Gore Vidal

Eugene Luther Gore Vidal(/vɪˈdɑːl/vih-DAHL;bornEugene Louis Vidal,October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer andpublic intellectualknown for his acerbicepigrammaticwit.His novels and essays interrogated thesocialandsexual normshe perceived as driving American life. Vidal was heavily involved in politics, and unsuccessfully sought office twice as aDemocratic Partycandidate, first in 1960 to theUnited States House of Representatives(for New York), and later in 1982 to theUnited States Senate(for California).

Gore Vidal
Vidalc. 1948
Born	Eugene Louis Vidal (1925-10-03)October 3, 1925 West Point, New York,U.S.
Died	July 31, 2012(2012-07-31)(aged 86) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Rock Creek Cemetery(Washington, D.C.)
Other names	Eugene Luther Vidal Jr.
Education	Phillips Exeter Academy
Occupations	Writer novelist essayist playwright screenwriter actor
Known for	The City and the Pillar(1948) Julian(1964) Myra Breckinridge(1968) Burr(1973) Lincoln(1984)
Political party	Democratic People's(affiliated non-member)
Movement	Postmodernism
Partners	See list Anaïs Nin(1944–1948) Diana Lynn(1949–1950) Joanne Woodward(1950–1951) Howard Austen(1951–2003)
Parents	Eugene Luther Vidal Nina S. Gore
Relatives	See list Thomas Gore(grandfather) Nina Auchincloss(half-sister) Hugh Steers(half-nephew) Burr Steers(half-nephew) Jimmy Carter(fifth cousin)
Chairman of thePeople's Party
In office November 27, 1970 – November 7, 1972
Military career
Service/ branch	United States Army
Years of service	1943–1946
Rank	Warrant officer
Battles / wars	World War II

A grandson ofU.S. SenatorThomas Gore,Vidal was born into an upper-class political family. As a political commentator and essayist, Vidal's primary focus was thehistoryandsociety of the United States,especially how amilitaristicforeign policyreduced the country to adecadent empire.His political and cultural essays were published inThe Nation,theNew Statesman,theNew York Review of Books,andEsquiremagazines. As a public intellectual, Gore Vidal's topical debates on sex, politics, and religion with other intellectuals and writers occasionally turned into quarrels with the likes ofWilliam F. Buckley Jr.andNorman Mailer.

As a novelist, Vidal explored the nature of corruption in public and private life. His style of narration evoked the time and place of his stories, and delineated thepsychologyof his characters.His third novel,The City and the Pillar(1948), offended the literary, political, and moral sensibilities of conservative book reviewers, the plot being about a dispassionately presented male homosexual relationship.

In the historical novel genre, Vidal recreated the imperial world ofJulian the Apostate(r. AD 361–363) inJulian(1964). Julian was the Roman emperor who attempted to re-establishRoman polytheismtocounter Christianity.In social satire,Myra Breckinridge(1968) explores the mutability ofgender rolesand sexual orientation as being social constructs established bysocial mores.InBurr(1973) andLincoln(1984), both part of hisNarratives of Empireseries of novels, each protagonist is presented as "A Man of the People" and as "A Man" in a narrative exploration of how the public and private facets of personality affect the national politics of the United States.

Early life

Vidal was born in the cadet hospital of theU.S. Military AcademyatWest Point, New York,the only child ofEugene Luther Vidal(1895–1969) andNina S. Gore(1903–1978).Vidal was born there because his father, a U.S. Army officer, was then serving as the firstaeronauticsinstructor at the military academy. The middle name, Louis, was a mistake on the part of his father, "who could not remember, for certain, whether his own name was Eugene Louis or Eugene Luther".In the memoirPalimpsest(1995), Vidal said, "My birth certificate says 'Eugene Louis Vidal': this was changed to Eugene Luther Vidal Jr.; then Gore was added at my christening in 1939; then, at fourteen, I got rid of the first two names."

Vidal was baptized in January 1939, when he was 13 years old, by the headmaster ofSt. Albans School,where Vidal attendedpreparatory school.The baptismal ceremony was effected so he "could be confirmed [into theEpiscopalfaith] "at theWashington Cathedral,in February 1939, as "Eugene Luther Gore Vidal".He later said that, although the surname "Gore" was added to his names at the time of the baptism, "I wasn't named for him [maternal grandfatherThomas Pryor Gore], although he had a great influence on my life. "In 1941, Vidal dropped his two first names, because he "wanted a sharp, distinctive name, appropriate for an aspiring author, or a national political leader... I wasn't going to write as 'Gene' since there was already one. I didn't want to use the 'Jr.'"

His father, Eugene Luther Vidal Sr., was director (1933–1937) of theCommerce Department'sBureau of Air Commerceduring theRoosevelt Administration,and was also the great love of the aviatorAmelia Earhart.At the U.S. Military Academy, the exceptionally athletic Vidal Sr. had been a quarterback, coach, and captain of the football team; and anall-Americanbasketball player. Subsequently, he competed in the1920 Summer Olympicsand in the1924 Summer Olympics(seventh in thedecathlon,and coach of the U.S. pentathlon).In the 1920s and the 1930s, Vidal Sr. was a founder or executive of three airline companies: theLudington Line(laterEastern Airlines),Transcontinental Air Transport(laterTrans World Airlines), andNortheast Airlines.

