know, I
mean anything could have happened. They could have never caught the killers. Or if
they had caught the killers ... it may have turned out to be something completely
uninteresting to me. Or maybe they would never have spoken to me or wanted to
cooperate with me. But as it so happened, they did catch them. In January, the case
was solved, and then I made very close contact with these two boys and saw them
very often over the next four years until they were executed. But I never knew ... when I
was even halfway through the book, when I had been working on it for a year and a
half, I didn't honestly know whether I would go on with it or not, whether it would finally
evolve itself into something that would be worth all that effort. Because it was a
tremendous effort.[27]
In Cold Blood was published in 1966 by Random House after having
been serialized in The New Yorker. The "nonfiction novel", as Capote
labeled it, brought him literary acclaim and became an international
bestseller, but Capote would never complete another novel after it.
A feud between Capote and British arts critic Kenneth Tynan erupted
in the pages of The Observer after Tynan's review ofIn Cold
Blood implied that Capote wanted an execution so the book would
have an effective ending. Tynan wrote:
We are talking, in the long run, about responsibility; the debt
that a writer arguably owes to those who provide him – down
to the last autobiographical parentheses – with his subject
matter and his livelihood ... For the first time an influential
writer of the front rank has been placed in a position of
privileged intimacy with criminals about to die, and – in my
view – done less than he might have to save them. The focus
narrows sharply down on priorities: does the work come first,
or does life? An attempt to help (by supplying new psychiatric
testimony) might easily have failed: what one misses is any
sign that it was ever contemplated.[28]
Veracity of In Cold Blood and other nonfiction[edit]
In Cold Blood brought Capote much praise from the literary
community, but there were some who questioned certain events as
reported in the book. Writing in Esquire in 1966, Phillip K. Tompkins
noted factual discrepancies after he traveled to Kansas and talked to
some of the same people interviewed by Capote. In a telephone
interview with Tompkins, Mrs. Meier denied that she heard Perry cry
and that she held his hand as described by Capote. In Cold
Blood indicates that Meier and Perry became close, yet she told
Tompkins she spent little time with Perry and did not talk much with
him. Tompkins concluded:
Capote has, in short, achieved a work of art. He has told exceedingly well a tale of high
terror in his own way. But, despite the brilliance of his self-publicizing efforts, he has
made both a tactical and a moral error that will hurt him in the short run. By insisting
that "every word" of his book is true he has made himself vulnerable to those readers
who are prepared to examine seriously such a sweeping claim.
True crime writer Jack Olsen also commented on the fabrications:
"I recognized it as a work of art, but I know fakery when I see it," Olsen says. "Capote
completely fabricated quotes and whole scenes ... The book made something like $6
million in 1960s money, and nobody wanted to discuss anything wrong with a
moneymaker like that in the publishing business." Nobody except Olsen and a few
others. His criticisms were quoted in Esquire, to which Capote replied, "Jack Olsen is
just jealous."
"That was true, of course," Olsen says, "I was jealous – all that money? I'd been
assigned the Clutter case by Harper & Row until we found out that Capote and his
cousin [sic], Harper Lee, had been already on the case in Dodge City for six months."
Olsen explains, "That book did two things. It made true crime an interesting,
successful, commercial genre, but it also began the process of tearing it down. I blew
the whistle in my own weak way. I'd only published a couple of books at that time – but
since it was such a superbly written book, nobody wanted to hear about it."[29]
Alvin Dewey Jr., the Kansas Bureau of Investigation
detective portrayed in In Cold Blood, later said that the
last scene, in which he visits the Clutters' graves, was
Capote's invention, while other Kansas residents whom
Capote interviewed have claimed they or their relatives
were mischaracterized or misquoted.[30] Dewey and his
wife Marie became friends of Capote during the time
Capote spent in Kansas gathering research for his book.
[31]
Dewey gave Capote access to the case files and other
items related to the investigation and to the members of
the Clutter family, including Nancy Clutter's diary.[31]When
the film version of the book was made in 1967, Capote
arranged for Marie Dewey to receive $10,000
from Columbia Pictures as a paid consultant to the
making of the film.[31]
Another work described by Capote as "nonfiction" was
later reported to have been largely fabricated. In a 1992
piece in theSunday Times, reporters Peter and Leni
Gillman investigated the source of "Handcarved Coffins",
the story in Capote's last work Music for
Chameleons subtitled "a nonfiction account of an
American crime". They found no reported series of
American murders in the same town which included all of
the details Capote described – the sending of miniature
coffins, a rattlesnake murder, a decapitation, etc. Instead,
they found that a few of the details closely mirrored an
unsolved case on which investigator Al Dewey had
worked. Their conclusion was that Capote had invented
the rest of the story, including his meetings with the
suspected killer, Quinn.[32]

