10 Most Shocking things Truman Capote Ever Did
Celebrity author Truman Capote is well remembered for his now classic works like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Other Voices Other Rooms and his masterpiece In Cold Blood, but the colorful, sharp-witted author drew just as much attention for shocking actions like exposing the secrets of high society friends or appearing drunk on TV. These 10 things are examples of Truman Capote’s most shocking behavior.
Got Sent to Jail
Truman Capote spent a lot of time doing research in penitentiaries, but his own brief stint has been all but forgotten. In 1967 and ’68 he was conducting interviews with prisoners at three death row facilities for an ABC documentary called Death Row U.S.A. Some of the murders appeared on camera and were also quoted in an accompanying “Esquire” article. One man named Joseph Morse talked about the probability that he would kill again if he were to be released. Morse himself later said Capote embellished his statement. The trouble started for Capote when he was asked to testify about these remarks in court. He refused because he considered all the interviews he did to be confidential. After he ignored the subpoena and attempts by his lawyers failed to resolve the matter, Capote was sentenced to three days of jail time in 1970. However, he only served 18 hours due to ill health. It seems even that short time was too much for the author, as he appeared to be in bad condition upon release. He didn’t say much about the experience but mentioned how uncomfortable it was and said “I don’t advise anybody to go there to write a book.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2023/01/truman-capote-true-crime-in-cold-blood/672747/
Wrestled Humphrey Bogart
Few people would have described Truman Capote as tough, so it’s hard to imagine him overpowering someone like Humphrey Bogart, who was the personification of macho but that’s what happened during a wrestling match between the two during the making of 1953 action-adventure film Beat the Devil starring Bogart and Jennifer Jones, that Capote co-wrote. One day when Capote was on the set, he shocked Bogart by managing to beat him at arm wrestling. Capote would only agree to a rematch on the condition that they wager $50. Capote won over and over, until the arm wrestling turned into a full-on wrestling match with Capote the ultimate victor. The director, John Huston, said he “put Bogie on his ass.”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046414/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv
The Robert Frost Incident
There are many different versions of the unfortunate encounter with Robert Frost, which led to a young Truman Capote loosing his job as a copy boy at The New Yorker. The gist of the story is that Capote offended the legendary poet and was either fired or laid off as a result. The basic story that Capote himself often told was that Frost got angry when he noticed him sneaking out of a poetry reading he was giving at a literary conference and threw a book at Capote. Even though his early exit was supposedly prompted by illness, having come down with the flu shortly before, Frost’s complaining ultimately cost him his job. However, his relationship with the publication was not permanently destroyed, as Capote did go on to later write for The New Yorker.
Trashed the Casting of Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Even though he had said nice things about the lovable Audrey Hepburn in the past, Capote was furious about her being cast as Holly Golightly in the big screen adaptation of his novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He actually wanted a very different type, Marilyn Monroe, for the part and felt that the studio had double-crossed him. He later said it was “the most miscast film I’ve ever seen. It made me want to throw up.” Considering his critical attitude, it makes sense that Hepburn was uncomfortable when he was on set. Luckily, the general movie-going pubic did not share his disdain. Hepburn’s depiction of Holly turned out to be the most popular of her career.
