Gore Vidal, chronicler of American life and politics, dies
By the CNN Wire Staff
Wed August 1, 2012
(CNN) -- Gore Vidal, an eclectic author who faithfully chronicled the major shifts and upheavals in the United States in books, essays and plays, has died. He was 86.
Vidal died at his Los Angeles home Tuesday evening of complications from pneumonia, his nephew Burr Steers said. The author had also been suffering from heart ailments.
Widely hailed as one of America's greatest man of letters, Vidal was a high-profile commentator on politics, including his bitter opposition to the war in Iraq.
Born into politics as the member of a rich and powerful family, he joined the Navy at 17 before shocking the world by writing one of the first novels to include an openly gay character: his 1948 work "The City and the Pillar."
Since then, he wrote 24 novels, five plays, numerous screenplays, more than 200 essays and the memoir "Palimpsest." His collection of essays, "United States: Essays, 1952-1992," won the National Book Award in 1993.
Vidal also appeared in a number of films, including the political satire "Bob Roberts" where he played a U.S. Senator.
He ran for office in 1960, calling for the recognition of Communist China, and later made a Senate bid in 1982, which became the subject of a documentary.
Throughout his life, Vidal didn't shy away from controversy, either actively courting it or inviting it through his ascerbic one-liners.
"I've had hard targets in my lifetime. I've taken on general superstitions, but that's what writers do. So I certainly, wouldn't have changed my modus vivendi one bit," he said in a CNN interview in 2007.
In the latter stages of his life, Vidal often appeared on the television talk show circuit, going head to head with those with opposing viewpoints, and he gave as good as he got.
In one live TV debate, conservative author and journalist William F. Buckley Jr. famously called him a "queer."
"Well, I mean I won the debates, there was no question of that," Vidal recounted. "They took polls, it was ABC Television... And because I'm a writer, people think that I'm this poor little fragile thing. I'm not poor and fragile. ... And anybody who insults me is going to get it right back."
He also voiced himself on the animated show "The Simpsons."
Vidal would say he was a once-famous novelist who was relegated to going on television because people "seldom read anymore."
"All these literary prizes should go to the readers: 'Nobel Prize for the best reader in Milwaukee.' And you know, we must honor them because they are so few," he said in the same CNN interview.
http://us.cnn.com/2012/08/01/showbiz/go ... index.html
Gore Vidal Dies at 86
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Re: Gore Vidal Dies at 86
A selection of Gore Vidal quotes:
On America: The land of the dull and the home of the literal
On Truman Capote's death: Good career move (attributed)
On history: With history one can never be certain, but I think I can safely say that Aristotle Onassis would not have married Mrs Khrushchev.
Of Ronald Reagan: A triumph of the embalmer's art (26/4/81)
On politics: It you want to rise in politics in the US there is one subject you must stay away from, and that is politics.
(28/6/87)
On Norman Podhoretz's criticism of lesbians on the island of Pines: Well, if I were a dyke and a pair of Podhoretzes came waddling towards me on the beach, copies of Leviticus and Freud in hand, I'd get in touch with the nearest Alsatian dealer pronto.
(my comment: interesting Vidal should use the word Alsatian, the term often used in the UK for what North Americans usually call the German Shepherd dog - maybe it was a dig at Podhoretz's ancestry, I have no idea as I never heard of the guy before).
On sex: I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults (16/9/73)
On snobbery: There is much to be said for the nouveau riche and the Reagans intend to say it all. (attributed)
On (ex-President) Eisenhower: Reading a speech with his usual sense of discovery.
On success: Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies (16/9/73)
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
On writers: What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke? (1982)
Source: The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, edited by Ned Sherrin (1994)
On America: The land of the dull and the home of the literal
On Truman Capote's death: Good career move (attributed)
On history: With history one can never be certain, but I think I can safely say that Aristotle Onassis would not have married Mrs Khrushchev.
Of Ronald Reagan: A triumph of the embalmer's art (26/4/81)
On politics: It you want to rise in politics in the US there is one subject you must stay away from, and that is politics.
(28/6/87)
On Norman Podhoretz's criticism of lesbians on the island of Pines: Well, if I were a dyke and a pair of Podhoretzes came waddling towards me on the beach, copies of Leviticus and Freud in hand, I'd get in touch with the nearest Alsatian dealer pronto.
(my comment: interesting Vidal should use the word Alsatian, the term often used in the UK for what North Americans usually call the German Shepherd dog - maybe it was a dig at Podhoretz's ancestry, I have no idea as I never heard of the guy before).
On sex: I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults (16/9/73)
On snobbery: There is much to be said for the nouveau riche and the Reagans intend to say it all. (attributed)
On (ex-President) Eisenhower: Reading a speech with his usual sense of discovery.
On success: Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies (16/9/73)
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
On writers: What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke? (1982)
Source: The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, edited by Ned Sherrin (1994)