Gore Vidal facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Gore Vidal
Vidal c. 1948
Born	Eugene Louis Vidal (1925-10-03)October 3, 1925 West Point, New York, U.S.
Died	July 31, 2012(2012-07-31) (aged 86) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Rock Creek Cemetery
Other names	Eugene Luther Vidal Jr.
Education	Phillips Exeter Academy
Occupation	Writer novelist essayist playwright screenwriter actor
Known for	The City and the Pillar (1948) Julian (1964) Myra Breckinridge (1968) Burr (1973) Lincoln (1984)
Political party	Democratic People's (affiliated non-member)
Movement	Postmodernism
Partner(s)	See list Anaïs Nin (1944–1948) Diana Lynn (1949–1950) Joanne Woodward (1950–1951) Howard Austen (1951–2003)
Parent(s)	Eugene Luther Vidal Nina S. Gore
Relatives	See list Thomas Gore (grandfather) Nina Auchincloss (half-sister) Hugh Steers (half-nephew) Burr Steers (half-nephew) Jimmy Carter (fifth cousin)
Chairman of the People's Party
In office November 27, 1970 – November 7, 1972
Military career
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1943–1946
Rank	Warrant officer
Battles/wars	World War II

Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer.

Early life

Vidal was the only child of Eugene Luther Vidal (1895–1969) and Nina S. Gore (1903–1978). His father, Eugene Luther Vidal Sr., was director (1933–1937) of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Air Commerce during the Roosevelt Administration, and was also the great love of the aviator Amelia Earhart. In the 1920s and the 1930s, Vidal Sr. was a founder or executive of three airline companies: the Ludington Line (later Eastern Airlines), Transcontinental Air Transport (later Trans World Airlines), and Northeast Airlines. Vidal's parents divorced in 1935.

Raised in Washington, D.C., Vidal attended the Sidwell Friends School and St. Albans School. Given the blindness of his maternal grandfather, Senator Thomas Pryor Gore, of Oklahoma, Vidal read aloud to him, and was his Senate page, and his seeing-eye guide. In 1940 he attended the Los Alamos Ranch School and later transferred to Phillips Exeter Academy, in Exeter, New Hampshire, where he contributed to the Exonian, the school newspaper.

Rather than attend university, Vidal enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 17 and was assigned to work as an office clerk in the USAAF. Later, Vidal passed the examinations necessary to become a maritime warrant officer (junior grade) in the Transportation Corps, and subsequently served as first mate of the F.S. 35th, a US Army Freight and Supply (FS) ship berthed at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. After three years in service, Vidal suffered hypothermia, developed rheumatoid arthritis and, consequently, was reassigned to duty as a mess officer.

Literary career

Vidal at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, 2008

Vidal's literary career began with the success of the military novel Williwaw, a men-at-war story derived from his Alaskan Harbor Detachment duty during the Second World War.

Vidal took the pseudonym "Edgar Box" and wrote several mystery novels. The Edgar Box genre novels sold well and earned Vidal a secret living. That mystery-novel success led Vidal to write in other genres, where he produced the stage play The Best Man: A Play about Politics (1960) and the television play Visit to a Small Planet (1957). Two early teleplays were A Sense of Justice (1955) and Honor. He also wrote the pulp novel Thieves Fall Out under the pseudonym Cameron Kay.

In the 1960s, Vidal published Julian (1964), about the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate (r. A.D. 361–363); Washington, D.C. (1967), about political life during the presidential era of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945); and Myra Breckinridge (1968), a satire of the American movie business.

After publishing the plays Weekend (1968) and An Evening With Richard Nixon (1972) and the novel Two Sisters: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir (1970), Vidal concentrated upon the essay and developed two types of fiction. The first type is about American history, novels specifically about the nature of national politics. The second type of fiction is the topical satire.

In the United States, however, Vidal is often considered an essayist rather than a novelist. In 1993, Vidal won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for the anthology United States: Essays 1952–92 (1993).

In 2000, Vidal published the collection of essays The Last Empire. Vidal also wrote a historical essay about the Founding Fathers, Inventing a Nation. In 1995, he published a memoir, Palimpsest, and in 2006 its follow-up volume, Point to Point Navigation. Earlier that year, Vidal had published Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories.

In 2009, Vidal won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation, which called him a "prominent social critic on politics, history, literature and culture".

In the same year, the Man of Letters Gore Vidal was named honorary president of the American Humanist Association.

Hollywood

In 1956, MGM hired Vidal as a screenwriter with a four-year employment contract.

Two plays, The Best Man: A Play about Politics (1960, made into a film in 1964) and Visit to a Small Planet (1955), were theater and movie successes.

In the 1960s, Vidal migrated to Italy, where he befriended the film director Federico Fellini, for whom he appeared in a cameo role in the film Roma (1972). He also appeared in the American television series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and in the films Bob Roberts (1992), With Honors (1994), Gattaca (1997), and Igby Goes Down (2002).

Politics

Beyond literature, Vidal was heavily involved in politics. He unsuccessfully sought office twice as a Democratic Party candidate, first in 1960 to the U.S. House of Representatives (for New York), and later in 1982 to the U.S. Senate (for California).

Personal life

In 1950, Vidal met Howard Austen, who became his partner for the next 53 years, until Austen's death.

In the course of his life, Vidal lived at various times in Italy and in the United States.

Death

The grave of Gore Vidal in Rock Creek Cemetery.

On July 31, 2012, Vidal died of pneumonia at his home in the Hollywood Hills at the age of 86. He was buried next to Howard Austen in Rock Creek Cemetery, in Washington, D.C. Upon his death, Vidal bequeathed the entirety of his estate, valued at $37 million, to Harvard University.

Selected list of works

• The City and the Pillar (1948)
• The Best Man (1960)
• Julian (1964)
• Myra Breckinridge (1968)
• Burr (1973)
• Lincoln (1984)

Filmography

Images for kids

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  Vidal's historical novel 1876 (1976)

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  Vidal (second from right) supporting the 1981 Writers Guild of America strike

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  The feud between Vidal and Buckley (pictured) lasted until the latter's death in 2008.

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  Vidal as a young man

See also

In Spanish: Gore Vidal para niños