Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, Thread 2

One of the old threads:

The other previous thread.

You were so desperate for people to use your little thread that you actually filled out the rest of the other thread with nonsense? Pretty pathetic. And this would actually be the fourth thread

Well, that's impressively cunty, r3.

Technically it's basically part 3, if you're not counting the thread about disliking the show. But I'm grateful for a clear next thread bc the Capote and the Seans thread wasn't going anywhere.

I'm loving the most recent episode, clearly the show was illustrating Lees lack of intellect as guillotine is correctly pronounced. The drugged, drunk Babe at the birthday party was a fun campy moment and loved the dining, vivisection scene.

They got a lot of mileage out of Ms. Woodward.

[quote]Capote and the Seans

Connery? Patrick Flannery? Lennone? Penn?

The guy playing James Baldwin was exhausting. His choppy way of speaking hurt my ears.

That's the way James Baldwin actually talked.Chris Chalk did a great job, I thought, although the episode fell into the old trope yet again of a Black character just being in a story to solve a white person's problems. But I thought Chalk was so good he transcended the limitations of the material.

One thing that's odd about the show is how melodramatic everything has to be. In real life, when Capote called the Paleys after the publication of "La Cote Basque, 1965," Bill Paley did not go nuclear on him and threaten to see him sent off to Patagonia: in actuality, when Capote asked if Babe had read the story, Paley said coldly, "I'm sorry, but we don't have time for that sort of thing now. My wife is very sick right now," and hung up. That was actually much more devastating than the 'Dynasty"-like "I'll see you starved of oxygen!" scene Baitz wrote, but I guess it would not have made for good television. Similarly, it's hard to imagine especially Babe Paley being so openly cunty to Ann Woodward as the scene in this week's show at La Cote Basque showed.

I still am enjoying the shw for all its errors, because the details of their lives is so fascinting. I loved the bit about how the swans eat nothing and just nibble at their tiny portions at restaurants. I also loved the scene with CZ Guest taking her dughter fox-hunting, and the scene with Babe drunkenly snarling at her twelve-year-old daughter for ordering the wrong flower at the birthday party is instantly a camp classic.

I cried when I watched

This episode was my least favorite. I had little to do besides getting drunk in the shower.

MARY!

In the previous threat R592 is correct when he said, "Truman uses the phrase "privileged white women" to refer to the swans, when no one would have used that phrase then; etc.". It's the writer of the show injecting politics, IMHO. But I did love it when Capote told Baldwin he wanted a 'pick-me-up'. I don't know if people say that anymore but they did back then. It was refreshing to hear it again.

I wish Capote was around to hear what he'd have to say about it.

I thought this on point: "I am conflicted about what to make of arguably the most celebrated Black gay author of his generation being reduced to a narrative device through which our southern white protagonist finds his way".

Gee, Vanity Fair used the same photo of those two as Vulture, maybe somebody might've chose another?

That should've read, 'I wish Capote was around. I'd love to hear what he'd have to say about it'.

R12 I say "pick me up", but I had older parents.

[quote]Gee, Vanity Fair used the same photo of those two as Vulture, maybe somebody might've chose another?

They're usually limited to what the network gives them for stills.

R6 Penn made an appearance, pithy turnout.

I’m not sure if we were supposed to believe Babe was that nasty to Ann Woodward. Truman was telling stories about his swans to James Baldwin, and, in his anger, was ripping them to shreds. This was likely more Capote fabulism.

That's a good point, r17.

That would also explain why we would see Babe Paley angry at her daughter for buying the wrong kind of flowers and insisting she throw out the hired clown. Neither of those things would have been likely to happen in real life (what mother asks her pre-teen daughter to order flowers for a party?), but could also be Capote's exaggeration.

Or Murphy's.

Are you sure she was berating the daughter for the flowers? Two people have said this now, and I didn't read it that way. She was just complaining. They have staff for that.

R20 I'd the same impression. She was hating the carnations because she said chrysanthemums, but I assumed that was the florist/party planners fault. Very much a Mommie Dearest moment.

Because the entire day spent with James Baldwin was a drug induced hallucinatory dream, how much of what we saw was reliable narration?

Chris Chalk’s performance was insufferable but then again James Baldwin was probably insufferable.

Fun fact-the guy kissing Lee in that montage was Bradley Cooper’s stand-in on Maestro and also played Lenny’s interviewer at the beginning of the film. His name’s Jarrod Labine.

I know some here sat this series is dull but wonder how much of that is due to not having lived during that time and being familiar with Capote’s rise and fall. Or is it because the entertainment since then leans more toward sensationalism. It is not subtle, and so maybe newer generations are not able to enjoy the more subtle programming. I find it very interesting. I remember seeing Capote in his decline. I was young and not knowing the back story just assumed him to be another addictive personality. Although in those days we didn’t use that terminology. We would just think of him as a drunk, a drug addict, out of control, overindulgent, or as a young girl I saw him on some show totally inebriated and merely wondered what was going on with him. People did not go on talk shows like that, (except I hate to say, Judy Garland did).

I still don’t know the whole story but I feel sorry for him, finding his decline horrifying. I’m pretty much one who feels sorry for anyone in pain, I don’t like to see it. He was in obviously in pain. I feel sorry for Babe, too. The others I don’t know much but according to this series they seem less to pity. As far as Woodward goes I still find that story kind of mysterious. Did she really kill herself because of the accusation, or because she was exposed?

I think the carnation vs chrysanthemums thing was really just popped in, not real, a writers invention and meant to show Babe was so concerned with perfection and detail she lost sight that it was her daughters moment and was pretty insensitive about it. I think it was meant to show her as selfish and self obsessed, or maybe she had nothing in her life but these little details which gave no meaning or satisfaction to her.

Her own Wikipedia article and one of her kids in it calls her a shitty mother

[quote]Her own Wikipedia article and one of her kids in it calls her a shitty mother

She probably was but in her defense, her husband was always screwing around. I can’t imagine going to social events and wondering how many women there had been propositioned by or slept with my husband. Despite her wealth and social status, she was very insecure.

The Baldwin actor was underwhelming.

"Two flowers, no gardener" - both bottoms?

Every other episode is good. 2 and 4 have been the best, IMO. This episode was pretty boring.

Was there ever a Truman Capote estate sale or did Joanne Carson sell things individually online?

Still think it was pretty cheeky of her to have her ashes entombed with Truman’s.

Bill Paley never would have survived in today’s “me too” world.

Nor would johnny Carson

R18 R20 R21 The Cushing sisters (Babe, Betsey, and Minnie) were raised by their mother 'Gogsie' to become the perfect wives for wealthy men. In Melanie Benjamin's book 'The Swans of Fifth Avenue,' Gogsie had her girls making arrangements for the parties she held at their home from a young age. The wealthy make the plans and give the orders, and staff and shop owners carry them out.

Babe likely tried to teach her daughter Amanda some of the same lessons she learned from her mother, though Babe was largely absent from her own children's lives, in contrast to how domineering and ever present her mother was in hers.

It is so slooowwww.

It's perplexing to watch someone dying of lung cancer smoke like a chimney.

that's addiction. My mother had a weak heart and knew she should not smoke but she did anyway and it killed her.

r22 I suspect the final episode will show the whole series has been told from Capote's point of view, and so the whole thing is meant to be seen through the lens of an unreliable narrator.

r24 Seriously? You're reaching like that to accuse younger generations of being too stupid to appreciate the show, when the biggest bitching about it has come from posters who constantly remind us they lived through it?

r25 I loved how one poster in a previous thread insisted she was a loving mother, because she re-designed the uniforms for the child's school. Ah, motherly love!

R30 Joanne Carson was bequeathed Capote's estate and auctioned off many items in 2006. A year after Joanne's death in 2015, more of his belongings were sold at her estate auction.

After Capote died, half of his cremains were given to Jack Dunphy and half to Joanne. In 1988, she took 1/2 of her portion of the cremains and mixed it with 100% of her dogs ashes (she was an odd duck!) and had them interred at Westwood Memorial Park in a crypt formerly occupied by Peter Lawford's cremains (allegedly, the Kennedys didn't pay the bill and he was evicted). Joanne wanted to hold on to some of Truman's cremains so she kept the other half of her portion (25% of his total cremains) at her home until her death, and those cremains were auctioned off in 2016 to an anonymous bidder for $45,000.

She paid for the crypt, he bequeathed a portion of his cremains to her, and she was his close friend up to the end and with him when he died. All of that gave her the right and makes it appropriate to have her cremains interred with his, imo. I think she did this out of love for him, not to elevate herself. (And maybe she wanted to be close to her dog.)

what kind of a person would get a kick out of owning some of Truman's ashes?

Two flowers with no gardner is an amazing way to describe why two bottoms in a relationship doesn’t work to people not in the know.

what kind of a person would get a kick out of owning some of ANYONE'S ashes?

R39, R41, you would be surprised.

It's going to be a missed opportunity if Harper Lee doesn't make an appearance. They need to show Truman writing To Kill a Mockingbird.

So apparently fame is quite the drug. How a fat ugly little troll could score that horse cock guy is beyond me. Truman or not.

I don’t think Harper and Truman were close friends in the 70s when this was going on. He grew jealous of her success

"she took 1/2 of her portion of the Capote's cremains and mixed it with 100% of her dogs ashes (she was an odd duck!) and had them interred at Westwood Memorial Park

Two bitches eterna.

R37

"[R24] Seriously? You're reaching like that to accuse younger generations of being too stupid to appreciate the show, when the biggest bitching about it has come from posters who constantly remind us they lived through it?"

You say that because it's YOU who do not understand why I said this. I work with a girl who is in her twenties. She told me she only likes shows, books that 'grab' her, giving the example of Stephen King as her favorite author. She said from the first page it has to 'grab' her. She told me she found old movies very dull. Likes a lot of excitement, action, drama in all her entertainment. A lot of the movies out now as well as books do this. A lot of loud noises, action scenes, gratuitous violence and sex. It's not out of the realm to consider. It's not about being 'stupid'. That is YOUR remark and makes me wonder why you chose to think of it at all. I never did. It is about what they have become accustomed to.

Ah, sure, a single person is absolutely enough to judge an entire generation.

I hate the word “cremains."

R48 I'm not saying that. Stop putting words out there I haven't said or thought.

Blocked number 37, aka number 48. easy fix. I don't have time for arguments.

[quote]I hate the word “cremains."

I always confuse it with the word "craisin."

I was dreading the Baldwin episode but it was actually entertaining. I was expecting a lot of cheap Ryan Murphy sentiment like that episode of Feud where Joan Crawford has a late-night conversation with all the ghosts from her past.

Didn't much care for the Baldwin episode. I think the encounter went on too long. The parts I loved most were when Truman was talking about what horrible mothers they were and how they were all having affairs too. I wanted more of that.

Slim bashing Bacall in the lunch scene with her allegation that Bacall slept with every man she did was odd.

Other than Sinatra, I can’t think of another man they both slept with.

Howard Hawks was smitten with Bacall, but she wanted Bogart.

Bacall also had a long affair with Ben Bradley, much to the chagrin of Sally Quinn.

R56, And her second husband Jason Robards played Ben Bradlee in “All the President’s Men” and won an Oscar.

R55, Let me tell you about that homewrecker, Betty Bacall...

Poor Lauren was always jumped up on High Point Coffee.

This show is so fucking boring. I feel like I’m watching the same three scenes over and over again.

[quote]I don't have time for arguments.

You may be on the wrong site.

Lee Radziwill would never use the term drapes instead of curtains. The anachronisms are jarring.