Celebrity[edit]
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additional citations
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help improve this
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to reliable sources.
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Capote was openly homosexual. One of his first serious
lovers was Smith College literature professor Newton
Arvin, who won the National Book Award for his Herman
Melville biography in 1951 and to whom Capote
dedicated Other Voices, Other Rooms.[33][34] However,
Capote spent the majority of his life until his death
partnered to Jack Dunphy, a fellow writer. In his
book, "Dear Genius ..." A Memoir of My Life with Truman
Capote, Dunphy attempts both to explain the Capote he
knew and loved within their relationship and the very
success-driven and, eventually, drug and alcohol
addicted person who existed outside of their relationship.
[35]
It provides perhaps the most in-depth and intimate
look at Capote's life, outside of his own works. Although
Capote and Dunphy's relationship lasted the majority of
Capote's life, it seems that they both lived, at times,
different lives. Their sometimes separate living quarters
allowed autonomy within the relationship and, as Dunphy
admitted, "spared [him] the anguish of watching Capote
drink and take drugs."[36]
Capote was well known for his distinctive, high-pitched
voice and odd vocal mannerisms, his offbeat manner of
dress, and his fabrications. He often claimed to know
intimately people whom he had in fact never met, such
as Greta Garbo. He professed to have had numerous
liaisons with men thought to be heterosexual, including,
he claimed, Errol Flynn. He traveled in an eclectic array of
social circles, hobnobbing with authors, critics, business
tycoons, philanthropists, Hollywood and theatrical
celebrities, royalty, and members of high society, both in
the U.S. and abroad. Part of his public persona was a
longstanding rivalry with writer Gore Vidal. Their rivalry
prompted Tennessee Williams to complain: "You would
think they were running neck-and-neck for some fabulous
gold prize." Apart from his favorite authors (Willa
Cather, Isak Dinesen, andMarcel Proust), Capote had
faint praise for other writers. However, one who did get
his favorable endorsement was journalist Lacey
Fosburgh, author of Closing Time: The True Story of the
Goodbar Murder (1977). He also claimed an admiration
for Andy Warhol's The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From
A to B & Back Again.
Although Capote seemed never really to embrace
the Gay Rights Movement, his own openness about
homosexuality and his encouragement for openness in
others makes him an important player in the realm of Gay
Rights nonetheless.[37] In his piece "Capote and the
Trillings: Homophobia and Literary Culture at
Midcentury," Jeff Solomon details an encounter between
Capote and Lionel and Diana Trilling – two New York
intellectuals and literary critics – in which Capote
questioned the motives of Lionel, who had recently
published a book on E.M. Forster but had ignored the
author's homosexuality. Solomon argues:
when Capote confronts the Trillings on the train,
he attacks their identity as literary and social
critics committed to literature as a tool for social
justice, capable of questioning both their own and
their society's preconceptions, and sensitive to
prejudice by virtue of their heritage and, in
Diana's case, by her gender.[38]
By producing works on homosexuality before and after
the beginning of the Gay Rights Movement and by openly
living as a gay man, Capote became an important
representative of the gay community and a leading gay
figure throughout the 20th century.
Years following In Cold Blood[edit]
Now more sought after than ever, Capote wrote
occasional brief articles for magazines, and also
entrenched himself more deeply in the world of the jet
set. Gore Vidal once observed, "Truman Capote has
tried, with some success, to get into a world that I have
tried, with some success, to get out of."[39]
In the late 1960s, he became friendly with Lee Radziwill,
the sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Radziwill was
an aspiring actress and had been panned for her
performance in a production of The Philadelphia Story in
Chicago. Capote was commissioned to write the teleplay
for a 1967 television production starring Radziwill: an
adaptation of the classic Otto
Preminger film Laura (1944). The adaptation, and
Radziwill's performance in particular, received indifferent
reviews and poor ratings; arguably, it was Capote's first
major professional setback. Radziwill supplanted the
older Babe Paley as his primary female companion in
public throughout the better part of the 1970s.
On November 28, 1966, in honor of The Washington
Post publisher Katharine Graham, Capote hosted a now
legendary masked ball, called the Black and White Ball,
in the Grand Ballroom of New York City's Plaza Hotel. It
was considered the social event of not only that season
but of many to follow. The New York Times and other
publications gave it considerable coverage, and Deborah
Davis wrote an entire book about the event, Party of the
Century (2006), excerpted by The Independent.
[40]
Different accounts of the evening were collected
by George Plimpton in his book Truman Capote.
[41]
Capote dangled the prized invitations for months,
snubbing early supporters like fellow Southern
writer Carson McCullersas he determined who was "in"
and who was "out."[40]
Despite the assertion earlier in life that one "lost an IQ
point for every year spent on the West Coast", he
purchased a home in Palm Springs and began to indulge