Gore's great-grandfather Eugen Fidel Vidal was born inFeldkirch,Austria, ofRomanshbackground, and had come to the U.S. with Gore's Swiss great-grandmother, Emma Hartmann.

Vidal's mother, Nina Gore, was a socialite who made her Broadway theater debut as an extra actress inSign of the Leopard,in 1928.In 1922, Nina married Eugene Luther Vidal Sr. and thirteen years later, in 1935, divorced him.Nina Gore Vidal then was married two more times; toHugh D. Auchinclossand toRobert Olds.She also had "a long off-and-on affair" with the actorClark Gable.As Nina Gore Auchincloss, Vidal's mother was an alternate delegate to the1940 Democratic National Convention.

The subsequent marriages of his mother and father yielded four half-siblings for Gore Vidal—Vance Vidal, Valerie Vidal, Thomas Gore Auchincloss, andNina Gore Auchincloss—one step-brother, Hugh D. "Yusha" Auchincloss III from his mother's second marriage to Hugh D. Auchincloss, and four step-brothers includingRobin Oldsfrom his mother's third marriage to Robert Olds, amajor generalin theUnited States Army Air Forces(USAAF), who died in 1943, 10 months after marrying Nina.Through Auchincloss, Vidal also was the step-brother once removed ofJacqueline Kennedy.The nephews of Gore Vidal includeBurr Steers,a writer and film director, andHugh Auchincloss Steers(1963–1995), afigurative painter.

Raised in Washington, D.C., Vidal attended theSidwell Friends Schooland St. Albans School. Given the blindness of his maternal grandfather, Senator Thomas Pryor Gore, of Oklahoma, Vidal read aloud to him, and was hisSenate page,and his seeing-eye guide.In 1939, during his summer holiday, Vidal went with some colleagues and a professor from St. Albans School on his first European trip to visit Italy and France. He visited Rome for the first time, the city which came to be "at the center of Gore's literary imagination," and Paris. When theSecond World Warbegan in early September, the group was forced to return home early. On his way back, he and his colleagues stopped in Great Britain, where they met the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain,Joe Kennedy(the father ofJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy,later the President of the United States of America).In 1940 he attended theLos Alamos Ranch Schooland later transferred toPhillips Exeter Academy,inExeter, New Hampshire,where he contributed tothe Exonian,the school newspaper.

Rather than attend university, Vidal enlisted in theU.S. Armyat age 17 and was assigned to work as an office clerk in theUSAAF.Later, Vidal passed the examinations necessary to become a maritimewarrant officer(junior grade) in theTransportation Corps,and subsequently served as first mate of theF.S. 35th,a US Army Freight and Supply (FS) ship berthed atDutch Harborin theAleutian Islands.After three years in service, Vidal sufferedhypothermia,developedrheumatoid arthritisand, consequently, was reassigned to duty as a mess officer.

Literary career

Vidal's literary works were influenced by numerous other writers, poets and playwrights, novelists and essayists. These include, from antiquity,Petronius(d. AD 66),Juvenal(AD 60–140), andApuleius(fl.c. AD 155); and from the post-Renaissance,Michel de Montaigne(1533–1592),Thomas Love Peacock(1785–1866), andGeorge Meredith(1828–1909). More recent literary influences includedMarcel Proust(1871–1922),Henry James(1843–1916), andEvelyn Waugh(1903–1966).The cultural criticHarold Bloomhas written that Vidal believed that his sexuality had denied him full recognition from the literary community in the United States. Bloom himself contends that such limited recognition resulted more from Vidal's "best fictions" being "distinguished historical novels", a subgenre "no longer available for canonization".

Fiction

Vidal at theLos Angeles Times Festival of Books,2008

Vidal's literary career began with the success of themilitary novelWilliwaw,a men-at-war story derived from hisAlaskan Harbor Detachmentduty during the Second World War.His third novel,The City and the Pillar(1948), caused a moralistic furor over his dispassionate presentation of a young protagonist coming to terms with his homosexuality.The novel was dedicated to "J. T."; decades later, Vidal confirmed that the initials were those of his boyhood friend and St. Albans classmate, James Trimble III, killed in theBattle of Iwo Jimaon March 1, 1945, and that Trimble was the only person he ever loved.Critics railed against Vidal's presentation of homosexuality in the novel as natural, as it was viewed generally at the time as unnatural and immoral.Vidal claimed thatNew York TimescriticOrville Prescottwas so offended by the book that he refused to review or to permit other critics to review any book by Vidal.Vidal said that upon publication of the book, an editor atE. P. Duttontold him "You will never be forgiven for this book. Twenty years from now, you will still be attacked for it."Today, Vidal is often seen as an early champion ofsexual liberation.