I'm less than jarred by the anachronisms.

I really do hope the scene where a client told off "designer" Lee Radziwill is legit.

"Lee, this is NOT what we discussed!"

I gotta tell ya, I thought this episode was nothing short of sensational. I didn't think they could rival the final scene of episode 4, but by golly they outdod themselves with this Jimmy Baldwin episode. I loved it so much. Tons of laughs too. Like when drunk Babe told her daughter to "get that buffoon out of my house," that buffoon being her birthday clown. ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS. Scrumptious.

Chef's kiss to the entir-ah episode. Mwah!

Anyone else love it?

I didn't love it. I thought it lagged. And I say that realizing that it's really about the nuance of the language and characters; the show isn't going to wow you with "action." Not terrible, but I didn't love it. The Baldwin actor committed to it, but I didn't think he was great.

Its biggest problem is that there's no clear story arc for the entire show given the weird jumping back and forth in time. Capote publicly humiliated the swans in the first episode and so then they cut him off forever... now where can it go from there? I guess we still have to see Babe's and Capote's drawn-out deaths, but who wants to see those?

Does anyone know if any of the “swans” are still alive?

R69, They’re all deceased.

I remember CZ Guest's daughter trying to become a thing several decades ago, but she didn't have what it takes and quickly faded away.

[quote] Does anyone know if any of the “swans” are still alive?

The last three remaining were Gloria Vanderbilt and Marella Agnelli (both not shown on the series), and Lee Radziwill. All three died in 2019.

Babe Paley died in 1978.

Gloria Guinness (not shown in the series) died in 1980.

Mona von Bismarck (not shown in the series) died in 1983.

Slim Keith died in 1990.

C. Z. Guest and Carol Matthau (not shown in the series) died in 2003.

Joanne Carson (not really a swan, but grouped with them on the show) died in 2015.

Finally watching the latest episode. Wickedly entertaining. Bitchier than bitchy

Was Barbara Walters a swan?

No. She had a job.

The “ Dido’s lament” at the end is very touching, and they used it near the end in White Lotus when Hollander was about to kill Jennifer Coolidge, very META

What sides go best with roasted Central Park swan?

[quote] I loved the bit about how the swans eat nothing and just nibble at their tiny portions at restaurants.

On 'The View', Barbara Walters used to talk about this all the time when she would share stories about different charity luncheons she would attend, with mostly 'socialites' sitting at the table with her. They would order the tiniest portions, and never eat. You never saw them actually put a forkful of food in their mouth. They would move the same three or four peas around their plate with the knife and fork, and cut up their meat into shredded pieces. Occasionally, they would put some food on their fork and pretend to bring it to their mouth, but they would be consistently 'whisper talking' to the women at their table, and eventually lower the fork back to the plate without ever bringing it near their lips.

I thought of Walters and her stories while watching this scene.

[quote]What sides go best with roasted Central Park swan?

Stove-Top Swan-Flavored Stuffing

Speaking of eating swan ... I remember the first time I saw something labeled SWAI in the freezer case and at first I thought it said SWAN.

The dinner with Baldwin was just an excuse for this episode to be mostly a monologue.

I read Baldwin and Capote knew of each other but were not really friends and so I wonder if that was all made up. One of the articles hints the ep starting out with Capote having taken a bunch of pills with the intent of committing suicide, saying he never meant to hurt Babe and is maybe it’s all a dream while he’s out for hours. The end of the ep ends with him lying there, doesn’t it? Maybe I’m wrong there, I thought it did. But if it’s all made up the question in my mind is once he was kicked out of the swan club did he turn around and figure I’m in for a penny I’m in for a pound and go for it as the supposed encouragement from Baldwin?

R61 yeah, what the heck am I thinking.🤔 😆

r81, it was all made up.

The only Swan who matters!

R65/R66 I also really liked this episode. It gave a greater insight into the Swans and I enjoyed eavesdropping on the two Queens spending a day together.

me too

"I wonder if that was all made up"?

R84 Agree. It was aMAzing!

[quote] She probably was but in her defense, her husband was always screwing around

Meh, that’s no excuse for being a shitty mother.

Why should being a "shitty mother" be any different from being a shitty wife,shitty sister,shitty friend?

Or for that matter a shitty writer.

Because children are dependent on mothers. Husbands are not dependent on wives, nor siblings on siblings.

These women hired nannies to take care of their children, and once they were prep school age, they were shipped off to exclusive boarding schools. I don't think these women were "bad" mothers per se. They were just doing what their social class expected of them.

Putting the expectations of their social class ahead of their children is what makes them bad mothers.

In the episode Capote censures the swans for being racist WASPs, but no mention is made of Bill Paley being Jewish. I thought that factoid merited exploration.

That’s kinda it, R68. There’s not really enough interesting material for more than maybe a 4-hour mini series. I speed through the long stretches where Tom Hollander drones on and on, and I get maybe 15 minutes of anything to watch.

In other words, you're an idiot

But, R96 is the smartest person in the room with his "you don't like what I like, so you're stupid" reasoning. Surely there can be differing opinions about this series, about individual episodes.

r97 It's nothing to do with "you don't like what I like, so you're stupid" - the idiocy is attempting to pass judgement on something when r95 admits to fast forwarding through the vast majority of the episodes.

R96 - right, I’m the idiot for not thinking this is high art.

I was surprised to find, after watching this video showcasing Lee Radziwell's homes over the years, how much I appreciated the way she, with the help of talented designers, created beautiful, sumptuous interiors with vibrant colors which looked elegant, yet also comfortable and inviting to actually live in.

^^^ *Radziwill

R100, Why would Lee Radziwill need the help of talented designers when she was one?

[quote] I was surprised to find, after watching this video

The idea which she stole from Jackie who filmed a tour of the White House.

Was Lee Radziwill the only swan laid to rest in a wicker casket?

Good question, R102 I think in later years Lee used what she learned from the designers she hired for her own homes (and likely those of her own clients). As she downsized in later years, the look of the rooms in the video were simpler and furniture and art from her previous homes were used. I doubt she ever came anywhere close to the artistic talent of the designers who had worked for her, but I haven't yet seen any of her work for other people.

She gets credit for at least showing good taste in who she hired and the choices she made for her home, in working with the designers.

Renzo Mongiardino was an important Italian designer she relied on.

R103 The creators of the video used technology with still photos of Lee Radziwill's homes, which were published in issues of Architectural Digest (and possibly other magazines), to give the impression of movement through the rooms and then added their own commentary. As far as I know, Lee did not make any video tours of her homes.

R30 R38 It looks like Joanne Carson may have been telling tales when she told the mortuary that Truman left written instructions to divide his ashes into two portions.

According to Laurence Leamer, in his book Capote's Women, Jack Dunphy assumed Joanne gave him all of Capote's ashes, not just half. When he found out the truth, Jack never spoke to Joanne again. After Jack's death in 1992, his ashes and Jack's portion of Truman's ashes were scattered together on Crooked Pond in a Nature Preserve, just south of Sag Harbor on Long Island, NY.

I found it interesting the vids put up here of Lee Radziwill's interiros because I had just been looking at Babe Paley's so I guess I'll add what I was watching to the mix.

R91 Children are dependent on your big sister.

I bet Edith Beale loathed Lee Radziwell.

^ To know her was to loath her.

True to form Murphy’s series started strong but falls apart as it wears on. The black and white ball was the beginning of the end.

I’m one of those that thinks this was an interesting subject but felt from the beginning that there wasn’t enough material to stretch over eight episodes.

Even Bette vs Joan padded with those women at the Oscar celebration. These shows could be six episodes.

I just felt like listening to this.

It looks like Little Edie was about to bitchslap Princess Lee at around 35:29.

Shout out for the adorable tricolor cavalier who makes another appearance at the beginning of this episode.

[quote]The idea which she stole from Jackie who filmed a tour of the White House.

It's not stealing!

I’m curious if Capote really spoke as much like a twit as both the film and this series depicts his speaking style as, or have they enhanced or made his speech more obvious for artistic licensing. I can’t imagine anybody wanting to sleep with him with that voice and the scarves and fedoras etc.

Has anyone here read Answered Prayers? If so, is it as fishy and fun of a read as they make it out to be?

I read it right after it was released in 1988 when I was in my late teens and lived in a poor rural area (or possibly right after moving to New York). I remember being completely confused and not much else.

ElderLez, maybe we should both go back and read it. Maybe it’d make more sense now.

Yes, let’s!

I tried reading it about a month ago, in preparation of watching the movie. I gave up about a quarter way through it - it was boring and confusing.

La Cote Basque is a fascinating read, but I don't think it's very good. Not that I know anything about literature.

R118 You be the judge.

R123. I have a PhD in literature and I don’t think it’s any good. I enjoyed reading it as gossip, but there is no art in it (and I think there is in many of his works up to and including In Cold Blood).

Thanks R124 that was interesting but hard to watch. Is he drunk there? He kept rubbing his face to the point that it got uncomfortable seeing him do it. Seems like he would have gotten himself some elocution lessons to at least speak more clearly.

R102 R105 A glaring example of Lee Radziwill's chronic insecurity about her own worth, which she overcompensated for by exaggerating her talents and achievements, is within the 1976 NYT article announcing the start of her interior design business. Not once does Lee mention or give credit to any of the renowned interior designers who worked with her to create those rooms that helped build her reputation as a style icon. A confident person would not have hesitated to give a nod to their contributions.

I cannot find any images online of design work she did for clients during the 10 years she ran a business. You'd think if she was any good, because of her fame, at least some of those homes would have been featured in magazines. All the photos online are of her own homes.

He was a writer, r126, not an actor.

R125 yes. While it was interesting from a gossip and literary historical standpoint, the writing seems kind of flat and staid. It's also just... dirty. I'm no prude, heaven knows, but it seems like Truman sort of abusing the newfound freedom of language. I don't know, parts of it were just gross.

R126 He may have been under the influence in that 1972 Carson interview. His experiences from his role in the Clutter family murder case, especially the hanging deaths of the murderers he befriended, began his downward spiral.

After Esquire published his 'La Côte Basque, 1965' story and he was shunned by the social elites, his addictions snowballed. In a later interview he was so obviously under the influence that the interviewer, Stanley Siegel, questioned him about his addictions.

he was a sloppy mess

R128 Capote may not have been a good actor, but he did act. He played Lionel Twain in Neil Simon's 'Murder by Death.' Gerald Clarke, his biographer, wrote about this opportunity: "Capote was thrilled. All American writers may love the movies, but how many of them are given a chance to star in one? The excitement soon evaporated, and, when I visited him on the set in Burbank, California, Capote was miserable - anxious and exhausted. Acting, as he should have known, requires unseemly early hours, hard work and a talent he did not possess. When the cameras rolled, Truman Capote was not a very good Truman Capote."

Capote also had an uncredited role in 'Annie Hall' as the winner of a Truman Capote look-alike contest.

He was the narrator in his own 'The Thanksgiving Visitor' and two other projects.

I thought he was wonderful in Murder by Death. It's obvious that he's not a trained actor, but he was perfect for what they asked him to do.

[quote]Capote also had an uncredited role in 'Annie Hall' as the winner of a Truman Capote look-alike contest.

I haven't watched "Annie Hall" in decades, so I had to look that up.

Doesn't look very intriguing...

You can never have enough Hats, Gloves and Effete Homosexuals

I found this little tidbit amusing:

“Gore Vidal responded to news of Capote's death by calling it "a wise career move”.

I wan t to start talking with James Baldwin's mannered style of talking while addressing everyone I talk to as "Baby."

