Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( ; born Eugene Louis Vidal , October 3 , 1925 – July 31 , 2012 ) was an American writer known for his essays , novels , screenplays , and Broadway plays . As a well - known public intellectual , he was known for his patrician manner and witty aphorism s . Vidal ' s grandfather was the U . S . Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma . A lifelong Democrat , Gore ran for political office twice and was a seasoned political commentator . As well - known for his essays as his novels , Vidal wrote for " The Nation " , " New Statesman " , the " New York Review of Books " and " Esquire " . Vidal ' s major subject was America , and through his essays and media appearances he was a longtime critic of American foreign policy . He developed this into a portrayal of the United States as a decaying empire from the 1980s onwards . He was also known for well - publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer , William F . Buckley , Jr . and Truman Capote . His most widely regarded social novel was " Myra Breckinridge " ; his best known historical novels included " Julian " , " Burr " , and " Lincoln " . His third novel , " The City and the Pillar " ( 1948 ) , outraged conservative critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality . Vidal rejected the terms of " homosexual " and " heterosexual " as inherently false , claiming that the vast majority of individuals had the potential to be pansexual . His screenwriting credits include the epic historical drama " Ben - Hur " ( 1959 ) , in which he claimed to have added a " gay subplot . " " Ben - Hur " won the Academy Award for Best Picture . At the time of his death , he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II , including J . D . Salinger , Kurt Vonnegut , Norman Mailer , and Joseph Heller . Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit , he has been described as the 20th century ' s answer to Oscar Wilde . Life and career . Early life . Vidal was born Eugene Louis Vidal in West Point , New York , the only child of Eugene Luther Vidal ( 1895 – 1969 ) and Nina Gore ( 1903 – 1978 ) . The middle name , Louis , was a mistake on the part of his father , " who could not remember for certain whether his own name was Eugene Louis or Eugene Luther . " As Vidal explained in his memoir " Palimpsest " ( Deutsch , 1995 ) , " . . . my birth certificate says ' Eugene Louis Vidal ' : this was changed to Eugene Luther Vidal , Jr . ; then Gore was added at my christening [ in 1939 ] ; then at fourteen I got rid of the first two names . " Vidal was born in the Cadet Hospital of the United States Military Academy ( West Point ) , where his father , a first lieutenant , was the first aeronautics instructor . According to " Conversations with Gore Vidal " , the future writer was not baptised until January 1939 , at age 13 , by the headmaster of St . Albans , where Vidal was attending preparatory school . The ceremony took place so Vidal " could be confirmed [ into the Episcopal faith ] at the Washington Cathedral in February [ 1939 ] as Eugene Luther Gore Vidal . " He later stated that although Gore was added to his names at the time of the baptism , " I wasn ' t named for him , although he had a great influence on my life . " In 1941 , Vidal dropped both of his first two names , saying that he " wanted a sharp , distinctive name , appropriate for an aspiring author or national political leader . ' I wasn ' t going to write as Gene since there was already one . I didn ' t want to use the Jr . ' " Vidal ' s father served as director of the Commerce Department ' s Bureau of Air Commerce ( 1933 – 1937 ) in the Roosevelt administration , was one of the first Army Air Corps pilots and , according to biographer Susan Butler , was the great love of Amelia Earhart ' s life . In the 1920s and 1930s , he was a co - founder of three American airlines : the Ludington Line , which merged with others and became Eastern Airlines , Transcontinental Air Transport ( TAT ) , which became TWA ) , and Northeast Airlines , which he founded with Earhart , as well as the Boston and Maine Railroad . The elder Vidal had also been a West Point football quarterback , coach , and captain and an all - American basketball player . He also participated in the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics ( seventh in the decathlon ; U . S . pentathlon team coach ) . Vidal ' s mother was a society figure who made her Broadway debut as an extra in " Sign of the Leopard " in 1928 . She married Eugene Luther Vidal , Sr . in 1922 and divorced him in 1935 . Two more marriages followed ( one to Hugh D . Auchincloss , later the stepfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis ) , and , according to her son , she had " a long off - and - on affair " with actor Clark Gable . As Nina Auchincloss , she was an alternate delegate to the 1940 Democratic National Convention . Vidal had four half - siblings from his parents ' later marriages ( Vance Vidal , Valerie Vidal , Thomas Gore Auchincloss , and Nina Gore Auchincloss ) and four stepbrothers from his mother ' s third marriage to Army Air Forces Major General Robert Olds , who died in 1943 , ten months after marrying Vidal ' s mother . Vidal ' s nephews include the brothers Burr Steers , writer and film director , and painter Hugh Auchincloss Steers ( 1963 – 1995 ) . Vidal was raised in Washington , D . C . , where he attended Sidwell Friends School and then St . Albans School . Since Senator Gore was blind , his grandson read aloud to him and was often his guide . The senator ' s isolationism contributed a major principle of his grandson ' s political philosophy , which is critical of foreign and domestic policies shaped by American imperialism . Gore attended St . Albans in 1939 , but left to study in France . He returned following the outbreak of World War II and studied at the Los Alamos Ranch School in 1940 , later transferring to Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter , New Hampshire . Roy Hattersley writes , " for reasons he never explained , he did not go on to Harvard , Yale or Princeton with other members of his social class . " Instead , Vidal enlisted in the US Army . He became a warrant officer , serving as first mate on the F . S . 35th , which was berthed at the Dutch Harbor . After three years , he contracted hypothermia , developed rheumatoid arthritis and became a mess officer . Writing career . Fiction . Vidal , whom a " Newsweek " critic called " the best all - around American man of letters since Edmund Wilson , " began his writing career in 1946 , aged twenty - one , with the publication of the military novel " Williwaw " , based upon his Alaskan Harbor Detachment duty . The novel was about World War II and proved a success for Vidal . Published two years later in 1948 , " The City and the Pillar " caused a furor for its dispassionate presentation of homosexuality . The novel was dedicated to " J . T . " Decades later , after a magazine published rumors about J . T . ' s identity , Vidal confirmed they were the initials of his alleged St . Albans - era love , James " Jimmy " Trimble III , killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima on March 1 , 1945 ; Vidal later said that Trimble was the only person he had ever loved . According to Vidal , Orville Prescott , the book critic for the " New York Times " , found " The City and the Pillar " so objectionable that he refused to review or allow the " Times " to review Vidal ' s next five books . In response , Vidal wrote several mystery novels in the early 1950s under the pseudonym Edgar Box . Featuring public relations man Peter Cutler Sargeant II , their success financed Vidal for more than a decade . He wrote plays , films , and television series . Two plays , " The Best Man " ( 1960 ) and " Visit to a Small Planet ( 1955 ) , " were both Broadway and film successes . Two early television plays were " A Sense of Justice " ( 1955 ) and " Honor " . In the 1960s , Vidal wrote three novels . The first , " Julian " ( 1964 ) dealt with the apostate Roman emperor , while the second , " Washington , D . C . " ( 1967 ) focused on a political family during the Franklin D . Roosevelt era . The third was the satirical transsexual comedy " Myra Breckinridge " ( 1968 ) , a variation on Vidal ' s familiar themes of sex , gender , and popular culture . In the novel , Vidal showcased his love of the American films of the ' 30s and ' 40s , and he resurrected interest in the careers of the forgotten players of the time including , for example , that of the late Richard Cromwell , who , he wrote , " was so satisfyingly tortured in " The Lives of a Bengal Lancer " . " After the staging of the plays " Weekend " ( 1968 ) and " An Evening With Richard Nixon " ( 1972 ) , and the publication of the novel " Two Sisters : A Novel in the Form of a Memoir " ( 1970 ) , Vidal focused on essays and two distinct themes in his fiction . The first strain comprises novels dealing with American history , specifically with the nature of national politics . Critic Harold Bloom wrote , " Vidal ' s imagination of American politics . . . is so powerful as to compel awe . " Titles in this series , the Narratives of Empire , include " Burr " ( 1973 ) , " 1876 " ( 1976 ) , " Lincoln " ( 1984 ) , " Empire " ( 1987 ) , " Hollywood " ( 1990 ) , " The Golden Age " ( 2000 ) . Another title devoted to the ancient world , " Creation " , appeared in 1981 and then in expanded form in 2002 . The second strain consists of the comedic " satirical inventions " : " Myron " ( 1974 , a sequel to " Myra Breckinridge " ) , " Kalki " ( 1978 ) , " Duluth " ( 1983 ) , " " ( 1992 ) , and " The Smithsonian Institution " ( 1998 ) . Screenplays . In 1956 , Vidal was hired as a contract screenwriter for Metro Goldwyn Mayer . In 1959 , director William Wyler needed script doctor s to re - write the script for " Ben - Hur " , originally written by Karl Tunberg . Vidal collaborated with Christopher Fry , reworking the screenplay on condition that MGM release him from the last two years of his contract . Producer Sam Zimbalist ' s death complicated the screenwriting credit . The Screen Writers Guild resolved the matter by listing Tunberg