History Creator / GoreVidal

Eugene Louis "Gore" Vidal (October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was a novelist, essayist, and playwright whose career spanned sixty years, beginning immediately after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and continuing into the early phase of the [[TurnOfTheMillennium new millennium]]. In the world of literature, he was best known for his breakthrough work ''The City and the Pillar'', the first post-war novel to feature a [[{{UsefulNotes/Homosexual}} homosexual]] protagonist who isn't [[BuryYourGays bumped off]] at the end of the story. A quarter-century later, Vidal began penning a series of historical novels based on the formulative years of the United States, including a third-person account of [[UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln President Lincoln]] which met with high accolades.

Gore Vidal (1925-2012) was a novelist, essayist, and playwright whose career spanned sixty years, beginning immediately after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and continuing into the early phase of the [[TurnOfTheMillennium new millennium]]. In the world of literature, he was best known for his breakthrough work ''The City and the Pillar'', the first post-war novel to feature a [[{{UsefulNotes/Homosexual}} homosexual]] protagonist who isn't [[BuryYourGays bumped off]] at the end of the story. A quarter-century later, Vidal began penning a series of historical novels based on the formulative years of the United States, including a third-person account of [[UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln President Lincoln]] which met with high accolades.

Best known by a later generation as [[OldShame procreator]] of two dubious cinematic efforts, ''Film/MyraBreckinridge'' and ''Caligula''. Vidal tried [[AlanSmithee disowning]] the latter, but his lawyers moved too slowly and thus his screen credit remains. Nevertheless, he did appear in a [[RealTrailerFakeMovie fake trailer]] for a ''Caligula'' remake, so at least he was a good sport about it. Later in life, he accepted the odd acting role onstage and in film, most notably as the title character's Senate race opponent in ''Film/BobRoberts'', the space shuttle impresario in ''{{Film/Gattaca}}'' and a priest in ''Film/IgbyGoesDown''.

Best known by a later generation as [[OldShame procreator]] of two dubious cinematic efforts, ''Myra Breckinridge'' and ''Caligula''. Vidal tried [[AlanSmithee disowning]] the latter, but his lawyers moved too slowly and thus his screen credit remains. Nevertheless, he did appear in a [[RealTrailerFakeMovie fake trailer]] for a ''Caligula'' remake, so at least he was a good sport about it. Later in life, he accepted the odd acting role onstage and in film, most notably as the title character's Senate race opponent in ''Film/BobRoberts'', the space shuttle impresario in ''{{Film/Gattaca}}'' and a priest in ''Film/IgbyGoesDown''.

* TheFisherKing: UsefulNotes/WoodrowWilson's [[TheWhiteHouse White House]] is an ice palace, with padlocked fences and all activity carefully concentrated in a tiny upstairs study, and only Mrs. Wilson and the President's physician allowed in. Contrast with Harding, whose White House exudes warmth and is made open to the public. By the end of the novel, though, it becomes as haunted and empty as it was under his predecessor.

* BiTheWay: Claimed to be this.

* WordOfGay: Gore Vidal intended Messala in his screenplay of ''Film/BenHur'' to be Ben Hur's spurned [[HoYay lover]], thus explaining his hatred for him later on. Stephen Boyd (the actor who played Messala) was let in on the secret, but Charlton Heston was deliberately kept in the dark.

Vidal was politically active throughout TheFifties and [[TheSixties Sixties]], appearing on television as a spokesman for the "New Left" and sharing a panel with his [[{{Archenemy}} ideological opposite]] William F. Buckley Jr. This arrangement didn't last long, as their exchanges became [[BloodOnTheDebateFloor increasingly heated]] until Buckley threatened to punch him in the face on-air. Vidal was also an outspoken critic of monotheism, believing it to be the most dysfunctional of all belief systems. Buckley was a Catholic who gained national recognition with ''God and Male at Yale'', a critique of secularism in academia. The debate series is depicted in the well received documentary, ''Best of Enemies''.

Gore Vidal (1925-2012) was a novelist, essayist, and playwright whose career spanned sixty years, beginning immediately following UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and continuing into the early phase of the [[TurnOfTheMillennium new millennium]]. In the world of literature, he was best known for his breakthrough work ''The City and the Pillar'', the first post-war novel to feature a [[{{UsefulNotes/Homosexual}} homosexual]] protagonist who isn't [[BuryYourGays bumped off]] at the end of the story. A quarter-century later, Vidal began penning a series of historical novels based on the formulative years of the United States, including a third-person account of [[UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln President Lincoln]] which met with high accolades.

Vidal was politically active throughout TheFifties and [[TheSixties Sixties]], appearing on television as a spokesman for the "New Left" and sharing a panel with his [[{{Archenemy}} ideological opposite]] William F. Buckley Jr. This arrangement didn't last long, as their exchanges became [[BloodOnTheDebateFloor increasingly heated]] until Buckley threatened to punch him in the face on-air. The debate series is depicted in the well received documentary, ''Best of Enemies''. Vidal was also an outspoken critic of monotheism, believing it to be the most dysfunctional of all belief systems.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: ''Holluwood'' caught negative reviews for inventing a female newspaper publisher in 1939; however, Vidal was quick to point out that Eleanor Patterson took control of a D.C. paper less than twenty years later.

* TheCasanova: John Hay, Lincoln's aide and confidante, is a self-styled one. Aaron Burr in ''Burr'' is presented as another one, considered to have fathered more than a few illegitmate children, with future president Martin Van Buuren cited as one as per rumor, [[spoiler: and the other one being the protagonist Charles Schuyler.]]

