Capote

by Gerald Clarke

  page 542 “‘I think it’s criminal what you’re doing…’”: George McCormack, Jr., M.D, to GC, September 1, 1987.

  page 543 “‘Not only is he leaving…’”: Ibid.

  page 543 “‘Truman is just exactly the way he was…’”: John O’Shea to GC, August 22, 1984.

  page 543 “‘I think he came pretty close…’”: William Diefenbach, M.D. to GC, June 19, 1985.

  page 544 “‘It’s all over with Jack.’”: Joanne Carson to GC, October 11, 1987.

  CHAPTER 59

  Details on the exact circumstances of Truman’s death were provided by Joanne Carson.

  For background on Truman’s health and help in interpreting his autopsy report, I am indebted to several doctors who treated him: Harold Deutsch; William Diefenbach; George McCormack, Jr.; Bertram Newman.

  For further help in interpreting the autopsy, I am indebted to Dr. Marcus Reidenberg, professor of pharmacology and medicine at Manhattan’s Cornell University Medical College, and Dr. Ronald N. Kornblum, Chief Medical Examiner–Coroner of Los Angeles County, who was in charge of the autopsy. page 546 “‘It has been determined that he died…’”: Press release from the Department of Chief Medical Examiner–Coroner, County of Los Angeles, September 13, 1984.

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  Endnotes

  1 Paley denied that the rabbi’s visits were arranged behind his back and in fact claimed that he had set them up through the Jewish Theological Seminary.

  2 Paley denied that this episode ever took place.

  3 Many aphorisms have been falsely attributed to the Spanish saint, and this is apparently one of them. She did express similar sentiments, however, and Truman probably assumed that a paraphrase was a direct quotation.

  4 Mailer had good reason to call him a ballsy little guy. When he wrote that appraisal, he was still bruised from a television encounter with Truman in the winter of 1959. They had appeared, together with Dorothy Parker, on David Susskind’s program Open End, to talk about writers and writing. The Beat Generation came under review. Mailer defended it; Truman attacked it. “None of these people have anything interesting to say,” Truman declared, “and none of them can write, not even Mr. [Jack] Kerouac… [It] isn’t writing at all—it’s typing.” The phrase was to be attached to poor Kerouac for the rest of his life. No one recalled Mailer’s response. Instinctively, Truman had realized that what television audiences remember is not an argument, but the amusing and pithy phrase they can repeat to their friends the next morning.

  5 One of Truman’s characters relates how the composer lured the steward onto his living-room couch by claiming he needed advice on storing his wine. Every time Porter made an advance, such as squeezing his leg, the steward coolly named his price for allowing such a liberty. As the advances became bolder, so did the bill. When it reached two thousand dollars, Porter angrily wrote out a check and, quoting the lyrics of one of his most famous songs, said: “Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today. Now get out.”