Gore Vidal's Life in Photos
A look back at the celebrated writer's long, controversial and glamorous career.
AP Photo (3) ; Getty Images
Celebrated screenwriter, playwright, essayist, and political activist Gore Vidal died Tuesday night at age 86. The National Book Award-winning writer penned 25 books in his career, including Lincoln, Myra Breckenridge, and the famously controversial 1948 novel The City and the Pillar, which caused a stir for featuring openly gay characters. His hit play The Best Man is currently enjoying a hit revival on Broadway, and Vidal even unsuccessfully ran for office twice. Here, the accomplished multi-hyphenate is remembered through pictures.
AP Photo (3) ; Getty Images
Bettmann / Corbis
Movie star Ella Raines talks with Vidal at the Stork Club in New York City.
AP Photo
Fresh off his adaptation ofThe Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the hit CBS anthology series Climax, Vidal discusses stage plans for a production of A Farewell to Arms with producer Martin Manulis.
CBS / Landov
Vidal speaks with Australian director stage actor Cyril Ritchard, who was directing starring in a production of Vidal's hit comedy A Visit to a Small Planet at the Booth Theatre on Broadway.
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Bettmann / Corbis
Vidal campaigns with then-presidential-hopeful John F. Kennedy (right) in 1960. Vidal is at the time a congressional candidate in an area of New York state that hasn't voted for a Democrat for 100 years. Vidal says the Republican habit "can be broken," though he eventually loses the election.
AP Photo
Appearing before the Federal Communications Commission at a hearing in New York, Vidal testifies against increased censorship of television programming. He says that he wrote 20 plays for TV in 1954-55, but has only written two for TV because of tight restrictions on subject matter.
Anthony Camerano / AP Photo
Legendary director Federico Fellini chats with Vidal on the set of Roma, which Fellini is directing. Vidal appears as himself in the film.
AP Photo
Vidal appears on a March 1976 episode of The Tonight Show with host Johnny Carson.
Frank Carroll, NBCU Photo Bank / Getty Images
Vidal is interviewed by CBS news icon Mike Wallace.
CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images
AP Photo
Celebrated authors (from left) Gay Talese, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, and Gore Vidal gather at a party following the Actors' Studio benefit production of George Bernard Shaw's Don Juan in Hell at Carnegie Hall in February 1993.
Ron Frehm / AP Photo
Vidal poses in the living room of "villa la Rondinaia," his residence in Rovello, Italy.
Franco Origlia / Getty Images
Ulf Anderen / Getty Images
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