BURIED TOGETHER

Partner Newton Arvin, Jack Dunphy

Queer Places:
Hotel Monteleone, 214 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70130
711 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70116
Greenwich High School, 10 Hillside Rd, Greenwich, CT 06830, Stati Uniti
Yaddo, 312 Union Ave, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866, Stati Uniti
Dwight School, 291 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024, Stati Uniti
353 E 56th St, New York, NY 10022
70 Willow St, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA
683 Daniel's Lane, Sagaponack, NY 11962, Stati Uniti
1060 Park Ave, New York, NY 10128
860 and 870 UN Plaza, 860 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017, Stati Uniti
853 Paseo El Mirador, CA 92262, USA
Claridge's, Brook Street, Mayfair, London W1K 4HR, Regno Unito
Fontana Vecchia, Via David Herbert Lawrence, 98039 Taormina ME, Italia
1936 Bagnes, Svizzera
Pier House, 1 Duval St, Key West, FL 33040
Via Margutta, 33, 00187 Roma RM
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, 1218 Glendon Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024, Stati Uniti

Truman Garcia Capote[1] (born Truman Streckfus Persons, September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, playwright, and actor. Many of Capote's short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized as 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 from Capote novels, stories, and plays. Truman Capote had received advice from Glenway Wescott on how to become ‘kept’; one of his eventual keepers was Prince Paul of Greece, who became King Paul I in 1947.

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 8,[3] 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 novel Other 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).[4]

A milestone in popular culture, In Cold Blood was the peak of Capote's literary career. In the 1970s, he maintained his celebrity status by appearing on television talk shows.

In 1950, after a party at the home of Leo Lerman, Ruth Ford, Truman Capote, and William Faulkner shared a cab to her apartment to have a drink. In a familiar role, Faulkner sat silently while Capote carried on his endless chattering, but when Capote turned the conversation to Ernest Hemingway’s Across the River and into the Trees to lampoon it, Faulkner suddenly spoke up. “Young man,” Faulkner patronized, “I haven’t read this new one. And though it may not be the best thing Hemingway ever wrote, I know it will be carefully done, and it will have quality”. For a few moments there was silence in the taxi. It was an impressive silence, to be sure, given Capote’s reputation for loquaciousness. Capote would later claim that he had no recollection of this incident. The two men would not meet again and certainly never struck up any friendship.

CARL VAN VECHTEN (1880-1964) Truman Capote.
Truman Capote by Carl Van Vechten. Silver print, the image measuring 254x203.2 mm; 10x8 inches, with Van Vechten's embossed blind stamp on recto, and his copyright hand stamp, and the title, date, and inventory number, in ink, in an unknown hand, on verso. 1948. This photograph by Carl Van Vechten of iconic writer Truman Capote was taken in 1948 at the time his novel "Other Voices, Other Rooms" was published. The acclaimed publication was significant for its frank examination of homosexuality, which was partly autobiographical.


Truman Capote and John Malcom Brinnin by Rollie McKenna


Truman Capote by Clifford Coffin

Among the men who caught Warhol's eye was author Truman Capote who he became obsessed with and began stalking. Pictured: American film producer Lester Persky with Warhol and Capote in 1978
Among the men who caught Warhol's eye was author Truman Capote who he became obsessed with and began stalking. Pictured: American film producer Lester Persky with Warhol and Capote in 1978

Warhol was 'utterly immersed' in the gay community of Manhattan and one Halloween he turned up to a party wearing a garland of flowers, as 'daisy chain' was gay slang for a round robin orgy. Pictured: Warhol with Jerry Hall, Debbie Harry, Truman Capote and Paloma Picasso at Studio 54  circa 1970s
Warhol was 'utterly immersed' in the gay community of Manhattan and one Halloween he turned up to a party wearing a garland of flowers, as 'daisy chain' was gay slang for a round robin orgy. Pictured: Warhol with Jerry Hall, Debbie Harry, Truman Capote and Paloma Picasso at Studio 54 circa 1970s


860 and 870 UN Plaza

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.[45][46] 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.[47] It provides perhaps the most in-depth and intimate look at Capote's life, outside of his own works. Although Capote's 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."[48]

In 1967 David Wolkowsky hired architect Yiannis B. Antonidis to help design a motel around the restaurant, with 50 unique rooms, to which 50 more rooms that faced the ocean were quickly added. The completed structure was christened "Pier House Resort Motel".[8][9] Both Jimmy Buffett and Bob Marley started their careers in the hotel's funky "Chart Room Bar". Buffett credits Wolkowsky as the first to hire him.[10] The Pier House became a magnet for celebrities and media types, mostly because of Wolkowsky's unique personality and laissez-faire attitude. When writer Truman Capote arrived at the hotel to spend the winter he asked Wolkowsky to show him the best rooms. After viewing several choice units, Wolkowsky invited Capote over for a drink, to his residence of the moment, a 45-foot (14 m), two-bedroom, double-wide trailer, covered in bamboo and parked 10 feet (3.0 m) from the hotel's waterfront. Capote begged Wolkowsky to rent him the trailer. Wolkowsky finally agreed and moved into a suite of rooms, in his own hotel, for the winter, to accommodate the writer. Capote's "Answered Prayers" were written in Wolkowsky's waterfront trailer. Discarded handwritten pages were often given to Wolkowsky by Capote in gratitude for allowing him to write in the trailer. Years later, the papers were stolen from Wolkowsky's penthouse apartment, high atop Key West's former Kress five and dime. Wolkowsky had restored the building, renting out the ground floor to department store "Fast Buck Freddies" and the upper floors to the Key West Parole Department. He is quoted as saying, "I never felt safer than when I lived above the Parole Board. The Capote papers were stolen by someone I know, not by a parolee".

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, and Marcel Proust), Capote had faint praise for other writers. However, one who did receive 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 never fully embraced 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.[49] 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.[50]

Capote died in Bel Air, Los Angeles, on August 25, 1984, age 59.[58] According to the coroner's report, the cause of death was "liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication."[59] 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. Gore Vidal responded to news of Capote's death by calling it "a wise career move."[60]

Capote was cremated and his remains were reportedly divided between Carson and Jack Dunphy (although Dunphy maintained that he received all the ashes).[61][62] Carson said she kept the ashes in an urn in the room where he died.[62] 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.[61][62] 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.[61] 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.[62] 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 the Nature 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 mingled ashes were thrown into the pond.[63] In 2016, some of Capote's ashes previously owned by Joanne Carson were auctioned by Julien's Auctions.[64]

Capote also maintained the property in Palm Springs,[65] a condominium in Switzerland that was mostly occupied by Dunphy seasonally, and a primary residence at 860 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 revealed.[66] As such, the Truman Capote Literary Trust was established in 1994, two years after Dunphy's death.

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