Vidal took the pseudonym "Edgar Box" and wrote the mystery novelsDeath in the Fifth Position(1952),Death before Bedtime(1953) andDeath Likes it Hot(1954) featuring Peter Cutler Sargeant II, a publicist-turned-private-eye. His satirical novelMessiah,detailing the rise of a newnontheistic religionthat comes to largely replace theAbrahamic faiths,was also published in 1954. The Edgar Box genre novels sold well and earned the black-listed Vidal a secret living.That mystery-novel success led Vidal to write in other genres, where he produced the stage playThe Best Man: A Play about Politics(1960) and the television playVisit to a Small Planet(1957). Two early teleplays wereA Sense of Justice(1955) andHonor.He also wrote the pulp novelThieves Fall Outunder the pseudonym Cameron Kay but refused to have it reprinted under his real name during his life.

In the 1960s, Vidal publishedJulian(1964), about the Roman EmperorJulian the Apostate(r. A.D. 361–363), who sought to reinstatepolytheistic paganismwhen Julian viewed that Christianity threatened the cultural integrity of the Roman Empire;Washington, D.C.(1967), about political life during the presidential era ofFranklin D. Roosevelt(1933–1945); andMyra Breckinridge(1968), a satire of the American movie business, by way of a school of dramatic arts owned by atranssexualwoman, the eponymous anti-heroine.

After publishing the playsWeekend(1968) andAn Evening With Richard Nixon(1972) and the novelTwo Sisters: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir(1970), Vidal concentrated upon the essay and developed two types of fiction. The first type is about American history, novels specifically about the nature of national politics.The New York Times,quoting critic Harold Bloom about those historical novels, said that "Vidal's imagination of American politics is so powerful as to compel awe."The historical novels formed the seven-book seriesNarratives of Empire:(i)Burr(1973), (ii)Lincoln(1984), (iii)1876(1976), (iv)Empire(1987), (v)Hollywood(1990), (vi)Washington, D.C.(1967), and (vii)The Golden Age(2000). Besides U.S. history, Vidal also explored and analyzed the history of the ancient world, specifically theAxial Age(800–200 B.C.), with the novelCreation(1981). The novel was published without four chapters that were part of the manuscript he submitted to the publisher; years later, Vidal restored the chapters to the text and re-published the novelCreationin 2002.

The second type of fiction is the topical satire, such asMyron(1974), the sequel toMyra Breckinridge;Kalki(1978), about the end of the world and the consequent ennui;Duluth(1983), analternate universestory;Live from Golgotha(1992), about the adventures of Timothy, Bishop of Macedonia, in the early days of Christianity; andThe Smithsonian Institution(1998), a time-travel story.

Non-fiction

Vidal's historical novel1876(1976)

In the United States, Vidal is often considered an essayist rather than a novelist.Even the occasionally hostile literary critic, such asMartin Amis,admitted that "Essays are what he is good at... [Vidal] is learned, funny, and exceptionally clear-sighted. Even his blind spots are illuminating."

For six decades, Vidal applied himself to socio-political, sexual, historical and literary subjects. In the essay anthologyArmageddon(1987) he explored the intricacies of power (political and cultural) in the contemporary United States. His criticism of the incumbent U.S. president,Ronald Reagan,as a "triumph of the embalmer's art" communicated that Reagan's provincial worldview, and that of his administration's, was out of date and inadequate to the geopolitical realities of the world in the late twentieth century. In 1993, Vidal won theNational Book Award for Nonfictionfor the anthologyUnited States: Essays 1952–92(1993).

In 2000, Vidal published the collection of essaysThe Last Empire,then such self-described "pamphlets" asPerpetual War for Perpetual Peace,Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush JuntaandImperial America,critiques of American expansionism, themilitary–industrial complex,the national security state and theGeorge W. Bush administration.Vidal also wrote a historical essay about theFounding Fathers,Inventing a Nation.In 1995, he published a memoir,Palimpsest,and in 2006 its follow-up volume,Point to Point Navigation.Earlier that year, Vidal had publishedClouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories.

In 2009, Vidal won theMedal for Distinguished Contribution to American Lettersfrom theNational Book Foundation,which called him a "prominent social critic on politics, history, literature and culture". In the same year, the Man of Letters Gore Vidal was named honorary president of theAmerican Humanist Association.

Hollywood

Vidal (second from right) supporting the1981 Writers Guild of America strike

In 1956,MGMhired Vidal as a screenwriter with a four-year employment contract. In 1958, the directorWilliam Wylerrequired ascript doctorto rewrite the screenplay forBen-Hur(1959), originally written byKarl Tunberg.As one of several script doctors assigned to the project, Vidal rewrote significant portions of the script to resolve ambiguities of character motivation, specifically to clarify the enmity between the Jewish protagonist, Judah Ben-Hur, and the Roman antagonist, Messala, who had been close boyhood friends. In exchange for rewriting theBen-Hurscreenplay, on location in Italy, Vidal negotiated the early termination (at the two-year mark) of his four-year contract with MGM.