https://nypost.com/2010/06/17/diamonds-are-forever/
Went on Tour with the Rolling Stones
Rock music journalism might seem like a big departure for a literary giant like Truman Capote, but his career had begun to dry up by the time Rolling Stone magazine hired him to cover edgy band The Rolling Stones’ 1972 US tour. It may sound like a publicity stunt, but the magazine had other reasons for getting a high brow writer like Capote to tag along with the Stones. They hoped his commentary would help to make their music more palpable to the intelligentsia of the time. Unfortunately, he did not finish the article, explaining to Andy Warhol in an interview for the publication that even though he enjoyed the experience “ “I just didn’t want to write about it, because it didn’t interest me creatively”. The Rolling Stones’ publicist at the time, Carol Klenfner, remembers Capote frequently complaining about loud music and the non-stop partying. The wild band members, especially Keith Richards, clashed with Capote. One night after turning down a party invite from Richards, the rocker pulled a practical joke on him, flinging ketchup — a reference to In Cold Blood — all over the door to the author’s hotel room, and threatened to beat him up.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rolling-stones-trivia_n_564cb952e4b00b7997f889d6?ri18n=true
https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/happy-birthday-truman-capote-back-life-article-1.2380393
Tried to Take Credit for To Kill a Mockingbird
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Harper Lee was a friend of Truman Capote, going all the way back to their childhoods in Alabama. As adults, the already prominent Capote helped Lee to get a literary agent. Despite the major success and notoriety Capote had attained by the early 1960s, he was jealous of the money and acclaim that Lee earned with the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird. Though he never publicly took credit for Lee’s book, there have long been reports that he claimed privately to have written it, including a story that literary critic and book editor Pearl Belle said Capote implied that he wrote the beloved classic. This helped to fuel rumors about the true authorship of the work. The fact that Lee didn’t publish another book until Go Set a Watchman was released more than five decades later in 2015 encouraged this speculation. Capote’s own father, Archulus Persons, even went so far as to tell an Alabama reporter that Capote had written the majority of To Kill a Mockingbird with Lee contributing “little more than an outline”. The idea that Capote being as accomplished and well known as he was by then may have claim credit for a the one book Lee published during his lifetime is more than a little surprising and difficult to understand. However, the discovery of a letter Truman Capote wrote to a relative has done a lot to discredit these rumors. In the 1959 letter, he says that he’s read most of the manuscript and praises the story and her talent.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5244492
Wrote In Cold Blood.
Truman Capote shocked readers everywhere with his 1966 book In Cold Blood, a groundbreaking book which the author himself considered to be a new genre, describing it as a nonfiction novel. It is based on a true story, the gruesome quadruple murder of the Clutter family in a small Kansas farming community by two ex-con drifters who were planning to rob a safe in the house, which turned out to be empty. One of the most surprising and groundbreaking things about this was Capote’s intense psychological exploration of the killers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith. The author spent six years working on the bestseller and was aided to a large extent by his old friend Harper Lee, who helped him to gain the trust of the local citizens when he conducted interviews in Kansas. The powerful book has influenced the style of many crime writers over the years and helped to revolutionize the true crime genre. In Cold Blood has been adapted to the screen multiple times, including the compelling 1967 film directed by Richard Brooks, which starred Robert Blake and Scott Wilson.
Befriended Murderers
It may not be unusual for a true-crime writer to interview killers for research, but Capote took his association with Richard Hickock and Perry Smith significantly further. He developed a friendship of sorts with these two brutal murderers, who he wrote about in his famous nonfiction novel In Cold Blood. As chronicled in films like “Infamous”, he was particularly close to Smith, who he regularly corresponded with, exchanging letters that discussed personal topics like Capote’s own views on religion. He kept in touch until the executions, which he attended, After the hanging, Capote reportedly cried.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/perry-smith
Inebriated TV Appearance
Truman Capote’s productivity as a writer declined during the last two decades of his life and he acquired a reputation for abusing drugs and alcohol. In 1978 he made headlines for appearing to be intoxicated when he was a guest on a New York talk show. The rambling Capote shocked viewers when he predicted that he would one day commit suicide. It was not clear whether the drug overdose that contributed to his death in 1984, just before his sixtieth birthday, was intentional or accidental.
https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/the-book-that-killed-truman-capote/
Betrayed High Society
In addition to being a celebrated writer, journalist and pop culture icon, Truman Capote was also known for being a favorite of glamorous socialites such as Babe Paley, Lee Radziwill and Slim Keith. Not only did he pal around with them, but these high profile ladies often confided in him. This all came to a crashing end virtually overnight when “Esquire” published the first installment of his sensationalistic book Answered Prayers in November 1975, creating a high society scandal. The unfinished novel was a thinly veiled expose revealing the secrets these women, who he referred to as his “Swans”. The story was seen as a betrayal of their friendship, and Capote paid the price by being shut out of their lives.
