Gore Vidal, the iconoclastic writer, savvy analyst and imperious gadfly on the national conscience, has died. He was 86. He was also to pen a novel « Creation » set in ancient persia during the reign of King Xerxes 1st which ambitioned to present the Persian Empire in a more positive light than the one depicted by the deemed world’s first historian: Herodotus. (Source: persianrealm.com)
(See Related BBC News)
ABC World News Now : Gore Vidal, Celebrated Author, Playwright, Dies :
Al Jazeera Report:
*********************
*********************
CLOSER TO GOD
*********************
*********************
Gore Vidal: God is a Blackmailer :
Gore takes a meat cleaver to the folly of clericalism.
Gore Vidal has been a leader in American literary culture for six decades.
Al Jazeera One To One Interview :
Vidal died Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills of complications of pneumonia, said nephew Burr Steers.
Vidal was a literary juggernaut who wrote 25 novels, including historical works such as “Lincoln” and “Burr” and satires such as “Myra Breckinridge” and “Duluth.” He was also a prolific essayist whose pieces on politics, sexuality, religion and literature — once described as “elegantly sustained demolition derbies” — both delighted and inflamed and in 1993 earned him a National Book Award for his massive “United States Essays, 1952-1992.”
The author Christopher Hitchens, who once considered him a modern-day Oscar Wilde, criticised him for his more recent comments, saying they suffered from an “utter want of any grace or generosity”.
Threaded throughout his pieces are anecdotes about his famous friends and foes, who included Anais Nin, Tennessee Williams, Christopher Isherwood, Orson Welles, Truman Capote, Frank Sinatra, Jack Kerouac, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Eleanor Roosevelt and a variety of Kennedys. He counted Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Al Gore among his relatives.
He also wrote Broadway hits, screenplays, television dramas and a trio of mysteries under a pseudonym that remain in print after 50 years.
When he wasn’t writing, he was popping up in movies, playing himself in “Fellini’s Roma,” a sinister plotter in sci-fi thriller“Gattaca” and a U.S. senator in “Bob Roberts.” In other spare moments, he made two entertaining but unsuccessful forays into politics, running for the Senate from California and Congress in New York, and established himself as a master of talk-show punditry who demolished intellectual rivals like Norman Mailer and William F. Buckley with acidic one-liners.
“Style,” Vidal once said, “is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.” By that definition, he was an emperor of style, sophisticated and cantankerous in his prophesies of America’s fate and refusal to let others define him.
*************************
*************************
Controversial Screenwriter
*************************
*************************
Gore Vidal partly wrote the screen adaptation of William Wyler’s epic Ben Hur but was ousted halfway through production for trying to suggest a homosexual Relationship in the main protagonists past ( Ben Hur and Messala). He later wrote the script for the Mega Porn Production Galigula co produced by Bob Guccione the editor of the Men’s magazine Penthouse. A passionate advocate for Gay Rights, Gore Vidal also expressed great admiration for Oliver Stone’s bold attempt in depicting the Bi Sexual macedonian conqueror in his movie Alexander.
Gore Vidal on Ben Hur:
Caligula Starring Malcolm McDowell (Rated R):
*************************
*************************
VIDALS MEMORABLE FEUDS
*************************
*************************
Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal Feud on the Dick Cavett Show:
William Buckley Vs Gore Vidal:
This is the well know incident between William Buckley and Gore Vidal that occurred during ABC’s coverage of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago
Buckley vs Gore Vidal After 40 years :
Gore Vidal on Christopher Hitchens:
Recommended Photo Essay :
Photos of Gore Vidal through the years 1925 -2012
Related Blogs:
In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011
FAHRENHEIT 451: Author Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) dies, aged 91
MYSTIC RED: Shahbanou Farah & Controversial French philosopher Roger Garaudy (1977)
Related Literary Blogs:
IMMORTAL: Lebanese novelist Amin Maalouf joins elite French Academy
Azar Nafisi in bed with Jonathan Franzen, John Irving, Jane Austin
EMPRESS OF THE ARTS: Shahbanou Farah and Brazilian Author Paulo Coelho
