1976
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Learn about the life and works of Truman Capote, an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor. He wrote classics such as Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood, and was a friend of Harper Lee.
- In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel [1] by the American...
- Capote
Capote is a 2005 American biographical drama film about...
- Jack Dunphy
When he met author Truman Capote in 1948, Dunphy had written...
- Closing Time: The True Story of The Goodbar Murder
Closing Time: The True Story of the "Goodbar" Murder is a...
- Ann Woodward
Ann Eden Woodward (born Angeline Lucille Crowell; December...
- Breakfast at Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a novella by Truman Capote...
- In Cold Blood
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- Overview
- Early life
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood
- Later work
- Answered Prayers: Capote and the “swans”
Truman Capote was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright whose early writing extended the Southern Gothic tradition. He is best known for his nonfiction novel In Cold Blood and his novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
What did Truman Capote write?
Truman Capote wrote numerous short stories as well as novels and novellas, but he earned the most fame from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a 1958 novella about young café society woman Holly Golightly, and from In Cold Blood, a 1965 nonfiction novel centring on the 1959 murder of the Clutter family in their Kansas farmhouse.
What awards did Truman Capote win?
Truman Capote won the O. Henry Memorial Award for his short stories “Miriam,” “Shut a Final Door,” and “The House of Flowers.” He also received, with William Archibald, the 1962 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay for The Innocents and the 1966 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime for his nonfiction novel In Cold Blood.
How did Truman Capote and Harper Lee meet?
He was born Truman Persons, and his parents, Lillie Mae (“Nina”) Faulk and Archulus Persons, divorced when he was two years old. The younger Persons spent part of his childhood with various relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. There he became close friends with Harper Lee, who later wrote the classic To Kill A Mockingbird (1960); the novel features a character named Dill Harris, who was based on Persons.
In the early 1930s he joined his mother and wealthy stepfather, José (“Joseph”) Garcia Capote, in New York City. In 1935 Truman Persons was adopted by José Capote and took his surname. The family later settled in Milbrook, Connecticut, where Truman Capote attended private schools and completed his secondary education at Greenwich High School.
Capote began writing at a young age, and his childhood experiences informed many of his early works of fiction. Having abandoned further schooling, he achieved early literary recognition in 1945 when his haunting short story “Miriam” was published in Mademoiselle magazine; the following year it won the O. Henry Memorial Award, the first of four such awards Capote was to receive. His first published novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), was acclaimed as the work of a young writer of great promise. The book is a sensitive, partly autobiographical portrayal of a boy’s search for his father and his own sexual identity through a nightmarishly decadent Southern world.
The short story “Shut a Final Door” (O. Henry Award, 1946) and other tales of loveless and isolated individuals were collected in A Tree of Night, and Other Stories (1949). The quasi-autobiographical novel The Grass Harp (1951) is a story of nonconforming innocents who temporarily retire from life to a tree house, returning renewed to the real world. One of Capote’s most popular works, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is a novella about Holly Golightly, a young fey café society girl; it was first published in Esquire magazine in 1958 and then as a book, with several other stories.
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Capote’s increasing preoccupation with journalism was reflected in his nonfiction novel In Cold Blood, a chilling account of the murders of four members of the Clutter family, committed in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. Capote began researching the murders soon after they happened, and he spent six years interviewing the two men who were eventually executed for the crime. That time included months spent in Kansas with Lee, who served as his “assistant researchist.”
In Cold Blood first appeared as a series of articles in 1965 in The New Yorker; the book version was published that same year. Its critical and popular success pushed Capote to the forefront of the emerging New Journalism, and it proved to be the high point of his dual careers as a writer and a celebrity socialite. Endowed with a quirky but attractive character, he entertained television audiences with outrageous tales recounted in his distinctively high-pitched lisping Southern drawl.
Capote’s later writings never approached the success of his earlier ones. In the late 1960s he adapted two short stories about his childhood, “A Christmas Memory” and “The Thanksgiving Visitor,” for television. The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Spaces (1973) consists of collected essays and profiles over a 30-year span, while the collection ...
Capote’s writing helped make him a celebrity, and he enjoyed a busy social life. Known for his sharp wit and love of gossip, he became a fixture in high society and a confidante to a number of socialites, including Babe Paley and Slim Keith; he dubbed these women “swans.” In 1966 Capote threw his famed Black and White Ball, which some described as the “best party ever.” However, during this time he became increasingly dependent on drugs and alcohol, which stifled his productivity. Moreover, selections from a projected work that he considered to be his masterpiece, a social satire entitled Answered Prayers, appeared in Esquire in 1975–76 and raised a storm among friends and foes who were harshly depicted in the work (under the thinnest of disguises). He became a social pariah, and his alcohol and drug problems worsened. (The fallout from the published excerpts inspired the TV miniseries Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.)
The book, which had not been completed at the time of his death in 1984, was published as Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel in 1986. Summer Crossing, a short novel that Capote wrote in the 1940s and that was believed lost, was released in 2006.
Jan 26, 2024 · Who Was Truman Capote? One of the 20 th century’s most well-known authors, Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood. The author was as fascinating a character as those who...
- editor@biography.com
- Staff Editorial Team And Contributors
- Amy Irvine
- Capote was not his real surname. Truman Capote was born on 30 September 1924 in New Orleans, Louisiana, originally named Truman Streckfus Persons. He changed his name to Truman Garcia Capote in 1935 – from his stepfather, Joseph Capote, a Cuban-born New York businessman.
- He was primarily raised by his mother’s relatives. Capote’s parents divorced when he was very young, and he was subsequently primarily raised by his mother’s relatives in Monroeville, Alabama.
- A character in To Kill a Mockingbird was based on Capote. Truman Capote’s best friend in Monroeville was the girl-next-door, Nelle Harper Lee, who later based the precocious character of Dill Harris on Capote in her famous novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
- His breakthrough came with his debut novel. After her subsequent marriage to Joe Capote, Capote’s mother (who later committed suicide) brought him to New York City.
Jul 28, 2006 · Learn about the life and works of Truman Capote, one of America's most controversial and colorful authors. From his childhood in New Orleans to his masterpiece In Cold Blood, explore his literary genius and his flamboyant lifestyle.
Jan 23, 2020 · Learn about the life and works of Truman Capote, a pioneer of literary journalism and author of Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood. Explore his early struggles, his friendships, his controversies, and his legacy.
Truman Capote was born on September 30, 1924 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Murder by Death (1976), The Innocents (1961) and Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). He died on August 25, 1984 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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