36 years later, in the documentary filmThe Celluloid Closet(1995), Vidal explained that Messala's failed attempt at resuming their homosexual, boyhood relationship motivated the ostensibly political enmity between Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) and Messala (Stephen Boyd). Vidal said that Boyd was aware of the homosexual subtext to the scene and that the director, the producer and the screenwriter agreed to keep Heston ignorant of the subtext, lest he refuse to play the scene.In turn, on learning of that explanation, Heston said that Vidal had contributed little to the script ofBen-Hur.Despite Vidal's resolution of the character's motivations, theScreen Writers Guildassigned formal screenwriter-credit to Karl Tunberg, in accordance with theWGA screenwriting credit system,which favored the "original author" of a screenplay, rather than the writer of the filmed screenplay.

Two plays,The Best Man: A Play about Politics(1960, made into afilmin 1964) andVisit to a Small Planet(1955), were theater and movie successes. Vidal occasionally returned to the movie business, and wrote historically accurate teleplays and screenplays about subjects important to him.Billy the Kid(1989) is one, aboutWilliam H. Bonney,a gunman in the New Mexico territoryLincoln County War(1878), and later an outlaw in the U.S. Western frontier. Another is 1979'sCaligula(based upon the life of theRoman EmperorCaligula),from which Vidal had his screenwriter credit removed because the producer,Bob Guccione,the director,Tinto Brass,and the leading actor,Malcolm McDowell,rewrote the script to add extra sex and violence to increase its commercial appeal.

In the 1960s, Vidal migrated to Italy, where he befriended the film directorFederico Fellini,for whom he appeared in a cameo role in the filmRoma(1972). He also appeared in the American television seriesMary Hartman, Mary Hartmanand in the filmsBob Roberts(1992), a serio-comedy about areactionarypopulist politician who manipulates youth culture to win votes;With Honors(1994), anIvy leaguecomedy-drama;Gattaca(1997), a science-fiction drama aboutgenetic engineering;andIgby Goes Down(2002), a coming-of-age serio-comedy directed by his nephew, Burr Steers.

Politics

Political campaigns

Vidal speaking for thePeople's Partyin 1972

Vidal began to drift towards the political left after he received his first paycheck, and realized how much money the government took in tax.He reasoned that if the government was taking so much money, then it should at least provide first-rate healthcare and education.

As a public intellectual, Vidal was identified with theliberalpoliticians and theprogressivesocial causes of the old Democratic Party.

In 1960, Vidal was the Democratic candidate for Congress for the29th Congressional Districtof New York, a usually Republican district that included most of theCatskillsand the western bank of the Hudson River, includingNewburgh,but lost to the Republican candidateJ. Ernest Wharton,by a margin of 57 percent to 43 percent.Campaigning under the slogan ofYou'll get more with Gore,Vidal received the most votes any Democratic candidate had received in the district in fifty years and outpolled John F. Kennedy (who lost the district with 38 percent of the vote).Among his supporters wereEleanor RooseveltandPaul NewmanandJoanne Woodward,friends who spoke on his behalf.

In 1982, he campaigned againstJerry Brown,the incumbent Governor of California, in the Democratic primary election for the U.S. Senate; Vidal forecast accurately that the opposing Republican candidate (Pete Wilson) would winthe election.That foray into senatorial politics is the subject of the documentary filmGore Vidal: The Man Who Said No(1983), directed byGary Conklin.

In 2001,Vanity Fairpublished an article by Vidal onTimothy McVeigh.The article attempts to understand why McVeigh perpetrated the 1995Oklahoma City bombing.

In a 2001 article, "The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh", Gore undertook to discover why domestic terroristTimothy McVeighperpetrated theOklahoma City bombingin 1995. He concluded that McVeigh (a politically disillusioned U.S. Army veteran of theFirst Iraq War,1990–91) had destroyed theAlfred P. Murrah Federal Buildingas an act of revenge for the FBI'sWaco massacre(1993) at theBranch DavidianCompound in Texas, believing that the U.S. government had mistreated Americans in the same manner that he believed that the U.S. Army had mistreated the Iraqis. In concluding theVanity Fairarticle, Vidal refers to McVeigh as an "unlikely sole mover", and theorizes that foreign/domestic conspiracies could have been involved.

Vidal was very much against any kind ofmilitary interventionin the world.InDreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta(2002), Vidal drew parallels about how the United States enters wars and said that President Franklin D. Roosevelt provokedImperial Japanto attack the U.S. to justify the American entry to theSecond World War(1939–45). He contended that Roosevelt hadadvance knowledgeof the dawn-raidattack on Pearl Harbor(December 7, 1941).In the documentaryWhy We Fight(2005), Vidal said that, during the final months of the war, the Japanese had tried to surrender: "They were trying to surrender all that summer, butTrumanwouldn't listen, because Truman wanted to drop the bombs... To show off. To frighten Stalin. To change thebalance of powerin the world. To declare war oncommunism.Perhaps we were starting a pre-emptive world war ".

Criticism of George W. Bush

Vidal and ex-senatorGeorge McGovernat theRichard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum,August 26, 2009

As a public intellectual, Vidal criticized what he viewed as political harm to the nation and the voiding of thecitizen's rightsthrough the passage of theUSA Patriot Act(2001) during the George W. Bush administration (2001–2009). He described Bush as "the stupidest man in the United States" and said that Bush's foreign policy was explicitlyexpansionist.He contended that the Bush Administration and their oil-business sponsors, aimed to control the petroleum of Central Asia, after having gained hegemony over the petroleum of thePersian Gulfin 1991.