in a more aimless lifestyle and heavy drinking. This
resulted in bitter quarreling with Dunphy, with whom he
had shared a nonexclusive relationship since the 1950s.
Their partnership changed form and continued as a
nonsexual one, and they were separated during much of
the 1970s.
Capote never finished another novel after In Cold
Blood. The dearth of new writing and other failures,
including a rejected screenplay for Paramount's 1974
adaptation of The Great Gatsby, were counteracted by
Capote's frequenting of the talk show circuit. In 1972,
Capote accompanied the Rolling Stones on their 1972
American Tour as a correspondent for Rolling
Stone magazine. He ultimately refused to write the article,
so the magazine recouped its interests by publishing, in
April 1973, an interview of the author conducted by Andy
Warhol. A collection of previously published essays and
reportage,The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private
Places, appeared later that year.
In July 1973, Capote met John O'Shea, the middle-aged
vice president of Marine Midland Bank on Long Island,
while visiting a bathhouse. The married father of three did
not identify as homosexual or bisexual, perceiving his
visits as being a "kind of masturbation."[citation
needed]
However, O'Shea found Capote's fortune alluring
and harbored aspirations to become a professional writer.
After consummating their relationship in Palm Springs,
the two engaged in an ongoing war of jealousy and
manipulation for the remainder of the decade. Longtime
friends were appalled when O'Shea, who was officially
employed as Capote's manager, attempted to take total
control of the author's literary and business interests.
Answered Prayers[edit]
Through his jet set social life Capote had been gathering
observations for a tell-all novel, Answered
Prayers (eventually to be published as Answered
Prayers: The Unfinished Novel). The book, which had
been in the planning stages since 1958, was intended to
be the American equivalent of Marcel Proust's In Search
of Lost Time and a culmination of the "nonfiction novel"
format. Initially scheduled for publication in 1968, the
novel was eventually delayed, at Capote's insistence, to
1972. Because of the delay, he was forced to return
money received for the film rights to 20th Century Fox.
Capote spoke about the novel in interviews, but
continued to postpone the delivery date.
Capote permitted Esquire to publish four chapters of the
unfinished novel in 1975 and 1976. The first to appear,
"Mojave", ran as a self-contained short story and was
favorably received, but the second, "La Côte Basque
1965", based in part on the dysfunctional personal lives of
Capote's friends William S. Paley and Babe Paley,
generated controversy. Although the issue featuring "La
Côte Basque" sold out immediately upon publication, its
much-discussed betrayal of confidences alienated
Capote from his established base of middle-aged,
wealthy female friends, who feared the intimate and often
sordid details of their ostensibly glamorous lives would be
exposed to the public. Another two chapters, "Unspoiled
Monsters" and "Kate McCloud", appeared subsequently;
intended to form the long opening section of the novel,
they displayed a marked shift in narrative voice,
introduced a more elaborate plot structure, and together
formed a novella-length mosaic of fictionalized memoir
and gossip. "Unspoiled Monsters", which by itself was
almost as long as Breakfast at Tiffany's, contained a
thinly veiled satire of Tennessee Williams, whose
friendship with Capote had already become strained.
"La Côte Basque 1965"[edit]
"La Côte Basque 1965" was published as an individual
chapter in Esquire magazine in November 1975. The
catty beginning to his still-unfinished novel, Answered
Prayers, marks the catalyst of the social suicide of
Truman Capote. Many of Capote's female friends, whom
he nicknamed his "swans", were featured in the text,
some under pseudonyms and others by their real names.
The chapter is said to have revealed the dirty secrets of
these women,[42] and therefore aired the "dirty laundry" of
New York City's elite. The fallout from "La Côte Basque
1965" saw Truman Capote ostracized from New York
society, and from many of his former friends.
The chapter from Answered Prayers, "La Côte Basque"
begins with Jonesy, the main character said to be based
on a mixture of Truman Capote himself and the serial
killer victim Herbert Clutter[43] (on whom In Cold
Blood was based), meets up with a Lady Ina Coolbirth on
a New York City street. This woman, who is described as
"an American married to a British chemicals tycoon and a
lot of woman in every way",[44] is widely rumoured to be
based on New York socialite Slim Keith. Lady Ina
Coolbirth invites Jonesy to lunch at La Côte Basque. A
gossipy tale of New York's elite ensues.
The characters of Gloria Vanderbilt and Carol
Matthau are encountered first, the two women gossiping
about Princess Margaret, Prince Charles and the rest of
the British royal family. An awkward moment then occurs
when Gloria Vanderbilt has a run-in with her first husband
and fails to recognize him. It is only at Mrs. Matthau's
reminder that Gloria realises who he is. Both women
brush the incident aside and chalk it up to ancient history.
The characters of Lee Radziwill and Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis are then encountered when they walk into the
restaurant together. Sisters, they draw the attention of the
room although they speak only to one another. Lady
Coolbirth takes the liberty of describing Lee as
"marvelously[sic] made, like a Tanagra figurine" and
Jacqueline as "photogenic" yet "unrefined, exaggerated".
[45]

