How did “not like everyone else” succeed in charming the most successful women: Truman Capote's Harem

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

He conquered literary America already at the moment when the first issue with Truman Capote's story was published. Later, he was able to conquer the whole world: his "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Murder in cold blood" have long become classics. In life, the American writer was deeply unhappy and at the same time a very ambitious person. He easily won the hearts of the most famous women, while maintaining his non-traditional sexual orientation.

Not like everyone else

He was an unwanted child and was able to realize this already in the first years of his life. His mother, Lilly Mae Folk and her husband Arculus Persons, constantly quarreled, and when the boy was only four, they finally parted. Lilly quickly sent the baby to relatives, and she herself enjoyed life, from time to time visiting her son who was madly in love with her.

The Monroeville aunts loved the boy, but his only joy was his mother's visits. Truman learned to write and count on his own, and realized very early on that he would become a famous writer. He was 9 years old when Lilly remarried and took her son to the home of Joseph Capote, who adopted the wife's son.

Already at the age of 11, he began to seriously engage in literary creativity and every day, coming from school, he wrote for at least three hours. However, he never managed to become a source of pride for his own mother, moreover, she was frankly ashamed of her son. Truman Capote was ridiculed by his peers: his tiny stature, large head and thin voice distinguished him from other children. They called him "Pocket Merlin" and mocked him in every possible way. But Truman knew for sure that over time, he would wipe his nose to all those who humiliated him in childhood. His ambitions would be enough, for sure, for a good hundred people.

From 1939 to 1942 he attended New England School in Greenwich, Connecticut. In this educational institution, he, surprisingly, became a very popular person. He began to write for the school newspaper and literary magazine, was a welcome guest at all school parties, and even won the sympathy of one of the most beautiful fellow practitioners. She also dreamed of becoming a writer in the future and was not at all embarrassed by the fact that she was accompanied everywhere by a boy whose height was one head less than her own.

The first stories, written at the age of 11-19, will be discovered only in 2013, and will be released in 2015. But since 1943, Truman Capote has already been actively published, and his story "Miriam" won the Best First Story award.

His first novel "Voices of Grass", published in 1951, became a bestseller, and the writer himself became one of the most popular and famous personalities in the United States. He was called a genius and a devil, a dwarf and a dangerous creature, but at the same time he was vying with each other to be invited to the most fashionable parties.

Genius or villain

Truman Capote enjoyed his fame. He skillfully used the impression he made on people: after the first minutes of their acquaintance, men were ready to patronize him, and women were sorry, trusted him with their innermost secrets and asked for advice.

He even had a special notebook in which Capote wrote down the names of celebrities who added to his list of friends. Turning the pages of this notebook, he enjoyed himself like a rich man counting his money.

Many acquaintances were sure that no woman was able to pay attention to this large-headed dwarf. But since the mid-1950s, the doors of the most prim houses and aristocratic living rooms have opened for the writer, and a real harem has formed around Capote. The most famous and successful women have become fans of Truman Capote. Among them were Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, Gloria Guinness and Slim Keith, Jacqueline Kennedy and Babe Paley.

It seemed that the writer, as a professional psychoanalyst, almost at first glance determined what words his interlocutor would like to hear, and after a short conversation he pronounced them. For example, he advised Jacqueline Kennedy to hide his intelligence and insight from men, he confidently said to Lee Radziwill that her recognition lies ahead, you just need to wait. And to his favorite, Babe Paley, he frankly stated: the husband is not able to appreciate her beauty and perfection.

However, for husbands or patrons of beauties, he had a story about his difficult childhood, unkind mother and lack of love for him among all the fairer sex. Men did not see him as a competitor, and therefore he could freely spend days and nights in female society, sometimes living in hospitable houses for several weeks in a row.

However, women, turning to the writer for advice, confiding in him all their secrets, revealing family secrets, hardly considered Capote as a sexual object. They loved him as they love a beautiful toy or a pet.

The overthrown idol

And the writer himself admitted: it would never have occurred to him to put any of his many girlfriends to bed. His heart has long belonged to men. Real beauties became his lovers, and the main place in the life of Truman Capote was taken by the writer Jack Daphne.

He quickly won the love and attention of the esteemed public, but just as quickly and was subsequently dethroned from the pedestal. Back in 1966, almost all celebrities were eager to attend the black-and-white ball organized by the writer, and the absence from the list of invitees was seen as a disaster. He was an idol, he was at the height of fame and enjoyed his power over people.

But 9 years later, Esquire magazine published the first chapter of the novel "Prayers Heard", which, according to the writer's idea, was to become his most ambitious work. However, the story, published under the name "La Côte Basque 1965", shocked many. Truman Capote, without a shadow of a doubt, revealed the secrets once entrusted to him.

Yesterday's admirers and patrons turned their backs on Capote, and he found himself isolated from everything to which he was so accustomed: brilliance, recognition, worship. His longtime lover Jack Daphne left Capote, unable to see his friend destroy himself with alcohol and drugs.

The doors of all decent houses turned out to be closed for him, and awkward attempts to justify himself, explaining that his new novel is a literary fiction, were not crowned with success. Capote's heroes were too recognizable. It is unlikely that Truman Capote could have guessed what the publication of La Côte Basque and two more chapters of Prayers Heard, which were published later, would turn out for him.

In the last years of his life, the writer was repeatedly treated for drug addiction and alcoholism and died in 1984 from liver disease, complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication.

It is believed that ideal women do not exist. One lacks beauty, the other lacks secular manners. However, seekers of the Lady of Perfection need not despair. There was definitely one such woman. In the first half of the 20th century, she drove the whole of New York crazy. Babe Paley became one of the prototypes for the protagonist of the novel by Truman Capote and the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. She has been at the top of the ranking of "America's most well-dressed women" fourteen times, and Marilyn Monroe admitted that she "feels like a chalda" compared to her.