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Truman Capote

Truman Capote (1924-1984) - original name Truman Streckfus Persons

American novelist, short story writer, and playwright. Capote gained international fame with his "nonfiction novel" IN COLD BLOOD (1966), an account of a real life crime in which an entire family was murdered by two sociopaths. The Louisiana-Mississippi-Alabama area provided the setting for much of Capote's fiction.
Truman Capote was born in New Orleans on September 30, 1924, as the son of a salesman and a 16-year-old beauty queen, Lillie Mae Faulk. His father, Archulus "Arch" Persons, worked as a clerk for a steamboat company. Persons never stuck at any job for long, and was always leaving home in search for new opportunities. The unhappy marriage gradually disintegrated. When Capote was four, his parents eventually divorced.
The young Truman was brought up in Monroeville, Alabama. He lived some years with his relatives.
After Capote's mother married again, this time a well-to-do businessman, Capote moved to New York, and adopted his stepfather's surname. He attended the Trinity School and St. John's Academy in New York, and the public schools of Greenwich, Connecticut. At the age of seventeen, Capote ended his formal schooling.

Capote's early stories were published in quality magazines and in 1946 he won the O.Henry award. His first novel, OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS (1948), depicted a boy, Joel Knox, growing up in the Deep South.

Next year Capote went to Europe, where he wrote fiction and non-fiction. Among his major works was a profile of Marlon Brando. Capote's travels accompanying a tour of Porgy and Bess in the Soviet Union produced THE MUSES ARE HEARD. These European years marked the beginning of Capote's work for the theatre and films. In 1949 appeared A TREE OF NIGHT, which gathered together short stories published in Harper's Bazaar, Mademoiselle, and other magazines.

Following return to the United States, Copote wrote BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (1958). Its central character,...