The character of Ann Hopkins is then introduced when

she surreptitiously walks into the restaurant and sits down
with a pastor. Ann Hopkins is likened to Ann Woodward.
Ina Coolbirth relates the story of how Mrs. Hopkins ended
up murdering her husband: when he threatened to
divorce her, she began cultivating a rumour that a burglar
was harassing their neighbourhood. The official police
report says that while she and her husband were sleeping
in separate bedrooms, Mrs. Hopkins heard someone
enter her bedroom. In her panic, she grabbed her gun
and shot the intruder; unbeknownst to her the intruder
was in fact her husband, David Hopkins (or William
Woodward, Jr.). Ina Coolbirth suggests however, that Mr.
Hopkins was in fact shot in the shower; such is the wealth
and power of the Hopkins' family that any charges or
whispers of murder simply floated away at the inquest. It
is rumoured that Ann Woodward was warned prematurely
of the publication and content of Capote's "La Côte
Basque", and proceeded to kill herself with an overdose
of sleeping pills as a result.[46]
An incident regarding the character of Sidney Dillon
(or William S. Paley) is then discussed between Jonesy
and Mrs. Coolbirth. Sidney Dillon is said to have told Ina
Coolbirth this story because they have a history as former
lovers. One evening while Cleo Dillon (Babe Paley) was
out of the city, in Boston, Sidney Dillon attended an event
by himself at which he was seated next to the wife of a
prominent New York Governor. The two began to flirt and
eventually went home together. While Ina suggests that
Sidney Dillon loves his wife, it is his inexhaustible need
for acceptance by haute New York society that motivates
him to be unfaithful. Sidney Dillon and the woman sleep
together, and afterwards Mr. Dillon discovers a very large
blood stain on the sheets, which represents her mockery
of him. Mr. Dillon then spends the rest of the night and
early morning manually washing the sheet with scalding
water in an attempt to conceal his unfaithfulness from his
wife who is due to arrive home the same morning. In the
end, Dillon falls asleep on a damp sheet and wakes up to
a note from his wife telling him she had arrived while he
was sleeping, did not want to wake him, and that she
would see him at home.
The aftermath of the publication of "La Côte Basque" is
said to have pushed Truman Capote to new levels of
drug abuse and alcoholism, mainly because he claimed
to have not anticipated the backlash it would cause in his
personal life.