[quote] I can’t imagine anybody wanting to sleep with him with that voice and the scarves and fedoras etc.

They wanted to sleep with him because he was rich and famous. But he supposedly did not get as much action as he boasted about.

R139 When naked, the money and fame are stripped away. He must have had something.

[quote] He must have had something

Or maybe he just lied about it

[quote][R139] When naked, the money and fame are stripped away. He must have had something.

Why do you think Kevin Baker is the long-standing kept boy of Calvin Klein who is 45 years his senior? Because of Klein's inner beauty?

Capote, Vidal, Mailer, Buckley,

Hitchens (English journalist). These guys knew the value of publicity and gossip. They jabbed at each other publicly, squabbles, confrontations in the papers, in interviews, on talk shows. It made for press and fame which I’m sure they appreciated. Let’s face it, it sells books.

There were lawsuits.. Physical altercations. Shocking outbursts. It went on for years. It really became ‘the climate’ for this group of writers.

I wonder if Capote was so caught up in it he thought to turn the gossip and attacks to and about the Swans. Fodder for publicity, tantalizing crumbs to the public to sell his articles, leading them to his book. Did he mistakenly think they could ‘take it’ and enjoy the spotlight, too? Engage in public swordplay enjoying a kind of pride of place. Savoring their historical importance in the rare friendship in that climate of literary genius as fascinating muses ?

Just my own thought here.

[quote]I can’t imagine anybody wanting to sleep with him with that voice and the scarves and fedoras etc.

He fucked wearing the hat and scarf?

. . .

Wow!

The preview for next week shows Lee Radziwill making bitchy comments to the face of John O'Shea's daughter.

Calista Flockhart gets the least character depth as Radziwill, but she gets all the most enjoyably bitchy lines every episode. Her character is just pure resentment and nastiness.

Is Liz Smith being relegated to just a voice on the phone?

Lee was nothing but pure resentment and nastiness.

I hope they show the drunken afternoons Truman spent with Andy Warhol, that he mentioned in his diaries. He would tag along with Truman as he ran errands and went to the doctor, and Truman would say the wildest stuff, like claiming he had sex with Humphrey Bogart.

[quote]Calista Flockhart gets the least character depth as Radziwill, but she gets all the most enjoyably bitchy lines every episode. Her character is just pure resentment and nastiness.

Lee Radziwill - Datalounger!

R149, Truman claimed he gave Bogart a blow job during the filming of “Beat the Devil” in Italy.

Some brave Vanity Fair writer asked Lauren Bacall if that were true and she was aghast at the question, and said she had never heard that before.

It's almost certainly not true about Bogart. Capote was a wild storyteller, and often loved to pretend he had had sex with many movie stars, including not just Bogart but also Errol Flynn and Greta Garbo. No one believed him.

R152, He danced with Marilyn.

It's a great article R151 (I used 12ft ladder to get around the paywall).

R154, The VF interviewer was Matt Tyrnauer, who produced the Scotty Bowers documentary.

For those who don’t care to read the entire interview at R154.

“She tends to his legend, to be sure. The one transgressive anecdote I run by her regarding Bogart incenses her. Bogart biographer Darwin Porter relates a story spread by Truman Capote. “I gave Bogie a blow job one drunken night,” Porter quotes Capote as saying. “It was to settle a bet. I told him if I could beat him at arm wrestling three times in a row, he’d [have] to submit to a blow job. He agreed. When I beat him, he went upstairs with me and unbuttoned his pants and took it out for me.”

Bacall says, “Oh, please. You must be joking. I never heard that. Why would you bring a thing like that up? What kind of a mind do you have? Step out of the gutter. Truman Capote wrote the script for Beat the Devil [1953, starring Bogart and directed by his close friend John Huston],” she continues, “and that’s where they met. Bogie always said, ‘When you meet him you think, My God, where did he come from, this little guy? And then once you get to know him, you just want to put him in your pocket because he’s so funny and so smart.’ So maybe it was a pipe dream of Truman’s—who knows? But it’s a totally ridiculous suggestion that it really is a fact, and I hope that’s beneath you, because I really don’t like the fact that you brought something like that up.”“

Betty doth protest too much. If it happened, which I doubt, it's not like Bogie would have told her about it.

R157, According to Sinatra’s valet, George Jacobs, Frank would complain about Bacall giving lousy head, so who could blame Bogart for seeking a proper hummer elsewhere?

Calista Flockhart's Lee Radziwill is strongly reminiscent of her Ally McBeal. She uses the same clipped, bitchy tone, minus the self-consciousness and ditziness. I don't think she has a lot of range.

She's spent a number of recent years on the CW, where a lack of range is an asset.

[quote]a proper hummer

Capote seems the type to constantly interrupt his sucking to make a "witty" comment. And so you'd have to try and get hard all over again after hearing that voice, and then once you are, oh here comes another witticism.

She was a "Perfect Wife"...except...

Blowjobs? I taught him everything he knows.

Indeed, r147. I enjoyed her slow, angry blinking and pursed lips when that lady told her the drapes "weren't what they discussed".

What in the FUCK is going on with this show? I like it, but the weird mistakes are piling up. They mention Christy Brinkley in 1978. And, the WORST thing yet, Truman calls Bobby Kennedy "Robert F. Kennedy, Jr." This makes NO goddamned sense. It's idiotic. Why would they make such a dumb mistake?

[quote]They mention Christy Brinkley in 1978.

And?

I’m screaming as I type this

This show has turned out to be the Glasgow Wonka Experience of television

R166 I don't think she was really well known until 1981-82.

R166 She was in the 1978 Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, which was very high profile for a model back in the day.

Christie graced the cover of Sports Illustrated in February 1979, so even though she might not have been a household name until the '80s, I'm willing to believe she was known within the modeling world in the late '70s.

R171 The context was definitely off, but I'll let that slide. But calling him RFK, Jr. is really beyond anything. How did no one catch that?

The Bobby Kennedy thing is unreal. How dumb are these writers? Seven-year-old RFK Jr got into an altercation with Gore Vidal at the White House?

Is it over YET?

President Kennedy looks concerned as RFK Jr prepares to throw a pitcher of daiquiris in that fag Gore Vidal's face.

R173 I could not believe my ears. So not a single person who read the script said anything. No one on set said anything. And no one who WATCHED THE EPISODE BEFORE IT AIRED said anything?? The fuck?

The comment at R168 stands true about this hot mess of a series.

This episode made me feel old, and I was born in 1980.

So you ARE old.

[quote]This episode made me feel old, and I was born in 1980.

What r179 said!

I was born in 1994!

A better fit for 77 would have been Cheryl Tiegs. I was around back then and all my boy cousins talked about was Cheryl Manface Tiegs. Their affections later defected to Christie Brinkley but Cheryl Tiegs was definitely 77/78 boner material for the guys.

Cheryl Tiegs was also involved with Peter Beard (Lee’s ex) at this time.

R182, More than involved, they were married.

Jeffrey Grover as Richard Avedon was fun. He looked great.

Interesting how so many assume the Robert Kennedy Jr thing was a mistake, rather than deliberate to show Capote wasn't fully in hold of the facts, given his state. It's guillotine all over again.

I enjoyed this episode. Truman and his unrepentant trollish whoredom makes me laugh. The blunt question to the Palm Springs repairman. Lol. I know it's already been established that's how he is, but it still made me laugh.

The Robert Kennedy Jr thing WAS a mistake, because he would've been 24 years old in 1978 and not AT ALL a public figure. Capote probably didn't even know or remember that RFK had a son.

While it is believable that Gore Vidal would get into a spat with a 7-year-old child, this was just a huge mistake by the writers.

r187 So your proof that it must have been a mistake is that you said so, got it.

R188, Have you been watching the series? There are mistakes and/or untruths in every episode.

Yes, and some of those "mistakes" which DLers insisted was proof of the stupidity of the writers, turned out to be deliberate to comment on the characters - such as guillotine.

R189, We can add to the pile of chronological errors the fact that Truman mentions Lee Radziwill and Herbert Ross were a married couple in 1978, when in fact they did not marry until 1988.

R190 must be borderline insane.

the directors have said that they played around with facts just as truman did

r193 But Truman only ever told the absolute truth!

I'm an episode behind, But... Is that actor playing James Baldwin or Phylicia Rashad?

R185 Apologists for shite.

RFK Jr. is currently in the news so it was a mistake, which is fine. It just shocks me that nobody caught it before it aired.

[quote]RFK Jr. is currently in the news so it was a mistake

Oh yeah, that's a totally logical argument

"Say Rick. I wonder if you'd be at all interested in having your cock sucked"

This episode is the first one to make me laugh out loud. I also loved his little speech about Rick marrying "department store trash".

"How 'bout you let me watch Love Boat, and I'll let you blow me during the commercials." (Or words to that effect.) For that line alone, Jon Robin Baitz deserves the Emmy...

That actor was horrible,

This show is duller than dust.

The show has the same disease of every Ryan Murphy show. There are moments when good acting, good direction and good writing lead to emotionally satisfying moments.

But those are few and inbetween muddled plots, filler, bad writing, historical mistakes and shock for shock sake.

R201, He’s not REALLY an actor.

Nepo baby!

It's such an odd show. There's just no narrative drive to it. it's just a sad meditation on aging and loneliness and bitterness, although I'm sort of in that mood right now to ruminate about those things so it holds my interest. I'm not sure how many people it's really attracting over its run, though.

This week was also about nepo casting with Ella Beatty and Vito Schnabel. They were both pretty good in their roles, although neither is very charismatic.

The acting has been atrocious. Hollander's performance is right up there with Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest in its over-the-top awfulness. At least Faye's performance was enjoyably campy. Hollander's Capote is so unsympathetic that i think everyone applauded when Tovey smacked him around.

Callista should never act again.

Ryan Murphy is a such a kiss ass to famous people that he casts all of their untalented offspring in his shows--Billie Lourd, Kaia Gerber, Sophie Von Haselberg, Ella, Vito, etc.

R142 Is that a colostomy bag under Klein's t-shirt?

I turned it off in the middle of the episode....I think it's the longest I have made it through a Ryan Murphy series, except for Coven.

Maybe Stevie Nicks will make a cameo in this one too.

I agree that this has no narrative drive, no structure. I'll probably give up on this one now, too, R209.

That was Ella Beatty? I didn't understand why they would cast someone who looks like that (not very thin, not especially good-looking) as a "beautiful" fashion model. Now I do.

The real "Kate Harrington". The producers did her a favor. Having a dad who's porking Truman Capote really pays off.

Gloria Swanson in the article above looks like Chloe Sevigny playing CZ Guest.

she's not ready for her close-up

I never applauded when Tovey's character smacked him around. Tom Hollander is tiny and looks so much older, it was like watching elder abuse.

IMO while Lee Radziwill is a disgusting person, no one in this mini series can out bitch Slim Keith. Murphy and his writers make Capote her obsession. She has a few loose screws. she fucks her allegedly BFF's husband, and when publicly embarrassed by Truman, she goes insane. She is portrayed as vicious and overbearing. I liked Chloe Sevigny 's CZ Guest. She, at least appears to have some depth. The rest are self absorbed petty and shallow. I do feel that Murphy should have limited this mini series to four episodes. There was no need for 6 and certainly not for 8.

Are we not absolutely certain that the Gore Vidal altercation involved Bobby Kennedy Sr., JFK's brother & attorney general who was shot dead in 1967?

That actually makes sense.

(correction: shot dead in 1968.)

