just announced - via LA Times -
Gore Vidal, the iconoclastic writer, savvy analyst and imperious gadfly on the national conscience, has died. He was 86.

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.”

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.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-01 07:13 by hbwriter.

And a Jagger picture to make the connection here
[www.telegraph.co.uk]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-01 08:16 by hbwriter.

"Burr Steers"? Really? Sounds like a character in a Gore Vidal novel.

RIP Gore ...

At one time there was a rumour that Mick Jagger was to make a film adaption of Vidal's Kalki....



ROCKMAN

It's such a loss because his completely unique perspective on the erosion of the constitution and mechinations of washington power structures is irreplaceable. There is no other Gore Vidal. At least Chomsky is still with us.

I love Gore Vidal's novels and am glad he made it to the age of 86. Read 'Myra Breckinridge' and especially the sequel, 'Myron', for comedy. Rest in Peace, Gore.

I don't wish him dead, but anyone who was a defender of Timothy McVeigh—as Vidal was—is pathetic.

As an illustration of the Rainbow Coalition you tend to know here in L.A., I was at the bar at Musso & Frank in Hollywood, celebrating my birthday a few years back with a small group of friends. For those of you who don't know Musso & Frank is the oldest restaurant in Hollywood, built 1919. The bar is famous for literary figures like Fitzgerald and Hemingway drinking there.

This particular night, like a dream, Gore Vidal walks in through the back entrance. A literary giant, alive, in my midst. I turned to my friends and told them excitedly, "That's Gore Vidal." I got some blank looks until I looked at my entourage and realized it consisted of two Indians, a Lithuanian, an Iranian, a Korean, and a Puerto Rican. Sigh. RIP Mr. Vidal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-01 18:53 by 24FPS.

"I got some blank looks until I looked at my entourage and realized it consisted of two Indians, a Lithuanian, an Iranian, a Korean, and a Puerto Rican. Sigh"

Believe me it could have worked too with "two Texans, one guy from South Caroline, one from Nebraska, one from Maine, and a New-Yorker. Sigh"

The latest I read from Vidal was his intro to the deliciously naughty book from Scotty Bowers...

Farewell you'll be missed Mr Vidal! Who's next? Tom Wolfe?

I read Lincoln and thought it was brilliant.

I must read Julian.

RIP.

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Title5Take1
I don't wish him dead, but anyone who was a defender of Timothy McVeigh—as Vidal was—is pathetic.

I read that essay, and he wasn't in favor of what McVeigh did (he endorsed Gretta Van Susteran's observation of "two wrongs don't make a right" ), he simply portrayed him has someone who wasn't necessarily a "monster" and who was motivated by what he was motivated by. We're quick to assign the "monster" label without making efforts to actually understand why people do what they do. That being said, I'm glad the bastard got the death penalty.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-01 16:01 by Send It To me.

He had a fantastic accent....almost Patrick Stewart like

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Send It To me

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Title5Take1
I don't wish him dead, but anyone who was a defender of Timothy McVeigh—as Vidal was—is pathetic.

I read that essay, and he wasn't in favor of what McVeigh did (he endorsed Gretta Van Susteran's observation of "two wrongs don't make a right" ), he simply portrayed him has someone who wasn't necessarily a "monster" and who was motivated by what he was motivated by. We're quick to assign the "monster" label without making efforts to actually understand why people do what they do. That being said, I'm glad the bastard got the death penalty.

Yes, similar to Mailer's take on Oswald. Not an apology, but a look into a 'monster's' humanity.
Vidal was one of the last great intellectuals.

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stupidguy2

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Send It To me

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Title5Take1
I don't wish him dead, but anyone who was a defender of Timothy McVeigh—as Vidal was—is pathetic.

I read that essay, and he wasn't in favor of what McVeigh did (he endorsed Gretta Van Susteran's observation of "two wrongs don't make a right" ), he simply portrayed him has someone who wasn't necessarily a "monster" and who was motivated by what he was motivated by. We're quick to assign the "monster" label without making efforts to actually understand why people do what they do. That being said, I'm glad the bastard got the death penalty.

Yes, similar to Mailer's take on Oswald. Not an apology, but a look into a 'monster's' humanity.
Vidal was one of the last great intellectuals.

At least, unlike Mailer, he didn't get a murderer out of jail so that he could kill again

This is probably the one interesting thing Gore Vidal has said in the last 50 years. Not that he was right, but that it was at least interesting.

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stupidguy2

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Send It To me

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Title5Take1
I don't wish him dead, but anyone who was a defender of Timothy McVeigh—as Vidal was—is pathetic.

I read that essay, and he wasn't in favor of what McVeigh did (he endorsed Gretta Van Susteran's observation of "two wrongs don't make a right" ), he simply portrayed him has someone who wasn't necessarily a "monster" and who was motivated by what he was motivated by. We're quick to assign the "monster" label without making efforts to actually understand why people do what they do. That being said, I'm glad the bastard got the death penalty.

Yes, similar to Mailer's take on Oswald. Not an apology, but a look into a 'monster's' humanity.
Vidal was one of the last great intellectuals.

Yeah, except Oswald didn't actually kill anyone.

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Send It To me
Yeah, except Oswald didn't actually kill anyone.

Certainly not JFK with that rifle anyway.

Vidal celebrated the killing of American soldiers by the Viet Cong Communists.

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mitchflorida1
Vidal celebrated the killing of American soldiers by the Viet Cong Communists.

if you say so, never heard about that. did he have a party or something?

paint it - black

Can you imagine William F. Buckley actually trying to plaster Gore Vidal? Let the slapping and pushing begin between those two masculine giants.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-01 18:58 by 24FPS.

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GravityBoy

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Send It To me
Yeah, except Oswald didn't actually kill anyone.

Certainly not JFK with that rifle anyway.

Can Open. Worms everywhere.

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Munichhilton

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GravityBoy

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Send It To me
Yeah, except Oswald didn't actually kill anyone.

Certainly not JFK with that rifle anyway.

Can Open. Worms everywhere.

Urm... JFK assassination... it's one of my pet obsessions.

A great author whose essays I enjoyed even more than his fine works of fiction yet sometimes his rhetoric went out on a limb and away from any known facts, or 'agreed upon facts.'

Your definition of "great" and mine are quite a bit different.

Gore Vidal tried to take credit for writing the screenplay for Ben-Hur but was actually thrown out on his ass when he tried to portray Ben-Hur as being gay.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-08-01 21:25 by mitchflorida1.

A great writer, intellectual, and provocateur. His essays are among the best ever written.

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mitchflorida1
Your definition of "great" and mine are quite a bit different.

Gore Vidal tried to take credit for writing the screenplay for Ben-Hur but was actually thrown out on his ass when he tried to portray Ben-Hur as being gay.

I think you're getting Ben-Hur and Ben-Gay mixed up.

Actually, he did work on the Ben-Hur screen play but was denied any credit. This happens all the time.

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treaclefingers

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mitchflorida1
Your definition of "great" and mine are quite a bit different.

Gore Vidal tried to take credit for writing the screenplay for Ben-Hur but was actually thrown out on his ass when he tried to portray Ben-Hur as being gay.

I think you're getting Ben-Hur and Ben-Gay mixed up.

ha ha ha ha ha ah ha

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gimmelittledrink
A great writer, intellectual, and provocateur. His essays are among the best ever written.

As an intellectual, Gore Vidal is right up there with Michael Moore . .

Mitch, you are one dumb shit. But as Gore Vidal once said, 'even shit has it's own integrity'.