as sole screenwriter , denying credit to both Vidal and Fry . This decision was based on the WGA screenwriting credit system , which favors original authors . Vidal later claimed in the documentary film " The Celluloid Closet " that to explain the animosity between Ben - Hur and Messala , he had inserted a gay subtext suggesting that the two had had a prior relationship , but that actor Charlton Heston was oblivious . Heston denied that Vidal contributed significantly to the script . Vidal accused Heston of being a compulsive liar and a bad actor . Two plays , " The Best Man " ( 1960 ) and " Visit to a Small Planet ( 1955 ) , " were both Broadway and film successes . Vidal occasionally returned to writing for film and television , including the television movie " Gore Vidal ' s Billy the Kid " with Val Kilmer and the mini - series " Lincoln " . He also wrote the original draft for the controversial film " Caligula " , but later had his name removed when director Tinto Brass and actor Malcolm McDowell rewrote the script , changing the tone and themes significantly . The producers later made an attempt to salvage some of Vidal ' s vision in the film ' s post - production . Essays and memoirs . Vidal is — at least in the United States — respected more for his essays than his novels . Even an occasionally hostile critic like Martin Amis admitted , " Essays are what he is good at . . . [ h ] e is learned , funny and exceptionally clear - sighted . Even his blind spots are illuminating . " For six decades , Gore Vidal applied himself to a wide variety of sociopolitical , sexual , historical and literary themes . In 1987 , Vidal wrote the essays titled Armageddon ? , exploring the intricacies of power in contemporary America . He pilloried the incumbent president Ronald Reagan as a " triumph of the embalmer ' s art . " In 1993 , he won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for the collection " United States : Essays 1952 – 1992 " . According to the citation , " Whatever his subject , he addresses it with an artist ' s resonant appreciation , a scholar ' s conscience and the persuasive powers of a great essayist . " A subsequent collection of essays , published in 2000 , is " The Last Empire " . He subsequently published such self - described " pamphlets " as " Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace " , " Dreaming War : Blood for Oil and the Cheney - Bush Junta " , and " Imperial America " , critiques of American expansionism , the military - industrial complex , the national security state and the George W . Bush administration . Vidal also wrote a historical essay about the U . S . ' s 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 also published " . " Because of his matter - of - fact treatment of same - sex relations in such books as " The City and The Pillar " , Vidal is often seen as an early champion of sexual liberation . In the September 1969 edition of " Esquire " , for example , Vidal wrote : In 1995 , Jay Parini was appointed as Vidal ' s literary executor . In 2009 , he won the annual 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 . " Acting and popular culture . In the 1960s , Vidal moved to Italy ; he gave a cameo appearance in Federico Fellini ' s film " Roma " . In 1992 , Vidal appeared in the film " Bob Roberts " ( starring Tim Robbins ) and appeared in other films , notably " Gattaca " , " With Honors " , and " Igby Goes Down " , which was directed by his nephew Burr Steers . In 2005 he appeared as himself in artist , Francesco Vezzoli ' s " Trailer for the Remake of Gore Vidal ' s Caligula " piece of video art , which was included in the 2005 Venice Biennale and is in the permanent collection of the Guggenheim Museum . Vidal voiced himself on both " The Simpsons " and " Family Guy " and appeared on the " Da Ali G Show " , where Ali G mistakes him for Vidal Sassoon . He provided the narrative for the Royal National Theatre ' s production of Brecht ' s " Mother Courage " in the autumn of 2009 . Vidal was portrayed as a child in " Amelia " ( 2009 ) by Canadian actor William Cuddy , and as a young adult in " Infamous " ( 2006 ) , the story of Truman Capote , by American actor Michael Panes . Comedian Robin Williams depicted him as a drunk trying to push Thunderbird wine in a commercial on his first stand - up album , " Reality . . . What a Concept . " The weekly American sketch comedy television program Rowan & Martin ' s Laugh - in did a recurring theme covertly featuring his personality by Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the Telephone Operator , such as one titled : " Mr . Veedul , this is the Phone Company calling ! ( snort ! snort ! ) " ( but other citations are spelled as ; " Veedle " ) . This skit theme was also recorded other places such as Tomlin ' s album " This Is a Recording " titled " Mr . Veedle " by Rhapsody Records . Political views and activities . Besides his politician grandfather , Vidal had other connections with the Democratic Party : his mother , Nina , married Hugh D . Auchincloss , Jr . , who later was stepfather of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy . Gore Vidal is a fifth cousin of Jimmy Carter . Vidal also may have been a distant cousin of Al Gore . In 1960 , Gore Vidal was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress , losing an election in New York ' s 29th congressional district , a traditionally Republican district on the Hudson River , encompassing all of Columbia , Dutchess , Greene , Schoharie , and Ulster Counties to J . Ernest Wharton , by a margin of 57 % to 43 % . Campaigning with a slogan of " You ' ll get more with Gore " , he received the most votes any Democrat in 50 years received in that district . Among his supporters were Eleanor Roosevelt , Paul Newman , and Joanne Woodward ; the latter two , longtime friends of Vidal ' s , campaigned for him and spoke on his behalf . On the December 15 , 1971 taping of " The Dick Cavett Show " , with Janet Flanner , Norman Mailer allegedly head - butted Vidal during an altercation prior to their appearance on the show . Asked by a journalist what comment he had about Mailer ' s head - butting him backstage , Gore dead - panned , " Once again , words failed Norman Mailer . " During the taping of the show , there was a legendary on - camera feud between Vidal and Mailer over what Vidal had written about the latter , prompting Mailer to say : " I ' ve had to smell your works from time to time . " Mailer was apparently irate at Vidal ' s concealed reference to an incident where Mailer had stabbed his wife . From 1970 to 1972 , Vidal was one of the chairmen of the People ' s Party . In 1971 , he wrote an article in " Esquire " advocating consumer advocate Ralph Nader for president in the 1972 election . In 1982 , he campaigned against incumbent Governor Jerry Brown for the Democratic primary election to the United States Senate from California . Vidal prophetically announced that their Republican opponent would take the race . This was documented in the film " " directed by Gary Conklin . Vidal ' s favorite U . S . politician during his lifetime was populist Louisiana Governor Huey Long . Frequently identified with Democratic causes and personalities , Vidal wrote in the 1970s : Despite this , Vidal said " I think of myself as a conservative . " Vidal had a protective , almost proprietary attitude toward his native land and its politics : " My family helped start [ this country ] " , he wrote , " and we ' ve been in political life . . . since the 1690s , and I have a very possessive sense about this country . " At a 1999 lecture in Dublin , Vidal said : He suggested that President Roosevelt deliberately provoked the Japan ese to attack the United States at Pearl Harbor to facilitate American entry to the war , and believed FDR had advance knowledge of the attack . During an interview in the 2005 documentary " Why We Fight " , Vidal asserts that during the final months of World War II , the Japanese had tried to surrender to the United States , to no avail . He said , " They were trying to surrender all that summer , but Truman wouldn ' t listen , because Truman wanted to drop the bombs . " When the interviewer asked why , Vidal replied , " To show off . To frighten Stalin . To change the balance of power in the world . To declare war on communism . Perhaps we were starting a pre - emptive world war . " During domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh ' s imprisonment , Vidal corresponded with McVeigh and concluded that he bombed the federal building as retribution for the FBI ' s role in the 1993 Branch Davidian Compound massacre near Waco in Elk , Texas . Vidal was a member of the advisory board of The World Can ' t Wait , a left - wing organization seeking to repudiate the Bush administration ' s program , and advocated the impeachment of George W . Bush for war crime s . In 1997 , Vidal was one of 34 celebrities to sign an open letter to then - German Chancellor Helmut Kohl , published as a newspaper advertisement in the " International Herald Tribune " , which protested the treatment of Scientologists in Germany . Despite this , Vidal was fundamentally critical of Scientology . Vidal contributed an article to " The Nation " in which he expressed support for Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich , citing him as " the most eloquent of the lot " and that Kucinich " is very much a favorite out there in the amber fields of grain " . In April 2009 , Vidal accepted appointment to the position of honorary president of the American Humanist Association , succeeding Kurt Vonnegut . On September 30 , 2009 , British newspaper " The Times " published a lengthy interview with him headlined " We ’ ll have a dictatorship soon in the US — The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘ rotting away ’ — and don ’ t expect Barack Obama to save it , " which updates his views on his own life , and a variety of political subjects . Vidal versus Buckley . In 1968 , ABC News invited Vidal and William F . Buckley , Jr . to be political analysts of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions . Verbal and nearly physical combat ensued . After days of mutual bickering , their debates degraded to