As a 12 yr old, I went with my older college aged brother to a political event and met RFK. He was short, tanned and had this shock of hair in his eyes, but very good looking. That was in May of 1968. He was assassinated a month later. I felt really sad.

The Gore Vidal White House drama happened in 1961. Gore Vidal talked about it multiple times, as did Arthur Schlesinger in his diaries and it always seems to pop up in biographies about Jackie. JFK’s gay BFF, Lem Billings, was also involved.

And Paley fucked Marie Harriman, not Happy Rockefeller.

My big brother dragged my friend Joey and I to the airport to see the arrival of Nelson and Happy when they were on the campaign trail. They came down the plane stairs and people/photographers crowded around. Nelson started signing autographs and I stuck my hand up to shake his hand and he singed an R on my palm. We were getting jostled and Happy looked at Joey and said, "Oh you poor boy!".

Murphy isn’t exactly a historian. His Hollywood series was full of historical inaccuracies.

I read about the it in Gore's autobiography. It was a strange incident. Gore was talking to Jackie with his hand on her back. Bobby found this to be inappropriate and he threw him out. Gore was persona non grata with the Kennedys from that day forward. And he HATED them for it.

R222 historical inaccuracies are one thing. But calling Bobby Kennedy "RFK, Jr" is sheer idiocy. Maddening, really.

[quote]And Paley fucked Marie Harriman, not Happy Rockefeller.

Yet another DLer presenting their opinion as fact

Has anyone here seen The Capote Tapes? Is it worth renting?

Capote was weirdly crushed when his sugar baby was less than enthusiastic about fucking him, like "oh it's all over for me, I'm too old to be fuckable". Was he ever fuckable? Did he think this much younger man was sexually attracted to him? It seemed like he aware of how transactional many of his relationships were. I don't understand the hurt feelings in this case.

Actually, asshole at r224, I got that from George Plimpton’s book about Truman. Gerald Clarke mentions that too, in his book on Truman.

Oddly, the book this miniseries is based on (“Capote’s Women,” by Laurence Leamer), states that Marie Harriman is the governor’s wife, not Happy Rockefeller.

From the book:

“In the published story, Truman included a character named Dillon, a successful businessman clearly based on Bill Paley, and laid out the tawdry details of his supposed one-night stand with what was obviously the very real Marie Harriman. The story is told by Lady Ina, who had an affair with Dillon when she was young. He had asked her never to repeat the story, but oh well. . . .”

“ “The event in question had happened back in the late fifties, when Marie’s husband, Averell, was governor of New York. Lady Ina set the question out bold and straight: “Why would an educated, dynamic, very rich and well-hung Jew go bonkers for a cretinous Protestant size forty who wears low-heeled shoes and lavender water? Especially when he’s married to Cleo Dillon, to my mind the most beautiful creature alive.

‘’Cleo Dillon of course, a thinly veiled Babe Paley.”

r227 So you were posting those author's opinions rather than your own, still isn't fact. More than likely it never even happened at all.

I skipped the James Baldwin episode because I love Baldwin and knew it would be embarrassing.

At this point it should just be a weekly show with the swans sitting around Le Cote Basque, bitching about each other and everyone else in their lives. The only pleasure in this is the high society New York 1960s and 1970s style.

I think, R226, it's a simple as humans being hurt by rejection. It doesn't matter if they "deserve" it - as maybe a less-than-appetizing Capote did in many sexual situations, or if a lot of their interactions are transactional. People still have egos and are still pained by rejection.

As someone said, this didn't need to be 8 episodes long. Now they're just wasting the viewer's time and interest.

[quote]Now they're just wasting the viewer's time and interest

What a moronic comment. You're not being forced to watch.

These women could go anywhere they wanted and they ate lunch regularly at this one fairly mediocre restaurant? WTF? I've been to 21 for lunch and it's far superior. Of course I was there with editors to discuss a book that was being published. Not mine, but my boss's. Doubleday Passed.

The ball episode was reminiscent of those shitty B&W episodes of Better Call Saul.

No R233, you weren’t. It never happened and you know it. You’re the incessant delusional first-person/I Was There/That Happened To Me troll.

Stop bitch. Just stop.

[quote] I've been to 21 for lunch and it's far superior.

So what? Lucy and I went there four times in one week.

That's 84!

No need to rent R225… watch here for free. It’s way, way better than Feud.

I was far wittier and more entertaining.

^ and better in the sack

R231 you're right. You know, when a decision involving an artistic endeavor is based on getting more money, it's bound to be terrible. This could be a movie, like 2005's Capote, or a two night event. 8 episode shows sell better on streaming sites, so to get more money they made the damn thing 8 hours long. There just isn't enough material to fill it, so it starts spinning wheels.

I wonder what the significance of that painting of the little boy in a sailor suit was. Same painting is in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, in the background I think of that girl who sells memorabilia. I’ve seen it a few times over the years and I get the impression it signifies something from that time a little behind the scenes. Something you have to be in the know to know.

I find it interesting they used the same one.

[quote] I wonder what the significance of that painting of the little boy in a sailor suit was.

That's a portrait of Capote as a child he kept in his apartment.

Ella Beatty is no beauty & the camera doesn’t love her. The Schnabel spawn is ghastly.

R235, actually yes I did go to 21 with some editors from Doubleday back in the early 90's. I was a PA for a top guy in a particular line of work.He was approached by a literary agent about writing his autobiography. He set up meetings in NYC with several publishing houses, and two of us accompanied him. Doubleday's editors took us to lunch at 21 and practically cross examined him about why he thought anyone would be interested in his autobiography. They didn't say it exactly like that, but that's what it was about. Anyway, a bout a w eek later he got a really nice letter from them saying "no thanks." They passed. But I found the whole process really interesting to see how someone pitches an idea and gets greenlighted etc. It was memorable. He did end up writing his book and it got published by some minor publishing house and he sold about 300 copies. LOL! So they were right. And then he died.

What was his particular line of work, r244?

Selling 300 copies is a decent sale.

How authentic is the Capote home? Did they do a full reconstruction based on photos? Some of you NY eldergays must have been in there.

R247, His United Nations Plaza apartment was small in comparison to Johnny Carson’s, RFK’s, David Susskind’s, etc.

. . .

He lived in the basement apartment of this Brooklyn Heights house for years. Love that he let Jackie on assistance believe he owned the whole house when she visited.

It’s a handsome house, R250. Did he greet Jackie at the grand entrance ?

R249 Price chop: originally offered at $4.2 million in 2022, it's now listed at $3.6 million and Zillow suggests that's too much.

Dark days for NYC real estate, I guess.

Chloe Sevigny is not a great actress, but there's something about her that appeals to me. She has an on-camera charisma that is undeniable. I also loved her in Zodiac.

Yeah, I agree. I almost always enjoy Chloe Sevigny.

to-ast

Chloe looks very manly in some of the restaurant scenes. Awfully wooden acting too. The hat store bit was better.

We're six episodes in but it doesn't feel like it's leading to anything. But maybe that's the point - it's a rumination; a fade out. I don't think it's great, but I tune in. I'm still finding every other episode (2, 4, 6) fairly decent and enjoyable.

Sevigny seems to be doing an impression of Cate Blanchett’s impression of Katharine Hepburn.

Acting-wise, Chloe is the weakest link among the four main swans (she overdoes the haughtiness), but she's hard not to like.

Is CZ supposed to be 25 or 55?

I had no idea Chloe is 49. She looks good.

[quote] Is CZ supposed to be 25 or 55?

Like a Datalounger, she's both.

It’s slow and a bit boring but I like watching Tom Holland’s flabby belly.

I had pictured Baldwin a bit different but I have never seen him on camera. Are there recordings?

Yes, r263.

[quote] It's slow and a bit boring, but I like watching Tom Holland's flabby belly.

R263 While I can't imagine Tom Holland's flabby belly, I can see Tom HollandER's flabby belly in FEUD. I did think that Truman's scene wearing a bathing suit in Palm Springs was quite revealing - almost VPLish. Tom Hollander seems to have no fear of attacking this part 100%. Some have criticized it as overacting, but I think he's doing a terrific job since Truman was over-the-top IRL.

yeah, "overacting" the role o truman capote is like saying water is too wet

Is this Tom’s real body (perhaps fattened for the role) or is he wearing some form of prosthetic?

Thanks R264!

In his 40 year career this queen wrote one notable novel and one notable novella not even 600 pages total. This makes him a fag God?

R269 in today's world, he would have been a popular Influencer on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, etc. In Truman's world, he was a Celebrity, with paid appearances on talk shows, movies, and events. Yes, Celebrity made him a "fag God" beyond his "one notable novel and one notable novella."

[quote][R263] While I can't imagine Tom Holland's flabby belly, I can see Tom HollandER's flabby belly in FEUD.

Oh honey, Holland's will get there eventually. Tom Hollander had a flat stomach himself back in "Absolutely Fabulous: The Last Shout."

We all age, and it can be very hard for short guys especially to keep flab off their bellies as they do. Tom Holland likely won't always have a six-pack.

[quote] In his 40 year career this queen wrote one notable novel and one notable novella not even 600 pages total. This makes him a fag God?

Also, let me add: TWO notable novels (Other Voices, Other Rooms and In Cold Blood) and TWO notable novellas (Breakfast at Tiffany's and A Christmas Memory). Plus multiple notable short stories and journalistic pieces. Plus as was said above, he was a huge television celebrity.

In Cold Blood is probably the only one of his works that still gets taught today at the University level, but that's better than Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer, both of whose novels do not get taught hardly at all.

LOTS of James Baldwin writings, on the other hand, still get taught: Giovanni's Room, Another Country, Go Tell it on the Mountain, If Beale Street Could Talk, plus lots of his stories and essays do. He's had the last laugh.

The painting from Midnight in Paris is not the same painting as in Capote vs the Swans. Also, this painting has dark hair, Truman as a child had blond hair. It's not him as a child.

The painting from Capote vs the Swans, also dark hair. Neither is Capote as a child.

He was a real towhead.

‘ Of Joyce Carol Oates, whose only sin is apparently sending valentines, he says, "She's a joke monster who ought to be beheaded in a public auditorium . . ." Grobel asks, "Have you ever met her?" to which Capote replies, "I've seen her, and to see her is to loathe her." ‘

Hah! Truman was clearly jealous of Joyce Carol Oates's astounding output. (sixty novels to date!)

R270 Dahlink I'm a fag Goddess and I could barely write my name.

r272, thank you

[quote]...but that's better than Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer, both of whose novels do not get taught hardly at all.

Jesus, R272 -- one hopes you weren't an English Major.

Sorry -- English major.

"Oh, dear"-ing myself.

Still waiting for my mediocre fag god writer revival.

Truman’s work has been well represented in the media: Breakfast At Tiffany’s, In Cold Blood, The Grass Harp, A Christmas Memory, House of Flowers all produced as movie, tv or Broadway.

Tiffany's...

R283, “Beat the Devil”

"The Innocents"

Why has there never been a dramatization of his short story “Handcarved Coffins”?

^^Because it's so silly and over-the-top. Who would believe someone injected rattlesnakes with amphetamines in order to kill an old couple?

R288, Stranger things have happened.

H of F

I'm so excited with this thread.I just can't hide it. I'm about to take a nap and I think I like it.

And yet you add absolutely nothing yourself, r291.

You seem to be under the delusion other people are being paid to entertain you.

^ I demand a refund gramps.

R118 "I’m curious if Capote really spoke as much like a twit as both the film and this series depicts his speaking style as, or have they enhanced or made his speech more obvious for artistic licensing".

Believe me, he was ALL that. He was kind of lovable, though.

