The Real Housewives of La Côte Basque

How Capote's Answered Prayers became his curse

The Real Housewives of La Côte Basque, 1965 should be the name of the new television series about Truman Capote and his famous society grande dames, for surely that is how the story of their unique friendship will be portrayed. However, those who have read Capote's unfinished novel, Answered Prayers, or knew any of the dramatis personae of his poor attempt at imitating Proust, can relate that the fallout was much more subtle and blood chilling. The great ladies of New York society, who felt that having your silverware engraved was gauche, would not condescend to making a scene in public. Why be so vulgar, when in their world a declined invitation was as lethal as a slit wrist?

Of all the women whose secrets were laid bare in Answered Prayers, none had more right to be aggrieved than Ann Woodward. Born poor in Pittsburg, Kansas, Ann was married to William Woodward, Jr. in the 1940s, whose family moved in the highest circles of society, banking, and horse breeding. The Duchess of Windsor was delighted to attend parties hosted by Ann Woodward, and Salvador Dali painted her portrait. Alas, no one believed Ann's version of events when she was acquitted of shooting her husband in 1955, and the doors of Park Avenue quietly closed in her face. Shunned by society she had become a recluse when twenty years later Capote made much of the accidental death (murder?) of her husband in the sensationalized pages of his work. Reading an advance copy of the story in Esquire magazine, Ann did not cause a scene during a boozy lunch at the 21 Club, she applied cosmetics and fragrance, dressed in an elegant peignoir, and retired to bed with a bottle of sleeping pills. The fallout for Capote was a terrible scandal. He was openly blamed for causing the death of this tragic figure.

Beautiful "Babe" Paley, who was lionized by fashion magazines, and considered by Truman Capote as only having one fault, that being her perfection, is to be pitied. Dying of cancer at the time Esquire published the first chapters of Answered Prayers, her days spent planning the food and wine to be served at her funeral reception and wrapping her jewelry to be distributed to friends after her death, she learned of Capote's betrayal. Babe knew that her husband, the titan of television William "Bill" Paley, Sr. was a philanderer. Now all of New York knew it too when Truman related a shocking story about a night Bill spent during a botched attempt to seduce the wife of then New York Governor and later Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller, not to mention cleaning up the mess the next morning. Poor Babe, who wanted Capote to be buried next to her, never spoke to him again.

But it wasn't Capote himself giving voice to these salacious anecdotes during the fictional lunch at La Côte Basque restaurant. No, he chose another dear friend, "Slim" Keith, whom he called "Big Mama," to be the teller of tales, serving up gossip while the waiter dished the Souffle Furstenberg and Cristal champagne. Slender and elegant, she had been married to film director Howard Hawks, agent Leland Hayward, and the British Baron Kenneth Keith. In Truman's fiction she had something nasty to say about every other notable person who was also a thinly veiled character in the story. Gloria Vanderbilt was so vapid she could not recognize her first husband when he stopped to chat with her, Jackie Kennedy and her sister Lee were a pair of whispering Geisha girls, and Carol Marcus Matthau advised that the best way to cure depression was to hire a French maid. Even Tennessee Williams was not spared, as a tale was related about him hiring an expensive male escort to walk his dog around the city's Central Park. Slim Keith dropped Capote, despite their near thirty years of friendship, once she read the chapters of Answered Prayers published in Esquire. His protests that the model for the character was actually Pamela Churchill-Harriman fell on deaf ears and Keith recounted in later interviews her shock and anger.

An interesting twist to the story was offered by gossip columnist Liz Smith. She speculated that New York society had grown tired of Truman Capote, his ability to charm dinner guests having grown thin. Too much drink and drugs, combined with a sordid personal life, had distanced Capote from his "swans." The publication of the early chapters of Answered Prayers, exposing their secrets, was just the excuse seized upon by these ladies to expel Truman from their world, and close ranks. Another socialite of that period, who outlived the rest, Anne Slater, said that their treatment of Truman was "wicked." She should be considered an authority on the term, considering her most famous quote: "A woman needs four animals in her life; a mink in the closet, a jaguar in the garage, a tiger in bed, and an ass to pay for it all."

Read more by William Shelton