Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Been and Gone: Gore Vidal



The great Gore Vidal, a spectacularly talented screenwriter, novelist, and hilariously bitchy critic of American politics and culture, has died, so See Tim Blog has a sad today. There'll never be another like him--he lived nine lives and was a pioneer in, as conservative icon William F. Buckley would put it, being an enthusiastic apologist for the homosexual "affliction."

Below is a snippet of an interview with him for the film The Celluloid Closet, in which he discusses how he got Charlton Heston to unwittingly play a big old gay homo in the movie Ben Hur. The whole movie (Celluloid) is a must-see, especially the exquisite few seconds where Vidal describes a Disney exec as "looking not unlike Mickey Mouse."

Also, read Myra Breckinridge. It's a hoot.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

What a sad day. And a wonderful video. Thanks for posting it.

And thanks for making me laugh-- just finished reading Tune In Tokyo. You are an immensely talented writer, and I hope you have a new book coming out soon. Until then, your blog will do quite nicely.

Tim Anderson said...

What a nice comment, thanks Chard! Working on another book now, hopefully will have a solid draft by the end of the summer. (then comes the hard part of making it readable!) watch this space...