Truman Capote

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Truman Capote, 1980
Photo: Jack Mitchell
Truman Capote signature.svg

Truman Capote [ ˈtruːmən kəˈpoʊti ] (born September 30, 1924 in New Orleans , † August 25, 1984 in Los Angeles , born Truman Streckfus Persons ) was an American writer , actor and screenwriter . About 300 million copies of Capote's books were sold, about 150 million of them during his lifetime.

Life

Childhood and youth

Truman Capote was born as Truman Streckfus Persons in New Orleans . His parents were Archulus "Arch" Persons (1897-1981) and Lillie Mae "Nina" Faulk (1905-1954), who divorced when he was four years old. He then spent most of his childhood with his grandmother in Monroeville , Alabama . There he made friends with the neighbor girl Harper Lee , who later became world-famous writer, who was born in Monroeville and was one and a half years younger than Capote.

After his mother married the Cuban Joseph Capote, he moved with her to New York in 1934 , where he attended Franklin School and Greenwich High School. In January 1940, the school newspaper The Green Witch first printed a story of his with the title Parting of the Way ( Am Scheideweg ). In addition, he discovered the theater for himself and gained entry into high society through his friendships with Oona O'Neill and Gloria Vanderbilt .

When he was 18, Capote was an assistant editor for The New Yorker magazine . His literary breakthrough came in 1945 when various magazines published his stories My Side of the Matter (How I see things), Miriam , Tree of Night (Tree of Night) and Jug of Silver (The silver jug).

Time of success

Truman Capote, 1948
Photo: Carl van Vechten (from the Van Vechten Collection of the Library of Congress )
Truman Capote, 1959

As the most important young writer of his generation praised, he received in 1946 for Miriam and 1948 for Shut a Final Door ( closing the last door ) the significant O. Henry Award for short stories in English. Other Voices, Other Rooms ( Other voices, other rooms ), the debut novel of just 23 years of Capote, but was a literary sensation split the critics and was in the US and Europe, the most discussed book of the year 1948th

It was around this time that Capote ended his affair with literature professor Newton Arvin, 24 years his senior, and spent the next three decades with the writer Jack Dunphy .

His second novel, The Grass Harp ( The Grass Harp ) reaped finally, the full praise of critics who Capote's talent to that of other Southern writers like Carson McCullers and William Faulkner compared.

In the 1950s, Capote traveled through Europe for a long time. During this time he tried his hand at literary experiments such as working on scripts, musicals and travelogues.

After his worldwide success with Breakfast at Tiffany's ( Breakfast at Tiffany's ), he traveled with his childhood friend Harper Lee to Kansas , where he murders of the Clutter farm family in the small town of Holcomb researched. This case concerned him more than six years, and he created from this material In Cold Blood ( In Cold Blood ), one of the best known fact novels , of the reportage style of the New Journalism is assigned. The book became a bestseller in 1966 and triggered a media avalanche. This culminated in a mega party hosted by Capote himself in New York, the legendary Black and White Ball , to which he invited the 500 most famous personalities in the USA.

Crises

From a creative point of view, 42-year-old Capote was exhausted after working on this book. He toured the United States with the Rolling Stones , worked unsuccessfully on scripts, became addicted to alcohol and drugs, and sank into countless affairs. He suffered nervous breakdowns and was sent to jail several times.

After he had published eight years no prose, the first chapter was published in 1975 his long been announced, large-scale Sittenpamphlets Answered Prayers (Answered Prayers) in Esquire magazine. In the excerpts of the planned key novel, he revealed the most personal secrets of high society, to which he had had unlimited access as a valued eccentric for 25 years, which led to the suicide of the millionaire widow Ann Woodward portrayed therein. The targeted indiscretions led to the break of decades of friendships and to Capote's social ostracism.

He sank into depression, had parties in Studio 54 and took drugs. After several hospital stays, he began writing again at the age of 55 and in 1980 published the volume of short stories Music for Chameleons .

death

Hallucinations caused by drug addiction haunted him during the last years of his life, which he spent in hospitals and sanatoriums for long periods of time. On August 25, 1984, he died lonely in Los Angeles.

Afterlife

In 1987 the fragment Answered Prayers was published and in 1988 a biography of Gerald Clarke, which he himself authorized, was published. At the end of 2004, a complete manuscript was handed in to Sotheby’s in New York in an old cardboard box : Summer Crossing . It was Capote's first novel, which he began to write in 1943 at the age of 19. It is the story of 17 year old Grady, beautiful, rich and unruly, a creature of the Upper East Side . It describes a girl with the class and stubbornness of those companions with whom young Capote liked to surround himself - Gloria Vanderbilt, for example, or Oona O'Neill , daughter of the famous Irish playwright Eugene O'Neill .

In search of the unpublished chapters of his novel Heard Prayers , Anuschka Roshani and her husband Peter Haag discovered a dozen poems and 20 stories that he had written between the ages of 14 and 17 in Capote's estate in the New York Public Library . most of them still unpublished. Under the title of one of the stories, Where the World Begins , the texts were published in German in 2015. An English edition was also planned.

