Agree with him or not, Vidal was always worth listening to and reading.
Vidal wrote a number of books including the satirical Myra Breckenridge. The book was made into a movie, which must rank as one of the stupidest ever made in the history of film. Yes, I have that film on DVD. It's more notable about the behind-the-scenes "feud" between stars Mae West and Raquel Welch than for anything onscreen. The late Farrah Fawcett had one of her earliest roles in this film. It didn't kill her acting career, thank goodness. Ditto for Tom Selleck, who had a itty-bitty part.
Anyway, back to Vidal. He was related to the Kennedy family and also to Al Gore, so he had all the right connections. These didn't hamper his career in any way. He never bothered going to college at all.
Gore Vidal was best known as an author, pundit and raconteur. But the writer, who died Tuesday at 86, also had time for movies — both writing for and appearing in them.
His screenwriting career took more than a few notable turns. Most famously was 1979’s “Caligula,” the explicit look at the tyrannical and hedonistic Roman emperor. Wild sex scenes prompted gasps through the film world, as did the drama behind the scenes -- after disagreements with the directors and others on the film, Vidal had only limited control over the final product, as the movie was re-cut (with additional sex scenes) by producer and Penthouse chief Bob Guccione.
There were also plenty of adult themes in Vidal’s New Orleans-set mystery “Suddenly Last Summer,” a 1959 release that trafficked in murder, mental illness and (homo)sexual explicitness. Starring Montgomery Clift, Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor, Vidal adapted the picture from the Tennessee Williams play. Despite (or because) of its racy themes, the movie went on to be a big box-office hit.
Vidal was one of those people who happened to be good at almost everything he tried.
The operative word is "almost." Running for political office was not one of them:
In 1960, the same year that "The Best Man" opened on Broadway, Vidal made his political debut, running for a House seat as a liberal Democrat in a conservative upstate New York district. Noting in the New York Times that his objective was to "subvert a society that bores and appalls me," he championed issues such as recognition of Red China and reducing the military budget. Not surprisingly, he lost.
Two decades later in California he trailed Jerry Brown by a large margin in a bid for the 1982 Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat.
His political views went further and further to the point that people like Christopher Hitchens regarded him as a crackpot.
Vidal had some affairs with guys like Jack Kerouac, but he refused to be categorized as a "gay" author. He had a male companion of some 53 years, but Vidal said it was a friendship with no sex involved.
For fun, here is part one of the 1968 "debate" between Vidal and bloviator William F. Buckley:
The rest can be viewed at this link at the sidebar.
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