{"id":21379,"date":"2012-08-01T19:01:50","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T23:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/?p=21379"},"modified":"2012-08-01T19:01:50","modified_gmt":"2012-08-01T23:01:50","slug":"gore-vidal-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2012\/08\/01\/gore-vidal-86\/","title":{"rendered":"Gore Vidal, 86"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gore Vidal, the unapologetically liberal essayist, novelist, playright and sometimes screenwriter and actor, died yesterday from of complications from pneumonia at his home in the Hollywood Hills. He was 86.<\/p>\n

Vidal’s writing, which includes hundreds of essays, best-selling novels and the Tony-nominated play The Best Man<\/em>, a melodrama about a presidential convention revived on Broadway this past year, often contained savage critiques and attacks against an entrenched conservative political class.<\/p>\n

Although Vidal published his first novel in 1945 at the age of 20 while still in the Army, it wasn’t until the late 1950s that he began writing for a number of television anthology series.<\/p>\n

For Hollywood, Vidal scripted a number of pictures including 1958’s I Accuse!<\/strong>, the story of the infamous “Dreyfus Case” in which a Jewish captain in the French Army is falsely accused of treason, the adaption of the Tennessee William’s play Suddenly Last Summer<\/strong> and the World War Two drama Is Paris Burning?<\/strong> (1966). His books Lincoln<\/em> and Myra Breckinridge<\/em> were adapted for film, but without input from the writer. His play The Death of Billy the Kid<\/em> became the classic western The Left-Handed Gun<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

When he was approached to help director William Wyler with the script for the classic Ben-Hur<\/strong>, Vidal argued that there needed to be a deeper reason that childhood friends Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) and the Roman tribune Messala (Stephen Boyd) would grow up to be bitter enemies. He suggested that part of their backstory should contain a homosexual affair that Messala was anxious to renew. Speaking out about this in the 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet<\/strong>, Vidal stated that Wyler took the suggestion but kept the subtext hidden from Heston. Heston dismissed Vidal’s revelation stating that “a scene implying a homosexual relationship between the two men insults Willy Wyler and, I have to say, irritates the hell out of me.”<\/p>\n

Vidal also dabbled in acting, appearing in small roles in the films Gattaca<\/strong>, With Honors<\/strong> and Igby Goes Down<\/strong>. For Tim Robbins’ political satire Bob Roberts<\/strong>, he played a longtime Pennsylvania democratic congressman whose reelection comes under attack from a charismatic conservative candidate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The author and sometimes screenwriter and actor has died.<\/div>\n

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