50 Fun Facts About Truman Capote

Which To Kill a Mockingbird character did Harper Lee model on her childhood neighbor Truman Capote?

Dill Harris, the small boy with big stories who spends his summers next door to Scout, is Lee's portrait of the young Capote, who repaid her with a tomboy in his own first novel.

Which actress did Paramount cast in Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's against the author's wishes?

Audrey Hepburn earned an Oscar nomination in the part, but Capote said the studio had double-crossed him and disliked how far the 1961 film strayed from his novella.

In which state were the 1959 Clutter family murders that Truman Capote reconstructed in In Cold Blood?

Kansas drew Capote west after he read a short news item about four killings in the farm town of Holcomb, and he took Harper Lee along to help win the trust of the locals.

Which pop artist sent Truman Capote fan letters, then based his first New York solo show on Capote's work?

Andy Warhol was 20 when the smouldering author photo on Capote's first novel captivated him, and his 1952 debut show was fifteen drawings based on Capote's writings.

In Capote's A Christmas Memory, what do Buddy and his elderly cousin bake and mail to President Roosevelt?

Fruitcakes take the pair four days to make, using pecans they gather themselves and whiskey bought from a bootlegger, and go mostly to people they have barely met.

Which Manhattan nightclub of the late 1970s counted Truman Capote among its celebrity regulars?

Studio 54 saw Capote party through the disco years beside a painter friend who made his portrait, even as he drifted in and out of drug rehabilitation clinics.

Which New York café society girl is the heroine of Truman Capote's 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany's?

Holly Golightly calms her nerves by visiting the jeweller's of the title, and her story's prose led Norman Mailer to call Capote the most perfect writer of his generation.

What of Truman Capote's was stolen at a 1988 Halloween party and returned in a coiled garden hose?

His ashes vanished from the room where he had died, along with $200,000 in jewels, and were reportedly snatched again when taken to a play about him, though that thief was caught.

In which Woody Allen comedy does the real Truman Capote walk by as a supposed Capote lookalike?

Annie Hall has Alvy people-watching in the park when the author himself ambles past in an uncredited cameo, a year after his one big acting role.

Which blonde star did Truman Capote want for the lead in the film of his novella Breakfast at Tiffany's?

Marilyn Monroe was Capote's choice and the script was to be tailored to her, but she chose The Misfits after Lee Strasberg warned that playing a call girl would hurt her image.

In which Southern city was Truman Capote born, before relatives raised him in small-town Monroeville?

New Orleans was where he was born at Touro Infirmary to a salesman father, and the city later became the starting point for the boy hero of his first novel.

In the Grand Ballroom of which New York hotel did Truman Capote throw his 1966 Black and White Ball?

The Plaza was a hotel Capote adored, and at midnight his masked guests were served its chicken hash, one of his favourite dishes, alongside spaghetti and meatballs.

How were Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, the killers in Capote's In Cold Blood, put to death in 1965?

Hanging ended five years on death row for both men, and Capote did not finish his book until after the executions.

What bird name did Truman Capote give his circle of rich, elegant New York society women friends?

Swans was his word for the stylish wives who confided in him, until a 1975 magazine chapter aired their secrets and New York society shut him out.

Truman Capote died in 1984 at the Bel Air home of the former wife of which late-night television host?

Johnny Carson had often had Capote on his show, and it was the host's ex-wife Joanne who took the ailing writer in two days before he died.

In Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, which pet does the heroine never name and finally set loose?

A cat shares her apartment without ever being given a name, and she turns it loose just before she leaves for Brazil while out on bail.

Capote's friend Lee Radziwill, for whom he wrote a TV version of Laura, was which First Lady's sister?

Jackie Kennedy's younger sister wanted to act, so Capote adapted the 1944 film for her; the reviews were poor and it became his first major professional setback.

Which band's 1972 American tour did Truman Capote join as a magazine reporter, then refuse to write up?

The Rolling Stones let him tag along on their first American tour since 1969, but he never filed the article, so the magazine ran an interview with him instead.

In which Neil Simon spoof did Truman Capote play a millionaire who invites famous detectives to dinner?

Murder by Death cast him as the reclusive Lionel Twain opposite Peter Sellers, Alec Guinness and Maggie Smith, and his only major acting role earned a Golden Globe nomination.

What nonexistent prize drew Perry Smith and Richard Hickock to the Clutter farmhouse in In Cold Blood?

A cash-filled safe was a former cellmate's tale, since Herb Clutter did nearly all his business by check, and the pair left the house with little of value.

Which 1948 novel made Truman Capote famous, helped by a provocative author photo on its jacket?

Other Voices, Other Rooms spent nine weeks on the bestseller list, and the reclining portrait on its dust jacket caused as much comment as the prose inside.

What surname was Truman Capote born with, before he took the name of his mother's second husband?

Persons was the surname of his salesman father, and the boy became Truman Garcia Capote after moving to New York to live with his mother and her second husband, José.

Which famous poet did teenage copy boy Truman Capote anger, getting himself fired from The New Yorker?

Robert Frost's displeasure cost Capote a two-year job sorting cartoons and clipping newspapers, after which he went south to stay with relatives and began his first novel.

What two-word label did Truman Capote give In Cold Blood, the 1966 bestseller he spent six years writing?

Nonfiction novel was his name for a true story told with a storyteller's scenes and dialogue, though the detective in the case later said the closing graveyard scene was invented.

In Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, which state did the heroine flee after marrying a vet as a teenager?

Texas is where she was plain Lulamae Barnes, and her husband Doc turns up in Manhattan to coax her home, but she insists on staying in the city.

Which rival novelist, Truman Capote's sparring partner for decades, called his 1984 death a wise career move?