Vidal became a member of the board of advisors ofThe World Can't Wait,a political organization which sought to publicly repudiate the foreign-policy program of the Bush Administration (2001–2009) and advocated Bush'simpeachmentforwar crimes,such as theSecond Iraq War(2003–2011) and torturing prisoners of war (soldiers, guerrillas, civilians) in violation of international law.

In May 2007, while discussing9/11 conspiracy theoriesthat might explain the "who?" and the "why?" of the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., Vidal said

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I'm a conspiracy analyst. Everything the Bushites touch is screwed up. They could never have pulled off 9/11, even if they wanted to. Even if they longed to. They could step aside, though, or just go out to lunch while these terrible things were happening to the nation. I believe that of them.

Political philosophy

Vidal, c. 1978

In theAmerican Conservativearticle "My Pen Pal Gore Vidal" (2012), Bill Kauffman reported that Vidal's favorite American politician, during his lifetime, wasHuey Long(1893–1935), thepopulistGovernor (1928–32) and Senator (1932–35) from Louisiana, who also had perceived the essential, one-party nature of U.S. politics and who wasassassinatedby a lone gunman calledCarl Weiss.

Despite that, Vidal said, "I think of myself as a conservative", with a proprietary attitude towards the United States. "My family helped start [this country]... and we've been in political life... since the 1690s, and I have a very possessive sense about this country".Based upon that background of populism, from 1970 to 1972, Vidal was a chairman of thePeople's Partyof the United States.In 1971, he endorsed the consumer-rights advocateRalph Naderfor U.S. president in the1972 election.In 2007, he endorsed DemocratDennis Kucinichin his candidacy for the U.S. presidency (in 2008), because Kucinich was "the most eloquent of the lot" of presidential candidates, from either the Republican or the Democratic parties and that Kucinich was "very much a favorite out there, in the amber fields of grain".

In a September 30, 2009, interview withThe Timesof London, Vidal said that there soon would be a dictatorship in the United States. The newspaper emphasized that Vidal, described as "the Grand Old Man of Americanbelles-lettres",claimed that America is rotting away – and to not expectBarack Obamato save the country and the nation from imperial decay. In this interview, he also updated his views of his life, the United States, and other political subjects.Vidal had earlier described what he saw as the political and cultural rot in the United States in his essay "The State of the Union" (1975),

There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party... and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, moredoctrinairein theirlaissez-fairecapitalismthan the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt – until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.

Feuds

The Capote–Vidal feud

In 1975, Vidal suedTruman Capotefor slander, over the accusation that he had once been thrown out of theWhite Housefor being drunk, putting his arm around First LadyJacqueline Kennedy,and then insultingher mother.Said Capote of Vidal at the time: "I'm always sad about Gore—very sad that he has to breathe every day."Mutual friendGeorge Plimptonobserved: "There's no venom like Capote's when he's on the prowl—and Gore's too, I don't know what division the feud should be in." The suit was settled in Vidal's favor whenLee Radziwillrefused to testify on Capote's behalf, telling columnistLiz Smith,"Oh, Liz, what do we care; they're just a couple of fags! They're disgusting."

The Buckley–Vidal feud

The feud between Vidal andWilliam F. Buckley Jr.(pictured) lasted until the latter's death in 2008.

In 1968, theABC television networkhired the liberal Vidal and the conservativeWilliam F. Buckley Jr.as political analysts of the presidential-nomination conventions of the Republican and Democratic parties.After days of bickering, their debates deteriorated to vitriolicad hominemattacks. During a moment of crosstalk while discussing the1968 Democratic National Convention protests,the pair argued aboutfreedom of speech;namely, the legality of protesters to display aViet Congflag in America, Vidal snapped at Buckley to "shut up a minute". Moments later, the following exchange transpired:

BUCKLEY: Some people were pro-Nazi, and the answer is that they were well treated by people who ostracized them. And I'm for ostracizing people who egg on other people to shoot American Marines and American soldiers.

VIDAL: As far as I'm concerned, the only sort of pro- or crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself. Failing that, I would only say that we can't have—

BUCKLEY: Now listen you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in your goddamn face, and you'll stay plastered.

ABC'sHoward K. Smithintervened, and the debate resumed without violence.Later, Buckley said he regretted having called Vidal a "queer", but still expressed some distaste for Vidal when he said that he was an "evangelist for bisexuality".

In 1969, inEsquiremagazine, Buckley continued his cultural feud with Vidal in the essay "On Experiencing Gore Vidal" (August 1969), in which he portrayed Vidal as anapologistfor homosexuality; Buckley said, "The man who, in his essays, proclaims the normalcy of his affliction [i.e., homosexuality], and in his art the desirability of it, is not to be confused with the man who bears his sorrow quietly. The addict is to be pitied and even respected, not the pusher." The essay is collected inThe Governor Listeth: A Book of Inspired Political Revelations(1970), an anthology of Buckley's writings from the time.

Vidal riposted inEsquirewith the September 1969 essay "A Distasteful Encounter with William F. Buckley, Jr." and said that Buckley was "anti-black", "anti-semitic"and a" warmonger ".Buckley sued Vidal forlibel.

