They would speak every couple of weeks, him telling her “I miss him, I miss Howard.” “He lost half of himself after Howard died,” says Burr Steers, his nephew.

He had never talked about it before, or shown me this emotional vulnerability.' Arlyne Reingold, Austen’s sister, sat with Vidal as tears rolled down his cheeks. He expressed to me that he missed him, and he talked of his own final days. “It was such a huge thing that opened up in Gore when Howard passed. Sarandon says Austen’s death affected Vidal profoundly. He was befuddled sometimes, but on certain subjects-and if he had to give a speech-he was as clear as a bell.” Who would have thought I’d be the last one standing?’ But he never seemed morose. He told me, ‘I think about death all the time. Late in his life, Vidal told his friend Susan Sarandon that “everyone was dying,” that “he was the only one left, he and Joanne. He died in July 2012 in a bed in his Hollywood Hills living room, overlooking his garden. They were years marked by a descent into extreme alcoholism and dementia, and by painful feuding with close family and friends. He never married and for decades shared a villa in Italy with companion Howard Austen.But there was very little calm or graceful about Vidal's final decade, as I learnt researching my book In Bed With Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood and the Private World of an American Master. Vidal alleged that he had sampled every major drug, once. His works included hundreds of essays novels “Lincoln” and “Myra Breckenridge” the groundbreaking “The City and the Pillar,” among the first novels about openly gay characters and the Tony-nominated play “The Best Man,” revived on Broadway in 2012. Vidal had been living alone in the home and had been sick for “quite a while,” he said.Īlong with such contemporaries as Norman Mailer and Truman Capote, Vidal was among the last generation of literary writers who were also genuine celebrities - fixtures on talk shows and in gossip columns, personalities of such size and appeal that even those who hadn’t read their books knew who they were. Tuesday of complications from pneumonia, Burr Steers said. Vidal, 86, died at his home at about 6:45 p.m. HOLLYWOOD - Gore Vidal, the author, playwright, politician and commentator whose novels, essays, plays and opinions were stamped by his immodest wit and unconventional wisdom, his nephew said Tuesday. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu

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