Gore Vidal had feuded with Capote for years, a rivalry so heated that a playwright friend complained the pair seemed to be racing neck and neck for some fabulous gold prize.

Which actress played Harper Lee opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman in the 2005 film Capote?

Catherine Keener's supporting turn was one of five Oscar nominations for the film, and Hoffman won Best Actor after months spent studying clips of Capote's voice and mannerisms.

Which English actor played Truman Capote in the 2006 film Infamous, opposite Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee?

Toby Jones got the voice right by pushing his lower jaw forward slightly, but the film arrived a year after a rival biopic and was largely overshadowed by it.

Capote's The Muses Are Heard follows a Porgy and Bess company touring which Communist country?

Soviet Union hosts supplied the title when a culture ministry official said the muses fall silent when the cannons are heard, and are heard when the cannons are silent.

Which playwright did Truman Capote satirise in a 1976 chapter, then mourn in a Playboy tribute?

Tennessee Williams appeared thinly veiled in the chapter Unspoiled Monsters, written when their friendship had soured, yet Capote published a tribute after the playwright died in February 1983.

In which state is Monroeville, the small town where young Truman Capote lived next door to Harper Lee?

Alabama later named Monroeville and its county the state's literary capital, a nod to two childhood neighbours who each put the other into a first novel.

Which tell-all society novel did Truman Capote promise for years but leave unfinished at his death?

Answered Prayers, named from a saying credited to Saint Teresa of Avila about tears shed over granted wishes, reached bookshops only after his death, as three magazine chapters.

Which early Capote novel, thought destroyed, appeared in 2005 after a house sitter saved it from the trash?

Summer Crossing follows a young socialite's romance with a parking lot attendant, and its pages surfaced when the rescuer's heir sent them to auction in 2004.

Which 1951 Capote novella follows an orphaned boy and two elderly women who move into a treehouse?

The Grass Harp grew out of a real treehouse in a walnut tree in his cousin's backyard, and Capote's own title was Music of the Sawgrass until his editor Bob Linscott renamed it.

In Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, what name does the heroine give the narrator, after her brother?

Fred is the brother she adores, and she tells the narrator he looks like him; the 1961 film gave the character a name of his own, Paul Varjak.

In Breakfast at Tiffany's, at which prison does Capote's heroine pay weekly visits to mobster Sally Tomato?

Sing Sing is where she earns $100 every Thursday for passing on the racketeer's messages, an errand that gets her arrested once his drug ring comes to light.

Which Hollywood star did Truman Capote profile for The New Yorker in 1957 in The Duke in His Domain?

Marlon Brando opened up to Capote for the piece, in which the writer recalled first seeing him asleep on a table on an empty stage during rehearsals for A Streetcar Named Desire.

Which classic ghost story did Truman Capote adapt for the 1961 Deborah Kerr film The Innocents?

The Turn of the Screw was a Henry James novella Capote admired, so he paused work on In Cold Blood to rework the script and threaded Freudian symbolism through it.

Which director hired Truman Capote to co-write the 1953 Humphrey Bogart adventure comedy Beat the Devil?

John Huston and Capote decided to play the story for laughs, as a loose send-up of the director's own The Maltese Falcon, which had also starred Bogart.

In which city were In Cold Blood's Perry Smith and Richard Hickock arrested six weeks after the murders?

Las Vegas was where the pair were caught on December 30, 1959, after a former cellmate who had once worked for Herb Clutter named them as suspects.

Which publisher was the guest of honour at Truman Capote's 1966 Black and White Ball in New York?

Katharine Graham of The Washington Post was picked over the glamorous society wives in his circle, and Capote dangled the prized invitations for months.

Which CBS founder's wife dropped her friend Truman Capote after a 1975 chapter aired her marriage's secrets?

Babe Paley severed the friendship once readers recognised her husband in a tale of a tycoon frantically washing bedsheets after an affair.

Which New York restaurant gave its name to the 1975 chapter that turned high society against Truman Capote?

La Côte Basque is where the chapter's narrator lunches while a titled gossip dishes on thinly disguised real socialites, and the magazine issue carrying it sold out at once.

Which French novelist's masterpiece did Truman Capote hope his unfinished society novel would rival?

Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time was the model, and Capote counted the Frenchman among his three favourite authors, alongside Willa Cather and Isak Dinesen.

Which New York publisher, then led by Bennett Cerf, signed Truman Capote on the strength of one short story?

Random House offered a contract and a $1,500 advance after the eerie story Miriam won praise, and the firm went on to publish In Cold Blood two decades later.

Which New York neighborhood, home to Truman Capote in the late 1950s, did he praise in a 1959 magazine essay?

Brooklyn Heights was his address when Breakfast at Tiffany's came out, and the essay, one of his personal favourites, was reissued in 2015 with long-unseen photographs.

Which English actor played Truman Capote in the 2024 second season of the FX anthology series Feud?

Tom Hollander earned an Emmy nomination in the role, across eight episodes mostly directed by Gus Van Sant about the socialites who turned on the writer.

Which actor, then a relative unknown, played killer Perry Smith in the 1967 film of Capote's In Cold Blood?

Robert Blake met the author only when Capote visited the set, where director Richard Brooks was shooting in black and white inside the real Clutter house.

Capote's 1954 Broadway musical House of Flowers, starring Pearl Bailey, is set in which Caribbean country?

Haiti is the backdrop for a tale of two rival bordellos, with songs by Harold Arlen and a cast that included Diahann Carroll and Alvin Ailey.

Which novelist and former Broadway dancer, met in 1948, became Truman Capote's partner and chief heir?

Jack Dunphy, who had danced in the original Oklahoma!, kept a separate house beside Capote's on Long Island and later wrote a memoir of their life together called Dear Genius.