Last years[edit]
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In the late 1970s, Capote was in and out of rehab clinics,
and news of his various breakdowns frequently reached
the public. In 1978, talk show host Stanley Siegal did an
on-air interview with Capote, who, in an extraordinarily
intoxicated state, confessed that he had been awake for
48 hours and when questioned by Siegal, "What's going
to happen unless you lick this problem of drugs and
alcohol?", Capote responded: "The obvious answer is
that eventually, I mean, I'll kill myself ... without meaning
to". The live broadcast made national headlines. One
year later, when he felt betrayed by "Princess" Lee
Radziwill in a feud with perpetual nemesis Gore Vidal,
Capote arranged a return visit to Stanley Siegal's show,
this time to deliver a bizarrely comic performance
revealing an incident wherein Vidal was thrown out of the
Kennedy White House due to intoxication. Capote also
went into salacious details regarding the personal life of
Lee Radziwill and her sister, Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis.[citation needed]
Andy Warhol, who had looked up to the writer as a
mentor in his early days in New York and often partied
with Capote atStudio 54, agreed to paint Capote's portrait
as "a personal gift" in exchange for Capote's contributing
short pieces to Warhol's Interview magazine every month
for a year in the form of a column, Conversations with
Capote. Initially the pieces were to consist of tape-
recorded conversations, but soon Capote eschewed the
tape recorder in favor of semi-fictionalized
"conversational portraits". These pieces formed the basis
for the bestselling Music for Chameleons (1980).[citation
needed]
Capote underwent a facelift, lost weight and
experimented with hair transplants. Despite this brief
interregnum, Capote was unable to overcome his reliance
upon drugs and liquor and had grown bored with New
York by the beginning of the 1980s.[citation needed]
After the revocation of his driver's license (the result of
speeding near his Long Island residence) and a
hallucinatory seizure in 1980 that required hospitalization,
Capote became fairly reclusive. These hallucinations
continued unabated and medical scans eventually
revealed that his brain mass had perceptibly shrunk. On
the rare occasions when he was lucid, he continued to
promote Answered Prayers as being nearly complete and
was reportedly planning a reprise of the Black and White
Ball to be held either in Los Angeles or a more exotic
locale in South America. On a few occasions, he was still
able to write.[citation needed] In 1982, a new short story, "One
Christmas," appeared in the December issue of Ladies'
Home Journal; the following year it became, like its
predecessors A Christmas Memory and The
Thanksgiving Visitor, a holiday gift book.[citation needed] In
1983, "Remembering Tennessee," an essay in tribute
to Tennessee Williams, who had died in February of that
year, appeared in Playboy magazine.[47]

Death[edit]

Truman Capote's marker at Westwood

Village Memorial Park
 Truman Capote and Jack Dunphy stone at
Crooked Pond in the Long Pond Greenbelt
in Southampton (town), New York.
Capote died in Bel Air, Los Angeles, on August 25, 1984,
aged 59 from liver cancer.[48] According to the coroner's
report, the cause of death was "liver disease complicated
by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication."[49] He died at
the home of his old friend Joanne Carson, ex-wife of late-
night TV host Johnny Carson, on whose program Capote
had been a frequent guest.
Capote was cremated and his remains were reportedly
divided between Carson and Capote's longtime
companion, author Jack Dunphy (although Dunphy has
maintained that he received all the ashes).[50][51] Carson
said she kept the ashes in an urn in the room where he
died.[51] Those ashes were reported stolen during a
Halloween party in 1988 along with $200,000 in jewels
but were then returned six days later, having been found
in a coiled-up garden hose on the back steps of Carson's
Bel Air home.[50][51] The ashes were reportedly stolen
again when brought to a production of Tru but the thief
was caught before leaving the theatre. Carson bought a
crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in
Los Angeles.[50][52]In 2013 the producers offered to fly
Carson and the ashes to New York for a Broadway
production of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Carson declined the
offer.[51]Dunphy died in 1992, and in 1994, both his and
Capote's ashes were reportedly scattered at Crooked
Pond, between Bridgehampton, New York, and Sag
Harbor, New York on Long Island, close to Sagaponack,
New York, where the two had maintained a property with
individual houses for many years. Crooked Pond was
chosen because money from the estate of Dunphy and
Capote was donated to theNature Conservancy, which in
turn used it to buy 20 acres around Crooked Pond in an
area called "Long Pond Greenbelt." A stone marker
indicates the spot where their ashes were thrown into the
pond.[53]
Capote also maintained the property in Palm Springs,[54] a
condominium in Switzerland that was mostly occupied by
Dunphy seasonally, and a primary residence at
the United Nations Plaza in New York City. Capote's will
provided that after Dunphy's death, a literary trust would
be established, sustained by revenues from Capote's
works, to fund various literary prizes, fellowships and
scholarships, including the Truman Capote Award for
Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin,
commemorating not only Capote but also his
friend Newton Arvin, the Smith College professor and
critic who lost his job after his homosexuality was
exposed.[55] As such, the Truman Capote Literary
Trust was established in 1994, two years after Dunphy's
death.