‘ Meryl Streep, he thinks, "is the Creep. Ooh, God, she looks like a chicken. She's got a nose like a chicken and a mouth like a chicken." ‘

R295 Call'em as he sees 'em. He certainly wasn't wrong in his description.

I didn’t think about it long, since this is a Murphy show after all, but the Christie Brinkley mention kind of threw me. I get it now that she WAS modeling in 1978. I didn’t know who she was until the 80s..but ANYWAY, dancing in 1978 to “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” which didn’t come out until 1982 was briefly jarring. They also used that song on “Pose.”

Truman would get such a kick out of the attention he still gets decades after his death.

R297 I don't understand why Feud's showrunner doesn't insist on research and fact checking, to avoid these mistakes, for the sake of the audience. It can't be due to budget constraints. Is it laziness or a disregard for viewers?

contempt. their laziness shows contempt for the audience.

Gurls, gurls, chalk it off as artistic license. The AC guy lover is fictional too.

I have a problem with the way Truman or anyone puts people down and mocks them for their looks. I didn't like what he said about Meryl. People can't help how they look. And most of them know how they look and try to do their best. He could be vicious, and that casual cruelty was popularized by him doing his "Outrageous" Schtick on TV. The second half of his life he took his fame and used it to inflict pain.

Ann Woodward's on-screen teleplay assessment of Truman was spot on. Cunty, cancelable today, but spot on.

is anyone else ready to draw the line from Truman/Swans to Andy/Housewives, or am I too early in Wonkeye's undoing?

R272 talent won. I like Capote and he was gifted, but Baldwin was simply a class above. Both in talent and in the execution of that talent.

Gore really wasn't a real writer (more a snobby intellectual) and Mailer had one good book that hasn't aged well.

Baldwin>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Capote>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Mailer>Gore

R301 Not fictional: there was an a/c repairmen for a while.

You might not like Vidal's writing; you might consider his writing lowbrow, and just a hair above a Silhouette romance, but I loved Burr, and before that, The City and the Pillar. Incidentally, I bought the latter at a gay bookstore in Philly by the name of Giovanni's Room. I had no idea at the time (1983?) that "Giovanni's Room" was the name of a book, much less who the author of it was -- but I sure loved The City and the Pillar.

There -- I said it.

R71, Cornelia was and is very different from her mother.

How does Andrew Holleran stack up against Capote, Vidal and Baldwin?

R297, using that song was meant to show how out of it Capote was! He didn't even know what year it was! Just like how the RFK Jr. thing wasn't a mistake.

R307 I don't dislike Vidal's writing! I've read a ton of him - including The City and The Pilar. Which was a nice read for sure. But, for me, that style is lacking something. Certainly when compared to Baldwin and Capote.

There is good reason, after all, that the used bookstore you mentioned was called "Giovanni's Room" and not "The City and Pilar"!

When Zac Posen was hired to design the costumes for the Black and White Ball, he painstakingly did his research and presented Ryan Murphy with design boards replicating the gowns the real Swans wore. Ryan's response was, "I didn't hire you to recreate history. I want more! More drama!" and then added, "Why tell the truth when you can tell a story?"

That pretty much sums up the Ryan Murphyverse when it comes to "biopics." Much of it is elaboration, exaggeration or downright fiction. Like Hollywood Babylon or those Darwin Porter celebrity biographies.

Zac

what the fuck

[R309] I’d say that Holleran is not even the greatest gay writer whose name begins with “Holl” ….

[quote]The City and The Pilar.

He wrote a book about John Wayne's wife?

Truman exposed some shallow emotionally immature materialistic wealthy nobodies. They had no true accomplishments. Their efforts were elevated by the glitterati they cultivated. He was angry and bitter because he felt he was someone of accomplishment and note, and they were nothing but they had all the money, the fame, the prestige, and were looked upon as cultural icons. He had the last laugh but didn't realize it. He embarrassed them publicly. They were fools and he held up the mirror.

Wow, I wasn’t paying complete attention and thought there were only going to be six episodes.

It wasn’t until I read the latest posts on this thread I realized there were going to be two more! I assumed the ending of the latest one that had the footage of all of them trying hats on, and his monologue about friendship, was the end of the series! I was kind of relieved.

Once again, thanks DataLounge (I think).

r317 If only he had owned it. Instead he went to pieces because he was no longer allowed into their world, showing he was also shallow, emotionally immature and materialistic. Which, in a way, is a greater crime in someone who actually has intelligence and talent.

No true accomplishments, R 317?

It was Slim Keith who recommended Betty Bacall to husband Howard Hawks after seeing her on a magazine cover.

[italic]That's[/italic] a significant accomplishment? Pointing out a model?

Isn't that the point of their world. Living well with no significant accomplishments. Why was Capote so taken with them?

R321, Hawks sent for Bacall, cast her in "To Have and Have Not", made her a star overnight, she met and married Bogart and became a legend.

So, yeah!

And then the bitch ended up doing cat food, coffee, and discount store commercials.

Living at the Dakota wasn't cheap, asshole.

All that was required is that they be organized and ornamental.

[quote]Ryan's response was, "I didn't hire you to recreate history. I want more! More drama!" and then added, "Why tell the truth when you can tell a story?"

I actually don't have a problem with fictionalizing a bit of history for dramatic purposes as long as you make it clear to the audience what you're doing. But if you're going to do that, invent some narrative drive along with the details you're fudging.

[quote]Ryan's response was, "I didn't hire you to recreate history. I want more! More drama!" and then added, "Why tell the truth when you can tell a story?"

Which is what he should have told Zac from the start.

[quote] Living well with no significant accomplishments.

I nominate this to be the new DL subtitle.

I listened to him read A Christmas Memory on YouTube today. Cried my eyes out.

R309. I would say HOLLeran and HOLLinghurst (I assume that’s what 315 was sniping about) are equally fine writers, but of very different kinds of gay fiction—Holleran more lyric/autofictional, Hollinghurst more historical with some undertones of Hardy and Forster. Baldwin at his best is better than any of his contemporaries (and he wrote a couple novels and stories that are good but not great). I’d place both the HOLLs far above Vidal and more consistently better than Capote.

Vidal’s nonfiction was better than his fiction. Mailer, same thing.

Holleran was a one-hit wonder!

Truman Capote was a horrible cunt, he was also a genius.

The Swans, most of them were just horrible cunts.

Chanel had little taste...but it was good.

Schiaparelli had a lot of taste...but it was bad.

I enjoyed the city and pillar very much, one of the very best written depictions of gay sex ever

It wasn't nearly as absorbing as The City and the Pilaf, r336.

Pilar, R311?

I don't know her.

She was married to John Wayne, R338

Peruvian, 95, still alive

Wow--people really gave up on discussing the most recent episode pretty quickly. It is a mishmash---Ella Beatty looks like some sort of shrew or beaver, was she cast on purpose? I know she's a nepo playing something of a nepo, but really?

The theme of this episode seemed to be aging and anachronisms--shopping for hats in 1978? (I'm surprised there were still hat stores at that time--46 years in business not the 44 the owner said) and later for gloves.

There are still hat stores in the 21st century, r340. Not many, but they're there.

[quote] I know she's a nepo playing something of a nepo, but really?

Ella Beatty is a nepo, but how is she playing a nepo? Her character was the daughter of John O'Shea, who was not famous at all.

Friend of Truman is close enough. How else would a homely rabbit-faced young woman like her get shot by Richard Avedon.

[quote] Friend of Truman is close enough.

No it is not.

You don;'t know what the term means, obviously.

R322 I think he subconsciously was identifying with his mother who did become part of high society for a while but then was ostrasized I think subconsciously he was reliving the life of his mother, making it ‘right’ by high society, their acceptance and they were more of a symbol to him, and he did not expect their rejection but at the same time he held some resentment toward them, because they symbolized the wrong the hurt done to his mother. Something along those lines.

When it took a similar path he followed a similar path of his mother’s, pills, alcohol.

Anyway, something along those lines. I don’t completely understand the psychology and I don’t know all the details one would need to know to really understand it. I wonder if his close friend, Jack Dunphy did and ever said.

R340: Hat stores largely disappeared in the 60s. The talwart hat wearers later on seemed to be church going women, especially African Americans. I live nera literally dozens of churches, Black and White and no one wears hats any more. I think Orthodox Jews and Muslims are the only schmata wearers these days and I haven't seen a mantilla at funeral in ages.

Go to better funerals.

[quote]I have a problem with the way Truman or anyone puts people down and mocks them for their looks.

Today he would be a Datalounger!

“When did the Catholic Church stop requiring head coverings for women?

1983

Most people assumed that it was the Second Vatican Council that changed the requirement, even though it was not so. As a result of the widespread disregard of the original requirement for women to wear a head covering in church, it was eventually omitted from 1983 Code of Canon Law, currently in force.”

Everyone posting here should be watching and talking about “The New Look” on Apple+ about the parallel careers of Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, taking place in Paris during WWII and after.

It’s a much better series than this one, and Juliette Binoche is giving a terrific performance as Nazi toady Chanel.

R350 is that the one with Maisie Williams as Dior's sister? I've read that it is good.

r350 Yeah I was surprised to see no thread on it, I guess that's the curse of it being on Apple+

r351 It is

Apple TV has some good programs, but no one knows about them. Or not enough people know. I think Apple should fold up and join some already established streaming service.

Agreed, r353. Preferably one I already subscribe to.

R352 - there is a thread

R341 Big Sis brain matter encrusted number really made them declassee.

Jackie made hats fabulous again! And those lace doilie things my mother wore to church.

A mantilla, R357

I would agree "The New Look" is much better than "Capote vs. the Swans," although I am staying with the latter despite myself.

They don't have that much in common, though, except that they both involve high fashion (Capote only peripherally) and are set in the past. Different eras, different kinds of people, different tones.

r355 Thanks for that, would've been helpful if the OP of that thread bothered to put the name of the show in the first post!

Would the people here talking about other TV shows PLEASE get your own fucking thread and stop hijackkng this one?

R361 Especially crap like The New Look.

From description of upcoming episode 7, "Beautiful Babe"

[quote] "Babe reflects on her life and her greatest treasures; Truman and the Swans reel in the fallout of a tragedy."

What do you think the tragedy is? The show has already covered Babe's cancer diagnosis, so if it's her death, why not specify it? RFK's assassination? I wouldn't think that would deeply affect the group of Swans as a whole, only Lee.

[quote]Truman and the Swans reel in the fallout of a tragedy."

I think they're referring to the day La Cote Basque ran out of oysters.

Babe died on July 6, 1978, so the timing would be right, since they’re in 1978 story-wise.

Babe, dead as a mackerel. At this point virtually everything is filler.

Episode 7 trailer

Of course it’s Babe’s death.

R363 One of my earliest memories is Mum's hairdresser Mr Kevin sobbing uncontrollably watching the state funeral of Babe Paley. To this day I get verklempt when I hear Elton John sing...

R360 - another one.

I just reread “Answered Prayers”. I was pissing into my pants. He was such a mean, foul, bitchy queen. We are miles away from this level on DL, even on our best days.

^^I always wondered why anyone wanted to be friends with Truman Capote in his later years given how acidulous he could be. Marella Agnelli was right to drop him before he could embarrass her. I've also wondered the same thing about Gore Vidal. When people are THAT nasty, they can and will turn on you on a dime.

Vidal had nice houses and threw parties. Many of the people who attended were unlikable NY writers like Bellow and Mailer.

Capote was entertaining to the swans. Bang-bang basically laid it out in the first episode.