* {{Eagleland}} : A real {{Deconstruction}} of the same showing how the image was built and sustained over several different decades for political purpose. In ''Burr'', Aaron Burr and Hamilton, while they were still friends discuss the new republic with Burr admitting that for all its aspirations, political life in America was the same as it was in the English Parliament and indeed in Ancient Rome, not really the break from the old that its Founders envisioned or made the public believe in.

* OldMediaAreEvil: William Randolf Hearst and his numerous disciples, although their control over public opinion isn't evil so much as pragmatic. Later, the influence of the press gives away to a vastly more powerful medium: [[PopculturalOsmosis movies!]]

Best known by a later generation as [[OldShame procreator]] of two dubious cinematic efforts, ''Myra Breckinridge'' and ''Caligula''. Vidal tried [[AlanSmithee disowning]] the latter, but his lawyers moved too slowly and thus his screen credit remains. Nevertheless, he did appear in a [[RealTrailerFakeMovie fake trailer]] for a ''Caligula'' remake, so at least he was a good sport about it. Later in life, he accepted the odd acting role onstage and in film, most notably as the title character's Senate race opponent in ''Film/BobRoberts'', the space shuttle impresario in ''{{Film/Gattaca}}'' and a priest in ''Igby Goes Down''.

Vidal was politically active throughout TheFifties and [[TheSixties Sixties]], appearing on television as a spokesman for the "New Left" and sharing a panel with his [[{{Archenemy}} ideological opposite]] William F. Buckley Jr. This arrangement didn't last long, as their exchanges became [[BloodOnTheDebateFloor increasingly heated]] until Buckley threatened to punch him in the face on-air. Vidal was also an outspoken critic of monotheism, believing it to be the most dysfunctional of all belief systems.

* YourDaysAreNumbered: Kalki seems unperturbed by the various threats on his life; CIA, DEA, Chinese gangsters, the South Koreans, any number of government would like to see Kalki dead. [[spoiler:Kalki hires an actor to take a bullet for him, leaving him free to carry out his apocalypse on schedule.]]

* ObfuscatingStupidity: Warren Harding surprises many of his so-called supporters by revealing himself to be a crafty politician. Internally, Burden wonders if Harding's image as a folksy, third-tier candidate was all [[DivideAndConquer an elaborate ruse]].

* OldMediaAreEvil: William Randolf Hearst and his numerous disciples, although their control over public opinion isn't evil so much as pragmatic. Later, the influence of the press gives away to a vastly more powerful medium: [[NewMediaAreEvil movies!]]

* NomDeMom: Born Eugene Luther Vidal after his father, he took the name Gore from his mother's side. According to him, one of his teachers in prep school quipped, "I wish I were a bull." When asked why, he answered, "So I could [[FormerTeenRebel gore Vidal]]."

* CausticCritic: Infamously so. Vidal was generally dismissive of much of American literature believing writers like Creator/ErnestHemingway and Creator/WilliamFaulkner to be overpraised and self-indulgent. He likewise engaged in Television feuds with the likes of Creator/NormanMailer and infamously, William Buckley, which in the former case came to actual physical blows.
** That said, Vidal was generally appreciative of little known and obscure writers and one of the first to write and introduce Creator/ItaloCalvino to a wider audience.

* YesMan: Since little is known about John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirator David Herold, he's depicted in ''Lincoln'' as one of these. UpToEleven with Jess Smith, another shadowy figure in history; here he is portrayed as a lumbering, slow-witted grocery clerk who somehow lucked out and befriended a future advisor to Warren Harding, himself an obscure newspaper man whose star was on the rise. In that sense, Jess is a tragic figure because he does what he's (implicitly) told to do, and scapegoated when his masters are caught with their hands in the till. The end of the novel strongly suggests he was assassinated as part of the cover-up, even though Jess' nature has been established as the sort unlikely to flip on his "friends."

* YesMan: Since little is known about John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirator David Herold, he's depicted in ''Lincoln'' as one of these. UpToEleven with Jess Smith, another shadowy figure in hitory; here he is portrayed as a lumbering, slow-witted grocery clerk who somehow lucked out and befriended a future advisor to Warren Harding, himself an obscure newspaper man whose star was on the rise. In that sense, Jess is a tragic figure because he does what he's (implicitly) told to do, and scapegoated when his masters are caught with their hands in the till. The end of the novel strongly suggests he was assassinated as part of the cover-up, even though Jess' nature has been established as the sort unlikely to flip on his "friends."

Gore Vidal (1925-2012) was a novelist, essayist, and playwright whose career spanned sixty years, beginning in the years immediately following UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and continuing into the early phase of the [[TurnOfTheMillennium new millennium]]. In the world of literature, he was best known for his breakthrough work ''The City and the Pillar'', the first post-war novel to feature a [[{{UsefulNotes/Homosexual}} homosexual]] protagonist who isn't [[BuryYourGays bumped off]] at the end of the story. A quarter-century later, Vidal began penning a series of historical novels based on the formulative years of the United States, including a third-person account of [[UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln President Lincoln]] which met with high accolades.

* NomDeMom: Born Eugene Luther Vidal after his father, he took the name Gore from his mother's side. According to him, one of his teachers in prep school quipped, "I wish I were a bull." When asked why, he answered, "So I could [[FormerTeenRebel gore Vidal]]."

* NomDeMom: Born Eugene Luther Vidal after his father, he took the name Gore from his mother's side. According to him, one of his teacher in prep school complained, "I wish I were a bull." When asked why, he answered, "So I could [[FormerTeenRebel gore Vidal]]."

* NonDeMom: Born Eugene Luther Vidal after his father, he took the name Gore from his mother's side. According to him, one of his teacher in prep school complained, "I wish I were a bull." When asked why, he answered, "So I could [[FormerTeenRebel gore Vidal]]."