Permanent hometown exhibit[edit]

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Capote's childhood is the focus of a permanent exhibit in
Monroeville, Alabama's Old Courthouse Museum,
covering his life in Monroeville with his Faulk cousins and
how those early years are reflected in his writing. The
exhibit brings together photos, letters and memorabilia to
paint a portrait of Capote's early life in Monroeville.
Jennings Faulk Carter donated the collection to the
Museum in 2005. The collection includes 12 handwritten
letters (1940s–60s) from Capote to his favorite aunt, Mary
Ida Carter (Jennings' mother). Many of the items in the
collection belonged to his mother and Virginia Hurd
Faulk, Carter's cousin with whom Capote lived as a child.

Historical marker at the site of the house

Truman Capote frequently visited in
Monroeville, Alabama.
The exhibit features many references to Sook, but two
items in particular are always favorites of visitors: Sook's
"Coat of Many Colors" and Truman's baby blanket.
Truman's first cousin recalls that as children, he and
Truman never had trouble finding Sook in the darkened
house on South Alabama Avenue because they simply
looked for the bright colors of her coat. Truman's baby
 blanket is a "granny square" blanket Sook made for him.
The blanket became one of Truman's most cherished
possessions, and friends say he was seldom without it –
even when traveling. In fact, he took the blanket with him
when he flew from New York to Los Angeles to be with
Joanne Carson on August 23, 1984. According to Joanne
Carson, when he died at her home on August 25, his last
words were, "It's me, it's Buddy," followed by, "I'm cold."
Buddy was Sook's name for him.

Capote on film[edit]

Truman Capote (1968)

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This film-related list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[Proposed Changes: Filmography Section]

 In 1961, Capote's novel Breakfast at

Tiffany's (1958), about a flamboyant New York
party girl named Holly Golightly ,was filmed by
director Blake Edwards and starred Audrey
 Hepburn in what many consider her defining role,
though Capote never approved of the many
changes to the story, made to appeal to mass
audiences.

 Capote's childhood experiences are captured in

the memoir A Christmas Memory (1956), which
he adapted for television and narrated. Directed
byFrank Perry, it aired on December 21, 1966,
on ABC Stage 67, and featuredGeraldine Page in
an Emmy Award-winning performance.

 'When Richard Brooks directed In Cold Blood,

the 1967 adaptation of the novel, with Robert
Blake and Scott Wilson, he filmed at the actual
Clutter house and other Holcomb, Kansas,
locations.

 Capote narrated his The Thanksgiving

Visitor (1967), a sequel to A Christmas Memory,
filmed by Frank Perry in Pike Road, Alabama.
Geraldine Page again won an Emmy for her
performance in this hour-long teleplay.[citation needed]

 The ABC Stage 67 teleplay was later

incorporated into Perry's 1969 anthology
film Trilogy (aka Truman Capote's Trilogy), which
also includes adaptations of "Miriam" and
"Among the Paths to Eden".

 Neil Simon's murder mystery spoof Murder by

Death (1976) provided Capote's main role as an
actor, portraying reclusive millionaire Lionel
Twain who invites the world's leading detectives
together to a dinner party to have them solve a
murder. The performance brought him a Golden
Globe Award nomination (Best Acting Debut in a
Motion Picture). Early in the film, it is alleged that
Twain has ten fingers but no pinkies. In truth,
Capote's pinkie fingers were unusually large. In
the film, Capote's character is highly critical of
detective fiction from the likes of Agatha
Christie andDashiell Hammett.

 Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977) includes a

scene in which Alvy (Allen) and Annie (Diane
Keaton) are observing passersby in the park.
Alvy comments, "Oh, there's the winner of the
Truman Capote Look-Alike Contest". The
passerby is actually Truman Capote (who
appeared in the film uncredited).
  Other Voices, Other Rooms (1995) stars David
Speck in the lead role of Joel Sansom. Reviewing
this atmosphericSouthern Gothic film in the New
York Times, Stephen Holden wrote:

One of the things the movie does best is transport you back in time and into nature. In
the early scenes as Joel leaves his aunt's home to travel across the South by rickety
bus and horse and carriage, you feel the strangeness, wonder and anxiety of a child
abandoning everything that's familiar to go to a place so remote he has to ask
directions along the way. The landscape over which he travels is so rich and fertile that
you can almost smell the earth and sky. Later on, when Joel tussles with Idabell
(Aubrey Dollar), a tomboyish neighbor who becomes his best friend (a character
inspired by the author Harper Lee), the movie has a special force and clarity in its
evocation of the physical immediacy of being a child playing.[citation needed]