The writer's ashes, kept in a wooden box, were auctioned off in Los Angeles in September 2016 and fetched $ 45,000, almost ten times the original estimate. The buyer is not yet known. The ashes were in the possession of Joanne Carson (deceased childless in 2015), a confidante of Capote, in whose house the writer had died. The auctioneer relied on an alleged statement by Carson, "Truman didn't want them to gather dust on a shelf."

Movies

Truman Capote, 1968

After his early literary successes, Capote began writing screenplays, including for the commercially successful films Rome, Station Termini (1953), Chess the Devil (1953) and Castle of Terror (1961), and he adapted his own materials such as chrysanthemums are like lions ( 1967) and trilogy (1969). His novel adaptations Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and Cold Blood (1967) can be counted among the classics of film history .

As an actor, Capote first appeared in the legendary crime comedy A Corpse for Dessert alongside Oscar-winning film stars such as Maggie Smith and Alec Guinness , for which he was nominated for the 1977 Golden Globe Award for Best Young Actor. In the same year he also had a cameo in Woody Allen's classic film The City Neurotics .

Forty years later, Capote's legendary research work for Cold Blooded occupied the two directors Bennett Miller and Douglas McGrath . In Miller's film Capote (2005), actor Philip Seymour Hoffman impersonated the role of the writer, for which he received the Oscar for Best Actor in 2006 , and Catherine Keener played Capote's childhood friend Harper Lee. In Douglas McGrath's film Cold Blood - In the Footsteps of Truman Capote (2006), British actor Toby Jones played Truman Capote, while Sandra Bullock appeared as Harper Lee .

Works (selection)

Texts by the 14 to 17 year old

  • The horror in the swamp
  • Miss Belle Rankin ; both in: school newspaper The Green Witch , 1940 and 1941; from American English by Ulrich Blumenbach , in: weekly newspaper Die Zeit , Hamburg, 2014, No. 42, supplement: Zeitmagazin , p. 36 and 18.
  • This is from Jamie
  • Saturday night ; both from the American English by Ulrich Blumenbach, in: weekly newspaper Die Zeit , Hamburg, 2014, No. 42, supplement: Zeitmagazin , p. 24 and 30.

Letters

  • Too brief a treat. The letters of Truman Capote . Random House, New York 2004, ISBN 0-375-50133-9 .

stories

  • A tree of night . Penguin, Harmondsworth 1978, ISBN 0-14-002581-2 , (EA New York 1949).
    • German translation: Tree of the night. All the stories. Translated by Ursula-Maria Mössner, Kein & Aber, 448 pages, 2014.
  • House of Flowers . In: Tiffany's. A short novel and three stories . Random House, New York 1950.
  • Local color . Random House, New York 1950.
    • German translation: Local color . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1960.
    • German translation: Many roads lead to Eden . dtv, Munich 1965.
  • The Muses are Heard . Random House, New York 1956.
    • German translation: The muses speak. With Porgy and Bess in Russia . Ullstein, Frankfurt / M. 1987, ISBN 3-548-40026-4 , (EA Wiesbaden 1961).
  • A Christmas memory. One christmas, & The Thanksgiving visitor . Modern Library, New York 1996, ISBN 0-679-60237-2 , (EA New York 1956).
    • German translation: A Christmas memory . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1984, ISBN 3-8090-2221-7 , (only this one story).
  • A house of the heights . Little Bookroom, New York 2002, ISBN 1-892145-24-3 .
    • German translation: House on the heights. Selected stories . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1964.
  • The Thanksgiving Visitor . Random House, New York 1967.
    • German translation: Chrysanthemums are like lions . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1970.
  • The Dogs Bark. Public people and private places . Random House, New York 1973, ISBN 0-394-48751-6 .
    • German translation: The dogs bark. Reports and portraits . Verlag Kein & Aber, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-0369-5163-8 , (former title: When the dogs bark. Stories and portraits , 1992).
  • Children's stories . Langen Müller, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-7844-1634-9 , (EA Wiesbaden 1976).
  • The travel stories . Fischer-Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt / M. 1980, ISBN 3-596-22234-6 , (EA Wiesbaden 1978).
  • Landscapes for bandits. Travel stories . Ullstein, Frankfurt / M. 1989, ISBN 3-548-40076-0 .
  • Music for Chameleons . Vintage Books, New York 1994, ISBN 0-679-74566-1 (EA New York 1980).
  • The voice from the cloud. Stories and portraits . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1996, ISBN 3-499-22012-1 , (EA Berlin 1983).
  • One Christmas . Random House, New York 1983, ISBN 0-394-53266-X .
  • The great stories . Langen Müller Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7844-2995-5 .
  • Where the world begins. First stories. Translated by Ulrich Blumenbach , ed. u. with e. Epilogue v. Anuschka Roshani . Kein & Aber, Zurich 2015, ISBN 978-3-0369-5731-9 .

interview

Novels

Work editions

  • The complete stories of Truman Capote . Random House, New York 2004, ISBN 0-679-64310-9 .
  • Collected stories . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1970, ISBN 3-498-09054-2 .
  • Works. Work edition in eight volumes . No & But, Zurich 2006.
  1. Summer thieves . 2006.
  2. Different voices, different spaces . 2006.
  3. Tree of the night . 2007.
  4. The grass harp . 2006.
  5. Breakfast at Tiffany's . 2006.
  6. The dogs are barking . 2006.
  7. In cold blood . 2006.
  8. Answered prayers . 2007.