vitriolic , " ad hominem " attacks . During discussions of the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests , the men were arguing about freedom of speech with regard to American protesters displaying a Viet Cong flag when Vidal told Buckley to " shut up a minute " , after Buckley had interrupted him , and , in response to Buckley ' s reference to " pro - Nazi " protesters , went on to say : " As far as I ' m concerned , the only sort of pro - crypto - Nazi I can think of is yourself . " The visibly livid Buckley replied , " Now listen , you queer . Stop calling me a crypto - Nazi , or I ' ll sock you in the goddamn face and you ' ll stay plastered . " After an interruption by anchor and facilitator Howard K . Smith , the men continued to discuss the topic in a less hostile manner . Buckley later expressed regret for having called Vidal a " queer , " but nonetheless described Vidal as an " evangelist for bisexuality . " Later , in 1969 , the feud was continued as Buckley further attacked Vidal in the lengthy essay , " On Experiencing Gore Vidal " , published in the August 1969 issue of " Esquire " . The essay is collected in " The Governor Listeth " , an anthology of Buckley ' s writings of the time . In a key passage attacking Vidal as an apologist for homosexuality , Buckley wrote , " The man who in his essays proclaims the normalcy of his affliction [ i . e . , homosexuality ] , and in his art the desirability of it , is not to be confused with the man who bears his sorrow quietly . The addict is to be pitied and even respected , not the pusher . " Vidal responded in the September 1969 issue of " Esquire " , variously characterizing Buckley as " anti - black " , " anti - semitic " , and a " warmonger " . The presiding judge in Buckley ' s subsequent libel suit against Vidal initially concluded that " [ t ] he court must conclude that Vidal ' s comments in these paragraphs meet the minimal standard of fair comment . The inferences made by Vidal from Buckley ' s [ earlier editorial ] statements cannot be said to be completely unreasonable . " However , Vidal also strongly implied that , in 1944 , Buckley and unnamed siblings had vandalized a Protestant church in their Sharon , Connecticut , hometown after the pastor ' s wife had sold a house to a Jewish family . Buckley sued Vidal and " Esquire " for libel . Vidal counter - claimed for libel against Buckley , citing Buckley ' s characterization of Vidal ' s novel " Myra Breckinridge " as pornography . The court dismissed Vidal ' s counter - claim . Buckley settled for $ 115 , 000 in attorney ' s fees and an editorial statement from " Esquire " magazine that they were " utterly convinced " of the untruthfulness of Vidal ' s assertion . However , in a letter to " Newsweek " , the " Esquire " publisher stated that " the settlement of Buckley ' s suit against us " was not " a ' disavowal ' of Vidal ' s article . On the contrary , it clearly states that we published that article because we believed that Vidal had a right to assert his opinions , even though we did not share them . " As Vidal ' s biographer , Fred Kaplan , later commented , " The court had ' not ' sustained Buckley ' s case against " Esquire " . . . [ t ] he court had ' not ' ruled that Vidal ' s article was ' defamatory . ' It had ruled that the case would have to go to trial " in order to determine as a matter of fact whether or not it was defamatory . " [ italics original . ] The cash value of the settlement with " Esquire " represented ' only ' Buckley ' s legal expenses [ not damages based on libel ] . . . " Ultimately , Vidal bore the cost of his own attorney ' s fees . In 2003 , this affair re - surfaced when " Esquire " published " Esquire ' s Big Book of Great Writing " , an anthology that included Vidal ' s essay . Buckley again sued for libel , and " Esquire " again settled for $ 55 , 000 in attorney ' s fees and $ 10 , 000 in personal damages to Buckley . After Buckley ' s death on February 27 , 2008 , Vidal summed up his impressions of his rival with the following obituary on March 20 , 2008 : " RIP WFB — in hell . " In a June 15 , 2008 , interview with the " New York Times " , Vidal was asked by Deborah Solomon , " How did you feel when you heard that Buckley died this year ? " Vidal responded : Criticism of the George W . Bush administration . Vidal was strongly critical of the George W . Bush administration , once describing Bush as " the stupidest man in the United States " and listing his administration as one of those he considered to have either an explicit or implicit expansionist agenda . He also subscribed to the view that for several years the Bush administration and their associates aimed to control the petroleum of Central Asia ( after gaining effective control of the petroleum of the Persian Gulf in 1991 ) . In May 2007 , discussing the many conspiracy theories surrounding the September 11 , 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington , Vidal said : Personal life . Vidal had affairs with both men and women . The novelist Anaïs Nin claimed an involvement with Vidal in her memoir " The Diary of