The feud continued inEsquire,where Vidal implied that in 1944, Buckley and unnamed siblings had vandalized aProtestantchurch inSharon, Connecticut(the Buckley family hometown) after the wife of a pastor had sold a house to a Jewish family. Additionally, Vidal later claimed to know for a fact that Buckley was "rather infatuated" with him. Buckley again sued Vidal andEsquirefor libel and Vidal filed a counterclaim for libel against Buckley, citing Buckley's characterization ofMyra Breckinridge(1968) as apornographic novel.The court dismissed Vidal's counterclaim.Buckley accepted a money settlement of $115,000 to pay the fee of his attorney and an editorial apology fromEsquire,in which the publisher and the editors said that they were "utterly convinced" of the untruthfulness of Vidal's assertions.In a letter toNewsweekmagazine, the publisher ofEsquiresaid that "the settlement of Buckley's suit against us" was not "a 'disavowal' of Vidal's article. On the contrary, it clearly states that we published that article because we believed that Vidal had a right to assert his opinions, even though we did not share them."

InGore Vidal: A Biography(1999),Fred Kaplansaid that "The court had 'not' sustained Buckley's case againstEsquire... [that] the court had 'not' ruled that Vidal's article was 'defamatory'. It had ruled that the case would have to go to trialin order to determine, as a matter of fact, whether or not it was defamatory.The cash value of the settlement withEsquirerepresented 'only' Buckley's legal expenses. "

In 2003, Buckley resumed his complaint of having been libeled by Vidal, this time with the publication of the anthologyEsquire's Big Book of Great Writing(2003), which included Vidal's essay "A Distasteful Encounter with William F. Buckley, Jr." Again, the offended Buckley filed lawsuit for libel andEsquiremagazine again settled Buckley's claim with $55,000–65,000 for the fees of his attorney and $10,000 for personal damages suffered by Buckley.

In the obituary "RIP WFB – in Hell" (March 20, 2008), Vidal remembered Buckley, who had died on February 27, 2008.Later, in the interview "Literary Lion: Questions for Gore Vidal" (June 15, 2008),New York TimesreporterDeborah Solomonasked Vidal: "How did you feel, when you heard that Buckley died this year?" Vidal responded:

I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins, forever, those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred.

The Mailer–Vidal feud

On December 15, 1971, during the recording ofThe Dick Cavett Show,withJanet Flanner,Norman Mailerallegedly head-butted Vidal when they were backstage.When a reporter asked Vidal why Mailer had knocked heads with him, Vidal said, "Once again, words failed Norman Mailer."During the recording of the talk show, Vidal and Mailer insulted each other, over what Vidal had written about him, prompting Mailer to say, "I've had to smell your works from time to time." Apparently, Mailer's umbrage resulted from Vidal's reference to Mailer havingstabbed his wife of the time.

Views

Polanski rape case

Further information:Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

InThe Atlanticmagazine interview "A Conversation with Gore Vidal" (October 2009), by John Meroney, Vidal spoke about topical and cultural matters of U.S. society. Asked his opinion about the arrest of the film directorRoman Polanski,in Switzerland, in September 2009, in response to an extradition request by U.S. authorities, for having fled the U.S. in 1978 to avoid jail for thestatutory rapeof a thirteen-year-old girl in Hollywood, Vidal said: "I really don't give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she's been taken advantage of?"

Asked for elaboration, Vidal explained the cultural temper of the U.S. and of the Hollywood movie business in the 1970s:

The [news] media can't get anything straight. Plus, there's usually an anti-Semitic andanti-fagthing going on with the press—lots of crazy things. The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel, all in white, being raped by this awful JewPolacko—that's what people were calling him—well, the story is totally different now [2009] from what it was then [1970s]... Anti-Semitism got poor Polanski. He was also a foreigner. He did not subscribe to American values, in the least. To [his persecutors], that seemed vicious and unnatural.

Asked to explain the term "American values", Vidal replied: "Lying and cheating. There's nothing better."

In response to Vidal's opinion about the decades-old Polanski rape case, a spokeswoman for the organizationSurvivors Network of those Abused by Priests,Barbara Dorris, said, "People should express their outrage, by refusing to buy any of his books", called Vidal a "mean-spirited buffoon" and said that, although "a boycott wouldn't hurt Vidal financially", it would "cause anyone else, with such callous views, to keep his mouth shut, and [so] avoid rubbing salt into the already deep [psychological] wounds of (the victims)" of sexual abuse.

Scientology

In 1997, Vidal was one of thirty-four public intellectuals and celebrities who joined a publicity campaign waged byScientologistsagainst the German government, signing an open letter addressed to German ChancellorHelmut Kohl,published in theInternational Herald Tribune,alleging thatScientologists in Germanywere treated "in the same way that the Nazi regime persecuted the Jews".Scientologists are free to operate in Germany; the Church of Scientology, however, is not recognized as a religious body but as a business with political goals and thus monitored by the Germandomestic intelligence service.Despite signing the letter, Vidal was critical ofScientologyas a religion.