Saul Bellow was not a New York writer. WTF?

He lived there for awhile, spent a lot of time there and hung out with that crowd. It might helpful if you read memoirs and bios.

Yes, you're right, R375; the writer who was born, raised, and lived for about 60 years in CHICAGO was a "New York writer."

Read memoirs and bios of DINOSAURS….

I didn't go for Swans. Preferred Cocks

Saul Bellow lived mostly in New York City for well over a decade after 1950, although he frequently took time away during this period to teach at colleges and universities in North America. He even bought a house in new York City in 1956. He only moved back to Chicago in 1962.

While he was in NYC for that decade-plus, he was very "in" with the literary establishment there.

Several of Saul Bellow's novellas and novels are set in NYC, including "Seize the Day" and "Mr. sammler's Planet."

Bellow spent more than 50 years living in Chicago. He lived in New York for maybe eight. He lived nearly as long in Minneapolis.

But, sure, yes -- a New York writer.

Beat that dead horse some more, r381.

R276

"The three most frightening words in the English language are Joyce Carol Oates" - Gore Vidal

Unless she has a MASSIVE part in one or both of the last two episodes, Molly Ringwald really should not have been used in the promotional material. I get it it - it could pull people in - people who know her, want to see grown up Molly in a role. But, she's done basically nothing so far, yet she was part of the promo tour like she was on par with the rest of the Swans in terms of how central she was to the series.

R384 Assuming Truman's death is covered in any kind of depth, she'll be part of that. She looms large in his final couple of years of life.

Too bad Datalounge wasn’t around when he was alive. You BET he would have been on it.

Do the general public know who Babe Paley even was?

I think one of the things Truman resented about the Swans was that they were held up as icons of culture and taste and were at the very pinnacle of high society.He probably felt they didn't deserve their notoriety. The one interesting thing I noticed was at one of their lunches Slim Keith was accused of leaking something to the press, then another time one of them told her "you've got to stop leaking things to the press..." so clearly they were not above dropping the t"anonymous" tips and slings and arrows themselves. But Truman had a bigger platform, and he used it to expose them.

[quote]Do the general public know who Babe Paley even was?

Sweetie, most of the "general public" don't know who Truman Capote was.

[QUOTE] Sweetie, most of the "general public" don't know who Truman Capote was.

This is so true. I know one guy who thought he was a President. "You know... President Truman Capote.". What a Moran.

Hey, Bill Paley thought the same thing when David Selznick asked if he could bring "Truman" along on a flight to Jamaica. Bill and Babe were impressed the former President would be flying on their plane.

But not that "Truman."

[quote] I think one of the things Truman resented about the Swans was that they were held up as icons of culture and taste

yes, all the time he was holding them up as icons of culture and taste.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

Outside of NYC, the swans were nobodies.

Yeah, who was holding them up as "icons". They were society women. I assume the poster meant in the narrow confines of that NYC world. So, the other society women; the NYC press?

Even as society women, they were a bunch of social climbers, not people whose roots went back generation in "NY society". They were more or less like those jokes who get coverage in the NY Social Diary, like Somers Farkas.

Betty Bacall and her “discoverer”, Slim Keith.

Doesn't Celine Dion have Somers Farkas Syndrome?

Brett Somers Farkas Syndrome?

Who are these people?

THey were the equivalent of mannequins. They were dressed by high end designers and their stylists, and their homes were decorated for them. If they learned anything, with the exception of C.Z. Guest, they knew about jewelry.

These women would not have been celebrities everywhere outside of NYC and café society watering holes in Europe and Florida, and even there they would only have been photographed mostly only for WWD and Town and Country. But where else would they go? It's not like Babe Paley spent time hanging out in Sioux Falls, SD.

It's also that old money in NY would have found Babe Paley "amusing" at best.

They were defined, and defined themselves, by the men they married. They were celebrity adjacent. Having them and their $$$ attend a charity Gathering or sit on the board of some top tier non profit enhanced the image of the event or the organization. They were magnets for donations because aspirants want to be close to all that $$$$ and the cache' of their celebrity style.

I watched Gosford Park recently, and was surprised at how much Hollander has aged since that movie. He was a halfway fuckable bottom in that movie, but certainly not now.

Honey, that film was made nearly a quarter century ago. Tom Hollander was in his early thirties when it was made, and now he's in his late fifties.

Too bad they could not work Denham Fouts into the series. He is in the book, under his real name, but maybe Capote never actually met him.

My goodness, Tom Hollander was Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice!

He died in 1948, R407.

Women with names like Babe and Slim are usually found chalking pool cues in lesbian bars.

Capote started as copy boy at the New Yorker in 1942 and moved to nyc in the late 1930s.

Ok they met in Paris. Could have been a flash-back.

[quote]He died in 1948,

As if that would matter to Ryan Murphy and his writing staff.

Since we're jumping around in time so much, who knows who will show up before the end?

R414, with all the wild time-jumping, mistakes and random scenarios being added for "creative purposes", I halfway expect J.K. Rowling to make an appearance as one of Truman's frenemies. At this point it just wouldn't be shocking. Maybe toss in Edgar Allen Poe while they're at it. AND a Kardashian!!

Yippee!

[quote]Since we're jumping around in time so much, who knows who will show up before the end?

Julianne More. Seriously!

Babe's granddaughter says that's not my nana!

A glowing remembrance of Babe by her granddaughter, who also interestingly is the daughter of Amanda Burden who is on record saying Babe was a terrible mother.

As if a 9 year old is going to know if granny was a pill-popper.

R420, Her mother, Amanda, was estranged from Babe, so how often, if ever, did Flobelle see her grandmother?

Flobelle Burden’s complicated life . . .

“An old-money NYC lawyer has shared her anguish after her financier husband of 20 years dumped her out of the blue during lockdown for another woman - and allegedly told her he didn't want custody of their children.

Flobelle 'Belle' Fairbanks Burden,54, says her husband Henry Davis announced he wanted to end their marriage while they sheltered from COVID at their $4.7 million Martha's Vineyard holiday in spring 2020.

In a soul-baring article for the New York Times, the 54-year-old detailed the moment she, Davis and their two younger children, then 15 and 12, took shelter from the pandemic on the island - only to suddenly find herself a single mother.

Arriving on March 15 2020 Burden, a New York-based socialite who's a descendant of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, described the stability and routine the family had while escaping lockdown describing the experience as 'delightful' to start.“

That’s what I was wondering R403. There’s no way Slim would have been allowed into NY old school high society. She was a slut actress from CA that slept her way into money and then continued to slut around NY. CZ was from a Boston Brahmin line, but not Mayflower. Babe’s dad was a surgeon or something? The only one who had some sort of real lineage was Lee, right? It seems they were more like Tinsley Mortimer from the aughts, coming from far flung places like Texas and getting into the gossip pages which NY society would have been horrified by. And Truman himself. I don’t buy for a second he would have been allowed in old money drawing rooms. He was far too grotesque, no matter his fame. So the Swans were all play acting then.

R422 I'd have more sympathy for Belle's reaction to Feud, if she hadn't spread out the personal details of her marriage and its ending on a page of the New York Times. Would she appreciate it, if Henry took the time to publicly respond and explain his viewpoint of her and their marriage? I think not. She has more in common with Capote than she'd care to admit.

Babe's father was a rich surgeon from Cleveland, with ancestral roots in the Boston area (but nothing Brahmin-like). He married someone more "established" in Boston and the daughters were early examples of celebrity debs. I'm sure that even someone with shanty Irish roots like Rose Kennedy would have found them vulgar.

Lee was lace curtain Irish at best, but still closer to society than these clawing social climbers, which speaks volumes about how Somers Farkas-like they were.

^^Mary!

Someone on here last week recommended The Capote Tapes which is easy enough to find/stream. So, I watched it and it was really interesting. Kerry O'Shea is featured prominently. She seems very respectful of Capote and still very appreciative for his help. You'd think she'd be more bitter since he broke up their home but apparently her dad was a violent drunk. She also says in the doc. that she believe Capote did in fact write all or most of Answered Prayers, even though no full manuscript has ever been found. She said he was constantly writing and had reams of those yellow legal pads he would write in every day. She said they were piled up but she doesn't know what happened to them.

After reading about how Joanne Carson likely kept half of Capote's cremains while telling Jack Dunphy she was handing over all of them, I'm wondering if she kept more of Capote's works since he essentially lived with her in his final days, intending to eventually release them buy dying before she could. The documentary speculates that the full manuscript of Answered Prayers may likely be sitting in a bank vault somewhere, still locked up and may not be discovered for many many years. Who knows.

R415 You are too stupid to realize all the anachronisms are not errors . They are intentional!!! The writers and show runners are playing a game with the persona of Capote. You are not savvy enough to appreciate the sophisticated and subtle genius of this work.

Add to the above that DL fav Andre' Leon Talley, in all her caftaned glory, makes an appearance in The Capote Tapes, waxing on about Truman and what was happening in those circles in the 1970's, though he never quite says how of if he knew Capote at all. You know how Miss Talley loved to spin a yarn, not unlike Capote himself. The doc. also has audio interviews with Slim Keith and I think CZ Guest. There's also a lot of 'behind the scenes' type footage of Capote. Oh, and for his entire life, he kept an otherwise unknown, small round tin of his aunt's gingerbread man cookies, uneaten and likely as a humble, private reminder of his childhood and his memories of Christmastime. I wonder what happened to all his stuff.

joanne put it on ebay.

"It'll be foud when it wants to be found." Truman on Answered Prayers.

Will next season’s 8 bloated and meandering episodes be about Tori vs Candy, or Shannon Doherty vs Alyssa Milano?

R429, Andre Leon Talley attended Lee Radziwill’s funeral, which was by invitation only.

It’s never been confirmed, but there were rumors that Lee Radziwill died alone after a fall in her apartment and she bled out before someone found her.

R434 Couldn't have been a long agonizing death, she was probably 70lbs. 2-5 minutes tops.

Is Tovey not coming back?

he is getting a nose job

Blow jobs are about the thumb? Who’d have thunk?

R431 Like King Tut's tomb.

I think the NYTImes was stupid to print that Bella Burden op-ed. I'm glad she at least set the story straight about Happy Rockefeller, who really was maligned on the show (seeing as they're reporting she did something horrible she never would have done, and that Capote did not even suggest she did since Marie Harriman did it instead),;but that should have been tackled by Happy's heirs, not Babe Paley's grandchild. The only genuine complaint she really has about her grandmother's treatment on the show is that in real life Babe Paley quit cigarettes as soon as she found out she had lung cancer--well, big fucking deal.

^ Your meds are in the fridge Cheryl.

R440, Once you’ve been given a fatal diagnosis with just months to live, what does it matter if you continue to smoke?

I would eat, drink, smoke and fuck as much as I wanted to.

Happy Rockefeller had six children between her two marriages, two with Nelson.

I’m surprised none of them publicly objected to how she was falsely maligned by “Feud”.

Another mistake: when Capote wakes up in a hospital bed at Hazelden, Jack Dunphy tells him they're "in Minneapolis."

Hazelden is not in Minneapolis. It's about 45 minutes away, in the countryside.

R444, At lunch in 1978, the swans mention omitting Joanne because she hasn’t been the same since the divorce.

Joanne and Johnny Carson divorced in 1972.

So, R445? You've never commented that someone hasn't been the same since an event that happened 5 or 6 years ago? Joanne hasn't been shown socializing at large in New York at any point in the series, so clearly this shift isn't recent. Quite the opposite, she was already shown as an outsider during the opposing Thanksgiving dinners early on.