 In 1995, Capote's novella The Grass

Harp (1951), which he later turned into a
1954 play, was made into a film version with
a screenplay by Stirling Silliphant and
directed by Charles Matthau, Walter
Matthau's son. This story is somewhat
autobiographical of Capote's childhood in
Alabama.[56]

 Anthony Edwards and Eric Roberts headed

the cast of the 1996 In Cold Blood miniseries,
directed by Jonathan Kaplan.

 The TV movie Truman Capote's A Christmas

Memory (1997), with Patty Duke and Piper
Laurie, was a remake of the 1966 television
show, directed by Glenn Jordan.

 In 2002, director Mark Medoff brought to film

Capote's short story "Children on Their
Birthdays", another look back at a small-town
Alabama childhood.

Documentaries[edit]
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 challenged
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2014)

 With Love from Truman (1966), a 29-minute

documentary by David and Albert
Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, shows
aNewsweek reporter interviewing Capote at
his beachfront home in Long Island. Capote
talks about In Cold Blood, his relationship
with the murderers, and his coverage of the
trial. He is also seen taking Alvin Dewey and
his wife around New York City for the first
time. Originally titled A Visit with Truman
Capote, this film was commissioned by
National Educational Television and shown
on the NET network.[citation needed]
 Truman Capote: The Tiny Terror (airdate
April 6, 2004) is a documentary that aired as
part of A&E's Biography series, followed by a
2005 DVD release.[citation needed]

Portrayals of Capote[edit]
 In 1990, Robert Morse received both
a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his
portrayal of Capote in the one-man showTru.
 In 1992, Robert Morse recreated his
performance in the play Tru for the PBS
series American Playhouse and won
anEmmy Award for his performance.[citation
needed]

 In 1994, actor-writer Bob Kingdom created

the one-man theatre piece The Truman
Capote Talk Show, in which he played
Capote looking back over his life. Originally
performed at the Lyric Studio Theatre,
Hammersmith, London, the show has toured
widely within the UK and internationally.[citation
needed]

 Louis Negin appeared in

a Toronto production of Tru, in 1996[57]

 Louis Negin portrayed Capote in the

film 54 (1998). A reference is made to
Capote as just having had a face lift, and the
song "Knock on Wood" is dedicated to him.
 Sam Street is seen briefly as Capote in Isn't
She Great? (2000), a biographical comedy-
drama about Jacqueline Susann.[citation needed]

 Michael J. Burg played Capote in The Audrey

Hepburn Story (2000)[58]

 Director Bennett Miller made his dramatic

feature debut with the biopic Capote (2005),
in which Capote was played byPhilip
Seymour Hoffman. Spanning the years
Truman Capote spent researching and
writing In Cold Blood, the film depicts
Capote's conflict between his compassion for
his subjects and self-absorbed obsession
with finishing the book.Capote garnered
much critical acclaim when it was released
(September 30, 2005, in the US and
February 24, 2006, in the UK). Dan
Futterman's screenplay was based on the
book Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clarke
(1988).[citation needed] Capote received
five Academy Award nominations: Best
Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted
Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Supporting
Actress. Hoffman's performance earned him
many awards, including aBAFTA Award,
a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors
Guild Award, an Independent Spirit
Award and an Oscar for Best Actor in a
Leading Role.

 Infamous (2006, directed by Douglas

McGrath), which stars Toby Jones as Capote
and Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee, is an
adaptation of George Plimpton's Truman
Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies,
Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His
Turbulent Career (1997). On the DVD
commentary track, director McGrath admits
to the occasional scene's being compiled and
drawn together by using the truth and
blended with his own "imagination" of how
the actual story evolved.[citation needed]

 Michael J. Burg played Capote in The

Hoax (2006), in deleted scenes[58]

 Michael J. Burg played Capote in ABC-TV's

short-lived Life on Mars (2009)[58]

Discography[edit]
 House of Flowers (1954) Columbia 2320.
(LP) Broadway production. Saint Subber
presents Truman Capote and Harold
Arlen's House of Flowers, starring Pearl
Bailey. Directed by Peter Brook with musical
numbers by Herbert Ross. Columbia 12" LP,
Stereo-OS-2320. Electronically reprocessed
for stereo.
 Children on Their Birthdays (1955) Columbia
Literary Series ML 4761 12" LP. Reading by
Capote.

