#Harold halma photograph of capote movie#
#Harold halma photograph of capote professional#

The persona that later became a kind of mid-20th century Palm Springs version of Oscar Wilde was a fairly goodlooking, youthful, professorial-looking, maybe advertising executive-ish man in a grey flannel suit, Brooks Brothers buttondown shirt and tie. I saw him interviewed for the first time on the David Susskind Show, a local Sunday night talk show here in New York. He became one of those public characters who seemed to be blessed with wit, wisdom, glamour and more than a touch of the offbeat. In Cold Blood was the most exciting, most horrifying, most compelling read of the moment and the intense public interest that it created lifted Truman Capote’s image into the stratosphere. For the next three weeks, I lived with religious anticipation from week to week for the following Wednesday (when the New Yorker came out on the stands), when I could devour the next segment. Because of my fond memories of Breakfast… I began to read and soon found I could not stop. (In those days, the New Yorker had no table of contents, and bylines were always at the end of a story or article). I discovered it accidentally, thumbing through a new (for that week) issue of the magazine and seeing Capote’s byline at the end of the piece. The Septemissue of The New Yorker, wherein the first installment of “In Cold Blood” was published. The first sentence: “The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.” A terrible murder of an upstanding, plain and simple, milk-fed family by two aimless, screwed up thugs from the underside of the same America.

Then, in the mid-1960s came “In Cold Blood,” which was first serialized in four parts in the New Yorker.

#Harold halma photograph of capote movie#

Then came the movie with Audrey Hepburn which spoke to a whole generation of even non-readers idealizing grown up life in the big city. My friend imagined herself another Holly Golightly, the novel’s main character. I was first aware of Capote as a teenager when a friend of mine, a very smart girl who had a natural attraction to romantic notions of the tragic and the bittersweet, was reading his Other Voices, Other Rooms. He had had a good ride, it was true, even a great one, but his ending obscured his glory and indeed, decimated, albeit briefly, his great and unusual popularity. Even worse, his talent which had taken him to all the great heights he could have dreamed of (without actually becoming a movie star) – magazine covers, talk show guesting, movie cameos and financial riches, had finally eluded and maybe even escaped him. The Beautiful People, the Society dowagers and the jet set who sought him out and coddled him for decades who had vied for his company and an invitation to his Party of the Century – the famous Black and White Ball, had long turned away from and ostracized him. At the time of his death, the man whom Norman Mailer said “wrote the best sentences of any one of (his) generation,” had been on a long decline of notoriety, alcoholism and drug use. Truman Capote died 37 years ago last month. Truman photographed by Cecil Beaton on his first trip to England in 1948. He had made a big impression, as he did with millions, with his writing talent - and later, in learning of his childhood background in which he was abandoned very early by both parents - his late state of being described a child’s great loss very very sadly, and it remains with me to this day.

None of the above descriptions would fit my experience of him although by that time (the early 80s) he was, it turned out, on his last legs and well aware of it.

#Harold halma photograph of capote professional#

Capote although I had one memorable professional experience with him at the end of his life. One of the reviews I read included a variety of descriptions - all negative - including “candied tarantula, seductive freak, naughty little kid, and sleazy wicked bit of work.” There’s a new documentary out about Truman Capote aptly called The Capote Tapes by Ebs Burrough getting high praise from the media critics (I haven’t spoken to anyone who has actually seen it). Mainly sunny day yesterday in New York with temps in the high 70s to the low 70s in the evening.