Anaïs Nin " but Vidal denied it in his memoir " Palimpsest " . Vidal also discussed having dalliances with people such as actress Diana Lynn , and alluded to the possibility that he may have a daughter . He was briefly engaged to Joanne Woodward , before she married Paul Newman ; after eloping , the couple shared a house with Vidal in Los Angeles for a short time . In 1950 , he met his long - term partner Howard Austen . Vidal once reported that the secret to his lengthy relationship with Austen was that they did not have sex with each other : " It ' s easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part and impossible , I have observed , when it does . " In 1995 , Vidal told The Advocate ' s Judy Wieder that he refused to call himself gay because he was not an adjective . " To be categorized is , simply , to be enslaved . Watch out . I have never thought of myself as a victim . " Later in the interview , Vidal concedes , " I ' ve said — a thousand times ? — in print and on TV that everyone is bisexual . " According to literary critic Harold Bloom , Vidal believed his sexuality had denied him the full recognition of the literary community . Bloom , meanwhile , claimed this had more to do with Vidal ' s association with the unfashionable genre of historical fiction . Vidal was an atheist , and humanist , and in 2009 was named honorary president of the American Humanist Association . During the latter part of the twentieth century Vidal divided his time between Italy and California . In 2003 , he sold his 5 , 000 - square - foot ( 460 m² ) Italian Villa , " La Rondinaia " ( The Swallow ' s Nest ) on the Amalfi Coast , and moved to Los Angeles . Austen died in November 2003 and , in February 2005 , was buried in a plot for himself and Vidal at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington , D . C . Vidal died at his home in Hollywood Hills , California , at about 6 : 45 p . m . PDT July 31 , 2012 , of complications from pneumonia . He was 86 . On September 27 , 2013 , screenwriter and author Kim Krizan published an article on The Huffington Post revealing she had found a previously unpublished love letter written by Vidal to the diarist Anaïs Nin . This letter contradicts Vidal ' s previous characterization of his relationship with Nin , showing that Vidal did have feelings for Nin that he later heavily disavowed in his autobiography , " Palimpsest " . Krizan did this research in the run up to the release of the latest volume of Anaïs Nin ' s uncensored diary , Mirages , for which Krizan provided the foreword . Legacy . After Vidal ' s death , tributes immediately poured in from various media sources . " The New York Times " described him in his obituary as being in his old age " an Augustan figure who believed himself to be the last of a breed , and he was probably right . Few American writers have been more versatile or gotten more mileage from their talent . " " The Los Angeles Times " described him as a " literary juggernaut " whose novels and essays were considered " among the most elegant in the English language " . " The Washington Post " remembered him as a " major writer of the modern era " and an " astonishingly versatile man of letters " . In the UK " The Guardian " said " Vidal ' s critics disparaged his tendency to formulate an aphorism rather than to argue , finding in his work an underlying note of contempt for those who did not agree with him . His fans , on the other hand , delighted in his unflagging wit and elegant style . " " The Daily Telegraph " described him as " an icy iconoclast " who " delighted in chronicling what he perceived as the disintegration of civilisation around him " , while BBC News said he was " one of the finest post - war American writers . . . an indefatigable critic of the whole American system . Writing in Los Angeles , BBC journalist Alastair Leithead said : " Gore Vidal saw himself as the last of the breed of literary figures who became celebrities in their own right . Never a stranger to chat shows , his wry and witty opinions were sought after as much as his writing . " Popular Spanish publication " Ideal " reported Vidal ' s death as a loss to the " culture of the United States " and described him as a " Huge American novelist and essayist " . The Italian " Il Corriere " described him as " the " enfant terrible " of American culture " and said that he was " one of the giants of American literature " . French paper " Le Figaro " described him as " the Killjoy of America " but also said that he was an " outstanding polemicist " who used words " like high precision weapons . " On August 23 , 2012 , a celebration of Vidal ' s life and work was held at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in New York , where a revival of his play play was running . The tribute , hosted by Dick Cavett , featured personal reminiscences as well as performances of excerpts of Vidal ' s work from many of his friends and colleagues , including Elizabeth Ashley , Candice Bergen , Hillary Clinton , Alan Cumming , James Earl Jones , Elaine May , Michael Moore , Susan Sarandon , Cybill Shepherd , and Liz Smith .