The Truman Show

Unless it bears the megawatt star power and curiosity value of Nicole Kidman playing ugly with a big beak of a nose, there is little sense in making movies about yesteryear's writers in today's celebrity-struck world.

Why would Joe and Josephine Public possibly wish to delve into Virginia Woolf and her Sapphic sojourn with Vita Sackville-West or give a Dickens about Dickens when we have a glut of one-name-only stars - Paris, J-Lo, Brangelina - more than willing to do their utmost for maximum exposure?

That is why the recent revival of interest in Truman Capote is intriguing. A short, lisping, raging queen of a man at a time when homosexuals were not yet glad to be gay and still dismissed as deviants, he penned a slim but critically acclaimed collection of short stories (Music for Chameleons), novellas (Breakfast at Tiffany's) and novels (Other Voices, Other Rooms, In Cold Blood).

Aside from his character of Holly Golightly, now forever identified with Audrey Hepburn and her little black dress, Capote is probably best remembered for breaking new literary ground with the "nonfiction novel" In Cold Blood, still a staple of journalism and English literature courses.

But the enduring recognition of his literary talent does not explain the two recent major studio biopics about him. Phillip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for his portrayal in Capote released in 2005; but some critics were more impressed by the overall quality of Infamous, starring Toby Jones, which was pushed back for release in 2006. In November, Joanna Carson, who was at Capote's deathbed, put personal mementoes of her friend up for auction.

Although Capote focuses on the story behind the writing of In Cold Blood, it's the juicy details of the author's life, his catty personality and his fall from grace that make for fascinating viewing.

Born in small-town Alabama, Capote was mostly raised by female relatives until he could join his mother and his wealthy stepfather in New York City. He had limited contact with his father and dropped his surname, Persons, in favor of his stepfather's more exotic sounding one.

It was a tragic childhood defined by an inevitable sense of abandonment; as well apart from his fractured relationship with his father, his alcoholic, emotionally unstable mother committed suicide when the author was a young man.

He poured his feelings into writing, turning out precociously accomplished short stories as a teenager and then publishing Other Voices, Other Rooms at the age of 24 in 1948. It was controversial not only for its gay coming-of-age theme, but also the pouting, come-hither look of the author's jacket photo.

In typically manipulative fashion, he contended he was tricked into the pose, when in fact he gave the photographer specific instructions on the look he wanted, George Plimpton wrote in 1997's Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career.

As his reputation grew, he hobnobbed with the rich and famous, diligently climbing the social ladder as a guest in London, Paris and Gstaad. They paid his way, and he was their private jester, the funny, ever presentable little raconteur (he stood only 1.58 meters) who was always ready to divulge an amusing anecdote or dish the dirt on those in his inner circle.

His letters from the 1940s and '50s, compiled in Too Brief a Treat by his biographer Gerald Clarke, display a gushing, ingratiating quality, perhaps deliberately meant to flatter his hosts.

Yet that inner wounded, grasping child was never far removed from all the superficial gaiety. He could be an arch drama queen, entangling himself in personal and professional disputes with his peers, among them former friend Carson McCullers, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams and Jacqueline Susann. He dismissed Jack Kerouac's works as "not writing, but typing", an assessment that continues to be dredged up today.

He surrounded himself with what he called his "swans" - a coterie of rich, always elegant women - all the time keeping scrupulous tabs on their comings and goings. Too bright and cynical to simply pay homage to the affluent, he once pronounced them a "silly lot".

"He would observe people and see their soft spots; he became the father confessor," one of the swans, Marella Agnelli, wife of the Italian industrialist Gianni, recounted to Plimpton.

"I found myself telling him things I never dreamed of telling him … He was waiting like a falcon. He created a very deep sort of intimacy, very deep, very tender intimacy. Little did I know …"

His pinnacle of success was the publication of In Cold Blood and his celebratory gala, the Black and White Ball in New York City, where the powerful were suddenly fawning over the little Southern boy for an exalted invitation. He coasted on his reputation for a few years, but it was downhill from there. Dysfunctional relationships with domineering, selfish men and increasing drug and alcohol abuse took their toll and his once prolific writing output slowed to a trickle.

Capote then committed the ultimate betrayal, publishing a short story, La Cote Basque, in Esquire magazine in 1976. It contained thinly veiled, vicious caricatures of his friends. Their sordid secrets were laid bare for all to read, with a guessing game about who was who. It was such a scandal that New York magazine titled a cover story: Capote Bites the Hands that Fed Him.

He was cast as the ultimate social pariah and opportunist. Clarke writes that Capote was perplexed by the damning reaction; perhaps he agreed to the Esquire deal during an unthinking drug haze or simply believed that his friends would always forgive his errant ways. Abandoned once more, he hurtled down the spiral of drug addiction and alcoholism.

While he had once performed in the lavish drawing rooms of the wealthy, he now became a grotesque figure of fun on low-rated TV talk shows, a pudgy-faced monster spewing forth gossip in his squeaky babyish voice and usually under the influence of some substance or another. He tried to reinvent himself several times, entering drug rehab clinics, returning to writing and losing weight, but each time his demons returned. Eventually, his heart gave out at the age of 60.

Capote probably would have been disdainful of today's celebrity-centric media, in which everybody qualifies to have their 15 minutes or 15 seconds of fleeting ignominy. He ensconced himself among the rich because he wanted on some level to be them, living in the lap of luxury and never having to worry about making ends meet. He joined their exclusive club but it was a tenuous relationship that ended when he violated their rules.

His novelty value as an openly gay man is mostly lost today. We have Will and Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Elton John getting his knickers in a twist and George Michael caught with his pants down in a public restroom. Those frontiers have been well and truly crossed.

The young Truman could still have fulfilled his role as the witty gay man about town, perhaps being the shoulder to cry on and every girl's best friend on the party circuit. The older, dissolute, train-wreck Truman would have been the rapacious tabloids' dream, like so many tortured celebrities today. But unlike our everyday ersatz "heroes", he was a train wreck with talent.

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