R444, Hazelden is in Center City, which is considered part of the larger Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area. Would a person more rationally say, "We're in Minneapolis," to a confused person trying to get their bearings over something like, "We're in a small town on the outer edge of Minneapolis-St. Paul?"

Some of you queens are so pedantic with your adherence to the "facts" that I'm glad you're not storytellers. I don't even think this season is very good, but it's never claimed to be a documentary. It's a dramatization that clearly takes liberties with historical fact to tell a story. Regardless of whether that is actually working, fact checking this based on what you think is accurate is a fool's errand.

R446, You appear to be a severely infected cunt.

. . .

R446 is ALL OVER this thread, countering any mention or discussion of continuity or historical facts. She's clearly a little, 'special' in her bizarre attachment to hall monitoring this thread.

People from the coasts are usually geographically inept about anywhere else. Saying Hazelden in Minneapolis is in character, whether or not it's literally tue.

It's hard knowing where this show can go next, since they just killed off both their male and female leads this episode. It looks like next week is an extended fantasy sequence (again).

r449 It's their only post in this thread you lying twat

Capote on Siegel, Murphy was actually kind to Capote in his version

R453, Murphy was also kind to Stanley Siegel. The actor playing him was much better looking than Siegel.

“Stanley Milton Siegel (October 2, 1936 – January 2, 2016) was a radio reporter, newscaster and television talk show host, whose hosted programs on New York City's WABC-TV and WCBS-TV from 1975 to 1980.“

R451: After the second episode, it's all been padding. There really isn't a compelling multi-episode arc here.

Was the hunky guy in the pool at Joanne’s house Rick the A/C guy or some other plaything of Truman’s?

I get that Murphy wanted to show The Feud Capote and the Swans. But IMO he failed to adequately demonstrate why these women were worth any attention. Yes, we know ABOUT Slim, CZ, Bab and Lee but imprisoning them in the La Cote BAsque setting, foreclosed any opportunity to see them in action in their natural habitat. We never saw them in context of the High Society they allegedly led. These arbiters of taste and social custom. We only ever saw them with Truman, or at the restaurant or at home. They had active social lives that were only alluded to. I wanted to see them interacting with others of their kind in High Society. This show was a lot of padding because Murphy failed to give us more context.

They just filmed a bunch of stuff and put it in a blender. And used the same lighting at the lunch place for every single interminable scene.

R458, Not to mention that Lee Radziwill was never a part of that group of women.

[quote]We never saw them in context of the High Society they allegedly led. These arbiters of taste and social custom. They had active social lives that were only alluded to.

We saw them at David O. Selznick's and Jennifer Jones's place for the weekend party in Jamaica, and at the Black and White Ball. And we saw several fancy dinner parties the Paleys threw.

R461 in total how much time was devoted to those things in 7 episodes? Not counting the Black and White Ball? And who did they interact with besides the other swans? I just felt like the whole thing was kind of confining...like a straight jacket.

[quote]Was the hunky guy in the pool at Joanne’s house Rick the A/C guy or some other plaything of Truman’s?

It was Rick the A/C guy, but just a fantasy of him--they had long since broken up by that time.

In the last episode Slim referred to Capote as Human Capote. Clearly this was not an error caused by sloppy writing but rather a sly reference to Capote's innate humanity. Sorry you were to thick to "get it".

[quote]But IMO he failed to adequately demonstrate why these women were worth any attention

They weren't

The episode got right in this episode the way gay men and straight women can share a private world in an intense friendship, but what's weird about this one is that the way Baitz presents it, it was just all about Babe's exquisite taste and how much Truman appreciated it. They come across as so shallow, but that's who they were, I guess.

Naomi Watts was wonderful in the scene where she secretly picks up the phone and overhears her daughter's conversation with Bill, and learns how much her daughter hates her.

[quote][R461] in total how much time was devoted to those things in 7 episodes? Not counting the Black and White Ball?

Why would you possibly not count the Black-and-White Ball? Much of an entire episode was devoted to it.

You're just bitching for the sake of bitching: "The show doesn't show at all what I want it to show, except for that one entire episode, which I am telling you to discount for no clear reason."

It's pretty clear there are certain posters here who have idolised these women since Vanity Fair told them to, and are amusingly angry at this show as it exposes them as being nothing. At least the bleating about them being the most beautiful women has died down.

It's like that poster who whined that the Black and White Ball episode made the whole thing look rather cheap and tacky - yeah, because it was. The pictures from the Ball show that to be the case. But, nooo, some snobs tried to pretend it was the most glamorous event ever, so that must be the case.

No, but the ball, is presented out of chronological order and doesn't really add much to the story, although does provide some background. Bang Bang Woodward summed up everything in that first episode.

[quote]I just felt like the whole thing was kind of confining...like a straight jacket.

The life of a socialite...

"Was Truman Capote's Black-and-White Ball the Greatest Party Ever?"

I don't think so. The Agnellis were bored and left early.

So it appears we will be spared the 1968 debacle of Lee Radziwill's TV debut as LAURA. She was billed as "Lee Bouvier", but it was still a stink bomb.

Her performance was what I would call...vacant.

Lee Radziwill is just being treated here as an extra "mean girl" to fill out the clique (which was not really a true clique in real life). At least Flockhart gets the best evil lines and gets to really let loose with them.

In last night's episode, she was talking about accepting an engagement ring from someone in San Francisco high society, and it would not have been peter Beard (who she had been talking about dating in previous episodes). Does anyone know who that was she referred to last night?

R474, Newton Cope.

R474/R475 . . .

“Her planned wedding to San Francisco hotelier and bon vivant Newton Cope was called off at the last minute, reportedly over differences involving a prenuptial agreement.“

Thanks, r475/r476.

Lee never got over Jackie snatching Peter Beard away. And Jackie never got over Lee fucking JFK. Then Lee never got over Jackie snatching Aristotle Onassis from her, blah, blah,blah. Lee thought she finally bested Jackie by becoming BFFs with Truman. How'd that work out! LOL!

She later married Herbert Ross in 1988. She was jealous of his dead wife, ballerina Nora Kaye. And in true Jackie style, she squeezed him financially in their divorce in 2001.

Interesting that the metaphor CZ used when talking about the need to continue living life was "keep marching, like the Germans marching on Moscow". Was she using dark humor? Was she trying to say that moving on was pointless since the Germans failed to capture Moscow? Or was it just bad Ryan Murphy dialogue?

Did CZ really end up in the papers for going dancing with Truman? Or was that a Whit Stillman gag?

R481. It's true.

"C.Z. Guest dances with Truman Capote during a party at Studio 54 in New York City on September 12, 1978."

(Photo by Tony Palmieri/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images)

I do like the callback to Last Days of Disco.

R480 I think by that point, after the Cold War/ Cuban Missile Crisis, Russia was again, the villain.

Does Naomi watts get production credits? Her role is the strongest in the show

Yes, she's listed as one of the producers,.

Oh, Treat Williams....why did you have to get on that fucking motorcycle??!

I don't think this show has completely worked overall, but it has had great moments.

Is it over yet? Please.

This thread is becoming tarsome. Like the series. Who cares?

Tarsome?

Talk to text? Strong Southern accent?

Oh Dearie. Return your gay card.

If Vito was a repairman visiting my house, he wouldn't have time to get to the work, and I wouldn't have minded. He is Heidi Klum's boyfriend, don't you know.

the style

^^^She had just a stunning figure her entire life, and she carried herself beautifully. She was rail-thin before that was even popular for models to look that way.

She had a big jaw and a crooked nose, and both were improved after her car accident, although her jaw was always still a little big (and she often covers it in photos).

[quote]She had just a stunning figure her entire life

puff-puff

R494 Was she married to Rhett Butler?

I love this series. And I feel especially weird because I like everything DL hates about it. I am a Truman Capote fan, and I think he was a genius. I've read all his books, and the book on which this series was based. I accept that the TV show is a work of fiction, which seems a hard pill to swallow for some people in this thread.

The latest episode was my favorite. It reminded me of a similar relationship in my own life in which I cut someone off for betraying me, and now I'm rethinking that decision.

[quote] a story spread by Truman Capote. “I gave Bogie a blow job one drunken night,”

Might be true. Bogart was such a sissy

R498, Please forgive me, son.

If CZ Guest was ANYTHING like the the way they portray her, that woman was a saint. I know nothing about her but will have to go read about her. I don't think I've ever seen anything with Chloe Savigny (sp?), just remember hearing her name here on DL many years ago. But I like her as an actress. I hope she's in more stuff. She really seems to make that character Human and the only true likable person in the series. Well, her and Jack. And I hope Jack Dunphy really did end up with a gorgeous young bookstore hunk by the time Capote died. He clearly deserved that happy ending.

I don’t know

Is it over yet or what?

Everyone is dead but Wikipedia says one more episode left??

In 1990, CZ Guest came out with a fragrant insect repellent.

[quote] Is it over yet or what?

Troll-dar says you're all over this thread, so of course you already know.

Let us speak of the labia of Babe.

How oddly hostile, r506, and there’s something wrong with your trolldar. I asked because Wikipedia says there are six episodes, until you get further down in the article, where it says there are seven. I’m not sure what’s been left for a seventh episode, though.

R503/508 There are 8 episodes, in total.

Ernest Hemingway was the best man at CZ Guest’s wedding and they were married at his house in Havana, Cuba.

Also, She was painted by Diego Rivera, Salvador Dalí, Kenneth Paul Block, and Andy Warhol. That’s pretty friggen impressive, if being painted is your kind of thing.

Wasn't CZ a pretty down to earth, fun gal?

Wouldn't want to spend five minutes in a room with any of these vapid cunts.

Finally watched episode 7 today and was emotionally moved, far more than I expected. While so many of the loving scenes between Truman and Babe are fantasy, the exquisite, tender performances between the two characters/actors makes me wish it were all true. For me, Feud is a success in that they created (some) characters that I ended up actually caring for, making viewing the show worth it overall.

I read biographies and books about Truman* and the Swans recently, ahead of the series, which was an advantage.

Like many of you, I am curious to know what the content of the last episode could possibly be.

* longtime reader of his fiction and In Cold Blood

R510 Yes. That IS an impressive list.

This is Salvador Dali's portrait of her. He was a great painter, this is done beautifully. (He should've left out that surrealism imho but it really put him on the map). Hher color seems off. Thinking it's the jpg.

1958 is the year it was painted.

Sportin' Mainbocher...

[quote]Wasn't CZ a pretty down to earth, fun gal?

"Down to earth," no, even though she write a column on gardening. She was pretty hoity-toity. However, she was very beautiful and glamorous, and the show is correct that she retained Truman's friendship after "La Cote Basque, 1965" (he spreads no gossip about her in the story, since she never told him about her dirty laundry).

C.Z. Guest with Anita Colby at the Knickerbocker Ball, held at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1952

Remember CZ's daughter Cornelia, who was a live-fast party girl heiress during the Giuliani years in New York?

Their lives were unappealing to me. They were rail thin so obviously didn't enjoy food. They drank too much, they were real life mannequins who lived to dress up and pose all the time. They couldn't step out of their homes without making sure they were dressed in the correct costume. They spent their days on some very restrictive activities like decorating their homes, supervising their household staff, planning menus, and maintaining a social calendar. They were completely at the mercy of their spouses and his checkbook.

r519, what was fascinating was that even though they were so unhappy they were touted as the women who had everything. They had beautiful homes and beautiful clothes and entry to everywhere, and they belonged to the right clubs, and they were always being photographed. And they had endless leisure time, which at mid-century was thought to be the dream for most women. They had maids to keep the houses clean, and decorators to fill them, and nannies to care for the children.

