Gore Vidal dies

He was an author, an educator, an essayist, a historian, a man of honor, a political activist, a playwright, a screenwriter, and a genuine American patriot. The last of a generation of great American writers, Gore Vidal, died on July 31, 2012, at the age of 86. To his friends and family, he was always kind, loyal, and generous. He spent his life learning and, as an educator, wanted to share this knowledge with the rest of the world. Always the realist, he bravely told the truth as he saw it, even when these words were not always welcome. We already miss him, not just for himself, but for what he was.

The Associated Press is reporting that the lights on Broadway will be dimmed Friday night to honor the memory of Gore Vidal, whose play “The Best Man” is in the midst of a successful run at the Schoenfield Theatre.

The AP reports that the “tribute was announced Wednesday by The Broadway League, whose executive director, Charlotte St. Martin, called Vidal’s work both ‘timely and timeless.’”

Marquee lights will dim for one minute at 8 p.m. EDT Friday.

Vidal loved America in the way that the best of the founders did. Indeed, he seemed at times, to be the last of their number — a fierce defender of the purest, most revolutionary of ideals at a time when the contemporary political class prattled on about Constitutional principles they neither understood nor valued. There was a time when a visit at his villa in Ravello was the literary equivalent of Lourdes. Those who could find a way would flock to Italy, where he lived with his companion Howard Auster, to find Vidal in his dressing gown launching ingenious insults like so many darts.

He was an astonishingly versatile man of letters and nearly the last major writer of the modern era to have served in World War II. Having resolved at age 20 to live by his pen, Vidal produced plays for television and Broadway, including the classic political drama “The Best Man”; helped script such movies as “Ben-Hur,” the 1959 epic starring Charlton Heston; and gained notoriety for the campy novel “Myra Breckinridge,” about a transsexual film enthusiast.  Asked by Robert Chalmers in 2008 if he had any regrets, he claimed to have nothing that he deeply regretted in life, but rejected the suggestion that this made him lucky.     

“Maybe,” he suggested, “I just played the game harder.”

Comments

[BlackRhino]

Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, I’m only old enough to know you as an adorable pastime. But you are highly respected.

[Mike Barer]

I remember Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley debating during during ABC's coverage of the National Conventions in 1968. They were much more colorful than the presidential candidates who were chosen by either party. I read that in the final debate, things got real personal.

[T-S]

They had a very elegant way of debating. It was fascinating to me. Vidal continued to be interesting - riveting really - up to the end.

[Hedge Fund Hal]

yes , it got personal. Vidal called Buckley a "crypto-Nazi", and Buckley told him to "listen, you little queer, quit calling me a crypto-Nazi, before I punch you in the nose." Dave Bose played the interchange on his show yesterday.

[Hedge Fund Hal]

The poet Ezra Pound also died in Italy, an American expatriate nost of his adult life. Look up his colorful anti-American, anti-Jew history, Famous quote, after being told he would be sent home from postwar Italy, where he was being kept in a six by six foot outdoor cell, to be incarcerated in an insane asylum- "America IS an insane asylum".

[KS]

I vaguely remember Vidal vs. Buckley but was too young to appreciate it. Later, I realized how far left and twisted Vidal really was and later remember that he got brazen and personal in his attacks.

Today, there must be something in the water as there are a good number of Gore Vidal types popping up out of the woodwork and some right here on this blog - you know who you are and a few have T-S'ed out of the woodwork. LMAO>

[The Mayor]

several work at City Hall

[Matthew B. Parker]

Thank you! You, apparently, and IMDb are the only ones who have covered this story. He was a great man and this is a terrible passing.