Sexuality

In 1967, Vidal appeared in theCBSdocumentaryCBS Reports: The Homosexuals,in which he expressed his views on homosexuality in the arts.Commenting on his life's work and his life, he described his style as "knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn."

However, Vidal often rebutted the label of "gay," maintaining that it referred to sexual acts rather than innate sexuality. During the 1980s and 1990s, he did not express a public stance on theHIV/AIDS crisis.According to Vidal's close friendJay Parini,"Gore didn't think of himself as a gay guy. It makes him self-hating. How could he despise gays as much as he did? In my company he always used the term 'fags'. He was uncomfortable with being gay. Then again, he was wildly courageous." Biographer Fred Kaplan concluded: "He was not interested in making a difference for gay people, or being an advocate for gay rights. There was no such thing as 'straight' or 'gay' for him, just the body and sex."

In the September 1969 edition ofEsquire,Vidal wrote aboutinnate bisexuality:

We are all bisexual to begin with. That is a fact of our condition. And we are all responsive to sexual stimuli from our own as well as from the opposite sex. Certain societies at certain times, usually in the interest of maintaining the baby supply, have discouraged homosexuality. Other societies, particularly militaristic ones, have exalted it. But regardless of tribal taboos, homosexuality is a constant fact of the human condition and it is not a sickness, not a sin, not a crime... despite the best efforts of our puritan tribe to make it all three. Homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality. Notice I use the word 'natural,' not normal.

Personal life

Vidal as a young man

In the multi-volume memoirThe Diary of Anaïs Nin(1931–74),Anaïs Ninsaid she had a love affair with Vidal, who denied her claim in his memoirPalimpsest(1995). In the online article "Gore Vidal's Secret, Unpublished Love Letter to Anaïs Nin" (2013), authorKim Krizansaid she found an unpublished love letter from Vidal to Nin, which contradicts his denial of a love affair with Nin. Krizan said she found the love letter while researchingMirages,the latest volume of Nin's uncensored diary, to which Krizan wrote the foreword.Vidal would cruise the streets and bars of New York City and other locales and wrote in his memoir that by age twenty-five, he had had more than a thousand sexual encounters.Vidal also said that he had an intermittent romance with actressDiana Lynn,and alluded to possibly having fathered a daughter.He was briefly engaged to actressJoanne Woodwardbefore she married actorPaul Newman;after marrying, they briefly shared a house with Vidal in Los Angeles.

Vidal enjoyed telling his sexual exploits to friends. Vidal claimed to have slept withFred Astairewhen he first moved to Hollywood and also with a youngDennis Hopper.

In 1950, Vidal metHoward Austen,who became his partner for the next 53 years, until Austen's death.He said that the secret to his long relationship with Austen was that they did not have sex with each other: "It's easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part, and impossible, I have observed, when it does."InCelebrity: The Advocate Interviews(1995), by Judy Wiedner, Vidal said that he refused to call himself "gay" because he was not an adjective, adding that, "to be categorized is, simply, to be enslaved. Watch out. I have never thought of myself as a victim... I've said—a thousand times?—in print and on TV, that everyone is bisexual."

In the course of his life, Vidal lived at various times in Italy and in the United States. In 2003, as his health began to fail with age, he sold his Italian villaLa Rondinaia(The Swallow's Nest) on theAmalfi Coastin theprovince of Salernoand he and Austen returned to live in their 1929villa inOutpost Estates, Los Angeles.Howard Austen died in November 2003 and in February 2005 his remains were re-buried at Rock Creek Cemetery, in Washington, D.C., in a joint grave plot that Vidal had purchased for himself and Austen.

Death

The grave of Gore Vidal inRock Creek Cemetery.

In 2010, Vidal began to suffer fromWernicke–Korsakoff syndrome,a neurological disorder caused by his years of alcohol abuse.On July 31, 2012, Vidal died ofpneumoniaat his home in theHollywood Hillsat the age of 86.A memorial service was held for him at theGerald Schoenfeld Theatrein New York City on August 23, 2012.He was buried next to Howard Austen inRock Creek Cemetery,in Washington, D.C.Vidal said he chose his grave site because it is between the graves of two people who were important in his life:Henry Adams,the historian and writer, whose work Vidal admired; and his boyhood friend Jimmie Trimble who was killed in World War II, a tragedy that haunted Vidal for the rest of his life.Upon his death, Vidal bequeathed the entirety of his estate, valued at $37 million,toHarvard University.

Legacy

Postmortem opinions and assessments of Vidal as a writer varied. TheNew York Timesdescribed him as "anAugustanfigure who believed himself to be the last of a breed, and he was probably right. Few American writers have been more versatile, or gotten more mileage from their talent. "TheLos Angeles Timessaid that he was a literary juggernaut whose novels and essays were considered "among the most elegant in the English language".TheWashington Postdescribed him as a "major writer of the modern era... [an] astonishingly versatile man of letters".

