It’s perfectly okay to admit it. Perhaps you miss the weekly peek into the life of America’s richest, now that “Succession” is history. In that case, HBO Max now offers a glitter plaster on the wound. This week saw the first episodes of the miniseries “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans” on HBO Max. It boils down to the intrigues of New York’s upper class. The time is the sixties and seventies. The scene is not the boardrooms, but the salons and restaurants. That’s where they are, the beautiful, well-dressed wives of the powerful men. It was some of these who took the sharp writer and journalist Truman Capote into the heat and made him their confidant. He called them “his swans”. But it was these swans who supported him in the cold when he chose to reveal them and their secrets in what he wrote. THE SWANS: Naomi Watts, Chloë Sevigny and Diane Lane play friends who turn against Truman Capote in “Capote vs. The Swans”. The series is as star-studded as few. Naomi Watts plays Babe Paley, Vogue editor and married to Bill Paley, the head of the CBS television channel. Calista Flockhart plays Lee Radziwill, Jackie Kennedy’s sister. And Demi Moore is Ann Woodward, whom Capote, under a thin veil of a false name, accused of killing her rich husband, after he discovered she was already married. This was one of many claims he made in the legendary article “La Côte Basque, 1965”. The title was taken from the restaurant where New York society used to eat lunch. In addition to the murder charge, the article contained very direct descriptions, not only of general infidelity, but also of various sexual eccentricities that the author alleged took place behind the polished facade of these women. IN THE HEAT: Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) while he was still in the heat of the society ladies in New York. Photo: HBO Max After that, most doors on Park Avenue were closed to Truman Capote. Babe Paley, who had been closest to him, never forgave him. It has subsequently been speculated as to what drove the ambitious Capote. He must have understood that what he was doing could cost him dearly. Perhaps he was primarily driven by his flair for the spicy. Because he realized he was on drugs that were too scandalous, too titillating, for him to keep to himself. Maybe he just had to make the whole world understand how deep into the closed, secretive circles at the top of society he had managed to get. Or maybe it was something else. Perhaps it was precisely in the desperate and impulsive, that which could not stand the light of day, that Capote saw life itself unfolding. The gay writer was always aware of the sexual underworld, where the higher and lower classes met in sweaty embraces and where forbidden sex could be lived out. ICONIC: Audrey Hepburn’s look in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” has been imitated thousands of times. But Truman Capote’s novel, which was the basis for the film, is far darker, and more open about the main character being an escort girl. Photo: Mary Evans Picture His big bestseller, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, is about the escort girl Holly Golightly. The novel is far harsher than the successful film starring Audrey Hepburn, in which Holly’s profession was heavily toned down. In this sense, it is possible to see Truman Capote’s entanglement in the lives of his friends, the intense attention he showed them, as a kind of tenderness. At the same time, he also entered into a long and well-established tradition: As the gay man from a previous generation who felt strongly connected to well-grown, immensely glamorous women. In the years Capote was observing and writing, movie stars such as Judy Garland, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford already had a loyal queer fan base. The author Daniel Harris is among those who have delved deeply into this bond. He points to several reasons why these women became so important to many homosexuals at a time when they were oppressed. LOVED: Judy Garland, here with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, was among the stars who gained a huge gay fan base. Photo: Shutterstock editorial First, there was an aesthetic bond between them and their followers. Queer boys in the countryside, who could experience harassment and violence because they were different, could look to Hollywood and Broadway and think that there they would be understood. Being surrounded by people who didn’t understand them and didn’t like them because they themselves were on a higher level had a sophistication that they shared only with the glamorous and well-dressed. Second, these women’s careers were often the result of them leaving and reinventing themselves. It was possible to read their lives as a message that who you are becoming is more authentic than who you once were. Among Capote’s swans, several were born into the upper class, while others had come from outside and married into the upper class. It was these he seemed to be most fascinated by. UPPER CLASS: Lee Radziwill, back, was the sister of Jackie Kennedy and married to Polish Prince Stanislav Radziwill. She was one of the New York socialites who slapped the hand of Truman Capote. In the new series, she is played by Calista Flockhart. Photo: AP Even Babe Paley, who came from a distinguished family, had a dramatic experience behind her. She had been in a serious traffic accident as a youngster. Doctors had to reconstruct her jaw and, according to rumours, had made her more beautiful than she originally was. This story deeply fascinated Capote. Third, there was a sense of sharing an experience of having lived in conflict, even if it was not the same conflict. Women like Garland, Davis and Crawford weren’t smashingly beautiful shooting stars in nineteen years. They were grown and experienced, they bore scars, they had been rejected and humiliated, but still stood tall. For someone who had lived against the wind from childhood, because of their identity, it could be liberating to see. OBSERVANT: Truman Capote enjoyed great success as a writer, journalist, and frequenter of glamorous parties in New York. But many of those who came into contact with him experienced being betrayed in his texts. Photo: Ap Fourthly, these women showed a new and alternative way of showing aggressiveness. Like their queer fan base, they would hardly feel at home in the brawl in an alley. But no one could beat these women in bitching, in the duels won with quick retorts and sharp tongues. In the 1939 cult film The Women, which brings several of these stars together, lines such as: “I’m sorry to say it, dear, but your skin makes the Rocky Mountains look like velvet chiffon.” “Capote vs. the Swans” is a stand-alone second season of the “Feud” series. The main man behind the series is Ryan Murphy, who is gay and has made no secret of his fondness for the grandes dames of the past. OSCAR AWARDED: The most famous portrayal of Truman Capote on film was created by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who won the Oscar for Best Actor for “Capote.” Photo: Ap And the aggressiveness beneath the beauty is one of the most striking things in both seasons. It does not seem accidental that “Feide” is the overall title of the series. It also feels like a matter of course that the first season was about the conflict between camp icons Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. “Capote vs. the Swans” is probably not a new “Succession”. For that, the societal perspective is probably too absent, the subtext too pronounced. But it probably also has something to do with the fact that the culture has not always picked up how much tough, harsh and furious lies and simmers beneath the apparently most glamorous and feminine narratives. But Truman Capote, and many who shared his plight, knew it all along.
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He let his wealthy girlfriends down – Speech
