‘A cult to hate Truman’: how Capote fell from New York’s high society

‘Truman comes off as a loathsome human being, a nasty old queen, which he wasn’t’ … Truman Capote dances with Wendy Vanderbilt (later Lehman). at his Black-and-White Ball in 1966. Photograph: Express Newspapers/Getty Images

Gerald Clarke still remembers the day he warned Truman Capote that dishing dirt on “the swans”, a coterie of elite New York socialites who adored him, was really not a very good idea.

“Truman took me swimming at Gloria Vanderbilt’s house in Southampton,” Clarke recalls in phone interview. “He gave me an advance copy of ‘La Côte Basque’, which I read on the side of the pool in a chair while he was on a raft in the middle of the pool. At the end of it I said, ‘You know, Truman, they’re not going to be happy with this,’ and he said, ‘Nah, they’re too dumb, they won’t know who they are.’”