R518 I follow her on Instagram

I hope the last episode has a ton of Jessica Lange.

I confuse Cornelia Guest with "former fat girl" Dianne Brill.

R513

Wasn't Cornelia part of Andy Warhol's g ang? I seem to recall her name from his diaries. Which, IMO is a must read. It has nothing to do with The Swans.

She did enjoy being taken out for a nice meal on Andy's dime.

Fun fact: for a brief while in the early 80s Cornelia Guest dated Sylvester Stallone.

What kind of name is Cornholia.

Here she is with DL's favorite leather daddy, Peter Marino.

Weird to realize Cornelia, the "It" girl of my youth, is now 60.

I'm getting caught up with the past few episodes. I'm glad Warhol made an appearance, even if only via "The Love Boat." And I'm sorry, you heartless bitches, but episode 7 made me weepy!

His eulogy (authentic?) was overwrought and lame, “et cetera, et cetera” was the best part.

Naomi should win the Emmy for Episode 7.

Agreed. She did a great job throughout the whole series.

I think Watts has a great chance at the Emmy. She's absolutely superb in this show, and I don't think she's yet won an Emmy, and everyone in Hollywood thinks she deserves awards.

She could submit either last week's episode, with the great scene of her overhearing her daughter on the phone tell Bill Paley she never wants to see Babe again, or the very sweet episode where she and Truman run into each other on the street after their falling out.

I don't absolutely LOVE the series, some episodes are much better than others, IMO. But, it's engaging and it's different. Who makes stuff like this today?

I think what Ryan Murphy is doing is indulgent, in the best way. He's using his clout to get this shit filmed. Even the Warhol Diaries on Netflix. No one else could get these things made. It's not Game of Thrones, but it's our history, and he's recording it for posterity and to prompt discussion.

Who got their old rags?

Exactly R536, and R537. I love that Murphy is making content that is unabashedly gay. Though quite clumsy at times, Baitz and Van Sant are trying to explore the relationships between gay men and their hags, and what better way to do it then through these people? And Naomi is fabulous and she’s LONG overdue for awards.

Did Truman Capote intentionally or inadvertently lift his lines about deliberate cruelty from 'A Streetcar Named Desire' by Tennessee Williams for his short story 'A Thanksgiving Visitor' ? It's not word-for-word plagarism but close enough that it seems likely the idea source was the play, first performed 20 years before the short story was published.

-----

"But some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the one unforgivable thing in my opinion and it is the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty." (Blanche DuBois)

Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)

-----

"Now listen to me, Buddy: there is only one unpardonable sin—deliberate cruelty. All else can be forgiven. That, never. Do you understand me, Buddy?” (Miss Sook)

Truman Capote, A Thanksgiving Visitor (1967)

-----

"What you're doing to us is so low, so poisonous. One day you will know what this poison tastes like. And remember the only unforgivable sin is deliberate cruelty. You wrote that, didn't you? Well this is that. This is that." (Ann Woodward)

Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, episode 3, Masquerade 1966

It’s shocking how little has happened in this show, and yet how much I enjoy it.

I'm enjoying it too even though the people in it are so terrible. The only likable people in it are Jack Dunphy and O'Shea's daughter--everyone else (even CZ Guest) is monstrous.

To R535 and anyone else who thinks Capote just "met" Babe on the street - that NEVER happened. Babe Paley never saw or spoke to Truman ever again for the rest of her life. Truman did get through on the phone to Bill Paley once, who cut him off by saying, "I have a sick wife."

There was no need to put this scene in, or at the very least make it clear that it was a dream or a fantasy. It did NOT happen.

Once again, it's not a documentary you tedious fuckwit

^^ and just like in The Crown, people will treat it as fact not fiction.

And? If people are stupid enough to treat drama as documentary, that's their issue, not one for producers.

No “And”, R546 - I was just making an observation on the response of some viewers. No commentary on the producers.

With the fantasy sequences the show went off track like the failed Rock Hudson series

Another episode with no Demi Moore. It's amazing they gave her billing as a regular.

R521 I wonder if she has seen or any thing to say about Capote vs the Swans.

we love the night life

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I loved the part at the auction with the ghosts of the swans sneering at the flip flops. It felt very DL.

When Truman's ashes are being auctioned off, one of the other items for sale is the "fembot" costume from Austin Powers. It makes the auction feel extra tawdry.

Series started pretty good and then went off the rail into fantasy. Disappointing but not unprecedented.

I thought the scenes with his old boyfriend were well done and very sad. Don't know if it really happened but it felt authentic. I wonder who got his ashes. How much is $45,000 in today's money?

R556 here. Never mind. I realized that the auction happened after Joann Carson died so in 2016 ish?

Jack Dunphy died eight years after Truman.

There’s a cenotaph near where their ashes were scattered in Sag Harbor, New York.

You know, I watched it. Every second of it. And the acting was brilliant, especially Truman, Babe and Bill Paley, CZ Guest, and Truman's old boyfriend. Jessica Lange was hammy but at least she fulfilled her role. But I will probably never "miss it" and want to watch it again. I just cannot p[ut myself through it. And that's too bad.

I thought Murphy's Halston series on Netflix was vastly superior to this show. I could watch Halston again, but would never want to watch Feud again.

I think in the end they did a lovely job, and I hope Baitz and Van Sant work together again. Baitz is a good writer for TV and should get more work, as should Van Sant. I hope Murphy finds them more projects.

THey could have achieved every single thing they wanted to in four episodes. This was a mess.

Barbara Paley’s actual grave.

Other than Babe’s granddaughter, have any of the swans’ family members publicly commented on the series?

I want to hear what Cornelia Guest thinks of it. Anderson Cooper has talked about Truman in the past and he didn’t like him.

I'd like to know what Tina Radziwiłł thinks of her mother being portrayed as a sour bitch.

Lee was a drunk sour bitch in the 70s. Both of her kids ended up staying with Jackie around this time because of Lee’s behavior.

Happy Rockefeller’s children should sue.

Olivia sued.

R565 In Vanderbilt, the book Anderson Cooper co-wrote with Katherine Howe, he devoted a full chapter to Capote, the Black and White Ball, and his (Capote's) relationship with his mother Gloria Vanderbilt, and what Capote wrote about her in the La Côte Basque, 1965, article. Cooper treated the subject fairly, without snark or venom. You wouldn't know he didn't like Capote by reading that chapter.

Cooper explained that if the random meeting described in the Esquire article between Gloria and her first husband, Pat DeCicco, did take place in the 60s, there would be good reasons why she might not have recognized him. It would have been two decades since she had last seen him, and his appearance changed a lot in that time. And it's also possible that because DeCiccio had been verbally and physically abusive to her during their marriage, she may have blocked memories of him out. When she met her mother again after many years of estrangement, Gloria said she would not have recognized her if she saw her on the street but did so only because they had an arranged meeting at her (younger Gloria's) home.

----- For those unfamiliar with Gloria Vanderbilt's childhood, it was traumatic. Her mother was that in name only--absent from her life from the very beginning, often physically by choice as she lived a self-absorbed life, and emotionally disconnected (always) from young Gloria. She didn't even recognize what a shit parent she was. Her father died when she was still a baby. Gloria always thought of her nanny Dodo as her mother. Add to that, her mother and aunt Gertrude fought a highly publicized, bitter custody battle over her when she was 10. -----

(Would people stop naming their kids after themselves or close relatives?! It does make it difficult to talk and write about people with nearly identical names or even think of them differently, especially if you are only hearing or reading about them and do not know them personally. I'm looking at you especially, British monarchy throughout history.)

R569, Anderson has said to Andy Cohen on WWHL that Truman was not one of his favorites.

When visiting Gloria, Truman often wore sandals and his feet were scaly and his toenails in need of grooming.

[quote]I'm looking at you especially, British monarchy throughout history.)

Just what we need, r56...Queen Brenda.

I stuck with the series, and rather enjoyed it overall. But the final episode was kind of a dud. Except, as R566 pointed out, the scene with the old boyfriend and his new lover.

^I meant R556

Who was the hotish guy who played the air conditioner repair man?

Julian Schnabel’s son R574.

R574, Vito Schnabel

In what DL fantasy world would that HOT young guy be with that old queen?

You’re very young aren’t you, R577?

A long while ago I Read "Little Gloria - Happy At Last about Gloria Vanderbilts mother and her mother's sisters and their journey through international high society. Fascinating stuff. Aunt Gertrude was her savior...and Gertrude was very "bohemian." It was a good read at the time and got into the custody battle quite thoroughly.

If anyone is interested, here's the Insta of the young guy boyfriend.

I specialize in bohemian aunts, r579!

R566

[quote]When Truman's ashes are being auctioned off, one of the other items for sale is the "fembot" costume from Austin Powers. It makes the auction feel extra tawdry.

Thanks for pointing that out. At first glance I just assumed they were all part of Joanne Carson's wardrobe.

Jared Reinfeldt is sexy. Not much of an actor, though. And the bf is an over-groomed woman of a gay.

R584 HA! Yes I thought the same

Does anyone know what ratings were for Swans? Can't believe they would exceed or even match the first Davis/Crawford Feud. So many of the target audience have died off since 2017.

Lee's husband in the fantasy sequence was called some a first name that is similar to the actual person's first name (which was Herbert) and the surname "MOSS" instead of Ross. But in the credits, they actually showed the name as HERBERT Moss. I'm pretty sure the first name used wasn't Herbert, but I can't remember.

And fun fact: the character was played by Jon Robin Baitz.

And sticking with Lee -- why didn't she get a different name like the others did (Kiki, P.B. Jones, Ina Coolbirth, Cleo Dillon, etc.)?

Jared is very cute. He was god in his mini role in Capote as a twunk with daddy issues.

Ian Coolbirth was supposed to be Pamela Harriman. But Slim insisted it was her.

^good

Was Martha Stewart one of the Swans?

Swans don’t end up in the slammer.

She just looked like one, r591.

R586 I don’t know about the ratings, but I’m active in a few fashion forums and the young (20s/30s) fashion girls are loving this show. For them it’s all about the clothes and interiors — and Chloe, who was always been an icon to a lot of people in the fashion world.

I really loved the last episode. Oddly, I really liked the even-numbered episodes better than the odd-numbered ones - not that those didn't have their merits. Series was uneven overall, but I'm glad it was made. I really enjoyed it overall, even if there were a few dud phases - episodes or portions of episodes.

r586 According to Wikipedia, Bette and Joan did from 2.26 million for the first episode, with the lowest rated (episode 6, Hagsploitation) doing 1.06 million. Highest for Capote vs the Swans was 0.46 million for the first episode, lowest was 0.259 million for episode 4, It's Impossible.

In fairness, it should be pointed out that Bette and Joan was 2017 and cable has fallen off a cliff since then.

R591 In her dreams.

I believe the show referred to Bert Moss instead of Herbert Ross in real life.

R579 I will read the book you recommended. Thank you.

You might enjoy reading 'The Rainbow Comes and Goes' by Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper. The book's format is set up as a conversation between mother and son sharing personal details about the events of their lives, written when Gloria was entering her 90s. The focus is primarily on Gloria. She talks at great length about her childhood, including the custody fight. They are both are open and vulnerable about their thoughts and feelings, and it's obvious they loved each other dearly. I listened to the book on Audible, narrated by Gloria and Anderson, which made it all the more personal.

Dramatic license, sure, but does Julien’s really do a tacky provincial auctioneer thing, with the fast talking?