Honors

literature

  • Gerald Clarke: Capote. A biography . Ballantine Books, New York 1989, ISBN 0-345-36078-8 .
    • German translation: Truman Capote. A biography . Translated by Brigitte Stein. Verlag Kein & Aber, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-0369-5177-5 .
  • Thomas R. Fahy: Freak shows and the modern American imagination. Constructing the damaged body from Willa Cather to Truman Capote . Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2011, ISBN 978-0-230-12098-3 .
  • Robert L. Gale: Truman Capote Encyclopedia . McFarland Books, Jefferson, NC 2010, ISBN 978-0-7864-4296-6 .
  • Lutz Hagstedt: Truman Capote . In: Munzinger Archive , March 1, 2011.
  • Miriam Halfmann: The bastards are making it up! Forms of New Journalism in Norman Mailer 's "The armies of the night" and Truman Capote's "In cold blood". Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8288-2424-9 .
  • Alexandra Lavizzari: Shine and Shadow. Truman Capote and Harper Lee ; a friendship . Edition Ebersbach, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-938740-90-3 .
  • Robert E. Long: Truman Capote. Enfant terrible . Continuum Press, New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-8264-2763-2 .
  • Marianne Moates: Truman Capote's southern years. Stories from a Monroeville cousin . University Press, Tuscaloosa (Alabama) 1996, ISBN 0-8173-0815-6 , (former title: A bridge of childhood , 1989).
    • German translation: Truman Capote. A childhood in Alabama . Nymphenburger, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-485-00641-6 .
  • Ethan Mordden: The guest list. How Manhattan defined "American Sophistication"; from Algonquin Round Table to Truman Capote's ball . St. Martin's Press, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-312-54024-1 .
  • Ralph F. Voss: Truman Capote and the legacy of "In cold blood" . University Press, Tuscaloosa (Alabama) 2011, ISBN 978-0-8173-1756-0 .

documentary

  • Truman Capote - Enfant terrible of American literature. Documentary, Germany, 2016, 52:14 min., Script and director: Adrian Stangell, production: Nordend Film, NDR , arte , first broadcast: November 16, 2016 on arte, summary by ARD .

Web links

Commons : Truman Capote  - Collection of Images
Wikiquote: Truman Capote  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sommerdiebe , Kein und Aber-Verlag, editorial note from Anuschka Roshani.
  2. ^ Truman Capote Works. In: Verlag Kein & Aber , accessed on November 16, 2016.
  3. ↑ Christine Meffert: Truman's world. In: Die Zeit , October 9, 2014, No. 42, supplement Zeitmagazin , p. 14 ff.
  4. ↑ ORF : Truman Capotes Asche auctioned for 40,000 euros , 25 September 2016.
  5. ↑ Contents: Breakfast at Tiffany's. - House of flowers. - A diamond guitar. - A christmas memory.
  6. ↑ House of Flowers is the template for the musical of the same name: Music by Harold Arlen , first performance 1955, Revival 1968.
  7. ↑ Contents: Breakfast at Tiffany's. - The flower house. - The diamond guitar. - A Christmas memory.
  8. ↑ Contents: A Christmas memory. - Chrysanthemums are like lions. - The silver jug. - Children's birthday.
  9. ↑ The Most Ingenious Boy in America. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung from November 29, 2015, page 67, ( registration required and free of charge ), beginning of the article .
  10. ↑ This unfinished novel was only found in manuscript in 2004.
  11. ↑ Contents: Walls are cold. - A mink of one's own. - The shape of things. - Jug of silver. - Miriam. - My side of the matter. - Preacher's legend. - A tree of night. - The headless hawk. - Shut a final door. - Children and the birthdays. - Master Misery. - The bargain. - A diamond guitar. - House of flowers. - A christmas memory. - Among the paths of Eden. - The Thanksgiving visitor. - Mojave. - One christmas.
  12. ↑ Contents: Tree of the Night. - Miriam. - The silver jug. - How I see things. - Without a goal. - A Christmas memory. - Close the last door. - Children's birthday. - Master Misery. - The diamond guitar. - The flower house. - Breakfast at Tiffany's. - House on the heights. - All the ways to Eden.
  13. ^ Members: Truman Capote. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 20, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Capote, Truman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Persons, Truman Streckfus (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH New Orleans
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 1984
Place of death los Angeles