The Guardiansaid that "Vidal's critics disparaged his tendency to formulate an aphorism, rather than to argue, finding in his work an underlying note of contempt for those who did not agree with him. His fans, on the other hand, delighted in his unflagging wit and elegant style."TheDaily Telegraphdescribed the writer as "an icy iconoclast" who "delighted in chronicling what he perceived as the disintegration of civilisation around him".The BBC News said that he was "one of the finest post-war American writers... an indefatigable critic of the wholeAmerican system... Gore Vidal saw himself as the last of the breed of literary figures who became celebrities in their own right. Never a stranger to chat shows, his wry and witty opinions were sought after as much as his writing. "In "The Culture of the United States Laments the Death of Gore Vidal", the Spanish on-line magazineIdealsaid that Vidal's death was a loss to the "culture of the United States" and described him as a "great American novelist and essayist".InThe Writer Gore Vidal is Dead in Los Angeles,the online edition of the Italian newspaperCorriere della Seradescribed the novelist as "theenfant terribleof American culture "and that he was" one of the giants of American literature ".InGore Vidal: The Killjoy of America,the French newspaperLe Figarosaid that the public intellectual Vidal was "the killjoy of America" but that he also was an "outstanding polemicist" who used words "like high-precision weapons".

On August 23, 2012, in the program aMemorial for Gore Vidal in Manhattan,the life and works of the writer Gore Vidal were celebrated at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, with a revival ofThe Best Man: A Play About Politics(1960). The writer and comedianDick Cavettwas host of the Vidalian celebration, which featured personal reminiscences about and performances of excerpts from the works of Vidal by friends and colleagues, such asElizabeth Ashley,Candice Bergen,Hillary Clinton,Alan Cumming,James Earl Jones,Elaine May,Michael Moore,Susan Sarandon,Cybill Shepherd,and Liz Smith.

In the 1960s, Vidal selected theWisconsin Center for Film and Theater Researchat theUniversity of Wisconsinto archive his papers given his early focus on film. In 2002, Vidal transferred his papers toHoughton Libraryat Harvard University where they are housed to this day.

In popular culture

In the 1960s, the weekly Americansketch comedytelevision programRowan & Martin's Laugh-Infeatured a running-joke sketch about Vidal; the telephone operator Ernestine (Lily Tomlin) would call him, saying: "Mr. Veedul, this is the Phone Company calling! (snort! snort!)."The sketch, titled "Mr. Veedle", also appeared in Tomlin's comedy record albumThis Is a Recording(1972).

Vidal provided his own voice for the animated-cartoon version of himself inThe Simpsonsepisode "Moe'N'a Lisa".He also voiced his animated-cartoon version inFamily Guy.He was interviewed in theDa Ali G Show;the Ali G character mistakes him forVidal Sassoon,a famous hairdresser.

The Buckley-Vidal debates, their aftermath and cultural significance, were the focus of a 2015 documentary film calledBest of Enemies,as well as a 2021 play byJames Graham,inspired by the film.

In season eight, episode eight ofThe Officetitled "Gettysburg",Oscar MartinezcallsDwight Schrute"Gore Vidal" when Dwight tries to explain his version of history naming the "Battle of Schrute Farms" as the northernmost battle in the Civil War. Dwight responds to Oscar that he doesn't "know who that is".

ANetflixbiopic titledGorewas filmed in 2017. It was directed and co-written byMichael Hoffman,and based onJay Parini's bookEmpire of Self, A Life of Gore Vidal.The film, which starredKevin Spaceyin the title role, was cancelled and remains unreleased due to sexual misconduct allegations made against Spacey.

Selected list of works

Main article:List of works by Gore Vidal

• The City and the Pillar(1948)
• The Best Man(1960)
• Julian(1964)
• Myra Breckinridge(1968)
• Kalki(1978)
• Creation(1981)

TheNarratives of Empireseries (chronological order rather than release order):

1. Burr(1973)
2. Lincoln(1984)
3. 1876(1976)
4. Empire(1987)
5. Hollywood(1990)
6. Washington, D.C.(1967)
7. The Golden Age(2000)

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1972	Roma	Himself	Uncredited
1992	Bob Roberts	Senator Brikley Paiste
1994	With Honors	Pitkannen
1997	Shadow conspiracy	Congressman Page
	Gattaca	Director Josef
2002	Igby Goes Down	First School Headmaster	Uncredited
2009	Shrink	George Charles

See also

• List of Venice Film Festival jury presidents
• Politics in fiction

External links

• Gore Vidal Index,by Harry Kloman
• Gore Vidal Pages
• Gore VidalatIMDb
• Gore Vidalat theInternet Broadway Database
• Gore Vidalat theInternet Off-Broadway Database
• Gore VidalatAllMovie
• AppearancesonC-SPAN
• Documentary,Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia:
  • Film web site
  • At Internet Movie Database
  • Interview with Director Nicholas Wrathall
• Gore Vidal – Obituary,New York Times
• Gore Vidal Biography and InterviewwithAmerican Academy of Achievement
• Gore VidalonEncyclopedia Britannica
• Gore Vidal,onThe Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
• Gore Vidal,onOpen Library,Internet Archive
• Gore Vidal and Dennis Altman Speaking About Gore Vidal's 'America'on 11/07/05 at D.G. Wills Books in La Jolla, CA, 86 min, in mp3 format
• Gore VidalonGoodreads