 House of Flowers (1955) Columbia

Masterworks 12508. (LP) Read by the
Author.

 A Christmas Memory (1959) United Artists

UAL 9001. (LP) Truman Capote reading
his A Christmas Memory.

 In Cold Blood (1966) RCA Victor Red Seal

monophonic VDM-110. (LP) Truman Capote
reads scenes from In Cold Blood.

 The Thanksgiving Visitor (1967) United

Artists UAS 6682. (LP) Truman Capote
reading his The Thanksgiving Visitor.

 Capote (2006) RCA, Film Soundtrack.

Includes complete 1966 RCA recording
Truman Capote reads scenes from In Cold
Blood

 In Cold Blood (2006) Random House

unabridged on 12 CDs. Read by Scott Brick.

Works of Truman Capote[edit]

Yea
Title Type/Note
r

Short story;
194
"Miriam" published
5
in Mademoiselle

194 Other Novel

8 Voices,
 Other
Rooms

A Tree of
194 Night and Collection of short
9 Other stories
Stories

c. Novel;
Summer
194 posthumously
Crossing
9 published 2006

Short story; the first

chapter was
published
195 "House of
in Botteghe
0 Flowers"
Oscure in 1950 and
inHarper's
Bazaar in 1951

Book; collection of
195
Local Color European travel
0
essays

195 The Grass

Novel
1 Harp

195 The Grass

Play
2 Harp

195 Beat the Original screenplay

3 Devil
 Terminal Screenplay
Station (dialogue only)

195 House of
Broadway musical
4 Flowers

Short story
"Carmen ( Brazilian jet-setter
195 Therezinha Carmen Mayrink
5 Solbiati – Veiga ); published
So Chic" in Vogue in
1956[citation needed]

195 The Muses

Nonfiction
6 Are Heard

"A Short story;

195
Christmas published
6
Memory" in Mademoiselle

Profile of Marlon
Brando; published
"The Duke in The New Yorker;
195
in His Republished in Life
7
Domain" Stories: Profiles
from The New
Yorker in 2001

195 Breakfast at
Novella
8 Tiffany's

195 "Brooklyn Autobiographical

9 Heights: A essay, photos
 by David Attie;
published in Feb '59
issue of Holiday
Personal
Magazine and later
Memoir"
as "A House On
The Heights" in
2002 (see below)

Collaborative art
and photography
book; photos
195 Observation by Richard Avedon,
9 s comments by
Truman Capote and
design by Alexey
Brodovitch

Screenplay based
on The Turn of the
Screw by Henry
James; 1962 Edgar
Award, from
196 The
the Mystery Writers
0 Innocents
of America, to
Capote and William
Archibald for Best
Motion Picture
Screenplay

Selected Midcareer
196 Writings of retrospective
3 Truman anthology; fiction
Capote and nonfiction

196 A short story

 appeared
4 in Seventeen magaz
ine

"Nonfiction novel";
Capote's second
196 In Cold
Edgar Award
5 Blood
(1966), for Best
Fact Crime book

The Short story

Thanksgivin published as a gift
196 g Visitor book
8
Television film;
Laura
original screenplay

Collection of travel
197 The Dogs
articles and
3 Bark
personal sketches

"Mojave"
and "La Short stories
197
Cote published
5
Basque, in Esquire
1965"

"Unspoiled
Short stories
197 Monsters"
published
6 and "Kate
in Esquire
McCloud"

198 Music for Collection of short

 works mixing
0 Chameleons fiction and
nonfiction

Short story
198 One
published as a gift
3 Christmas
book

Answered
Prayers:
198 Published
The
6 posthumously
Unfinished
Novel

Omnibus edition
containing most of
198 A Capote
Capote's shorter
7 Reader
works, fiction and
nonfiction

Book edition of
Capote's essay,
"Brooklyn Heights:
200 A House On A Personal
2 The Heights Memoir (1959),
with a new
introduction
by George Plimpton

The
Complete
200 Anthology of
Stories of
4 twenty short stories
Truman
Capote
 Too Brief a
Treat: The Edited by Capote
200
Letters of biographer Gerald
4
Truman Clarke
Capote

Portraits
and
Observation
200 Published by
s: The
7 Random House
Essays of
Truman
Capote