Gore Vidal biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Gore Vidal was born as Eugene Luther Vidal Jr. on October 3, 1925, at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. Vidal became very close to his grandfather, Senator T. P. Gore, at a young age. He often read to his grandfather as a boy, and soon developed a fondness for both literature and politics. Vidal's father, Eugene Vidal, a former All-American football player and track star, worked under U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, heading the Bureau of Air Commerce. His mother, Nina, the daughter of Oklahoma Senator Thomas Pryor Gore, worked as an actress. According to Vidal, his mother drank often and had frequent outbursts, which caused disruption at home.

Vidal's parents divorce in 1935, and when his mother remarried Hugh D. Auchincloss (Jacqueline Kennedy's stepfather), he went to stay with his mother in Virginia.

Vidal attended the St. Albans School in Washington, where he experienced his first of several homosexual relationships, with a his athletic friend Jimmie Tremble. Tremble died soon after enlisting in World War II, at Iwo Jima, and Vidal was deeply saddened by the loss; he later described feeling as though he'd lost his "other half."

Following his graduation from the Phillips Exeter Academy, at age 17, Vidal enlisted in the U.S. Army. Two years later, he earned the title of warrant officer, and became first mate of the F.S. 35 ship, which transported passengers and Army supplies from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Aleutian Islands. It was during this time that Vidal wrote his first novel, Williwaw, which was published a few years later, in 1946. Vidal would go on to write two dozen novels throughout his career, as well as hundreds of political and editorial essays, plays and screenplays.

Acclaimed Author

Vidal's sense of pride and contentment following his first published novel, 1946's Williwaw, paired with the positive public response he received for the work, spurred his career as an author. He went on to write 1948's The City and the Pillar, 1954's Messiah, and the play Visit to a Small Planet (1957). In 1958, his play The Death of Billy the Kid was adapted for the screenplay of The Left Handed Gun. Two years later, Vidal wrote the popular play The Best Man (1960).

Among Vidal's most famous works are his 1960s books Julian and Myra Breckinridge; 1984 novel Lincoln; 1993 political work United States: Essays 1952-1992, for which he won the National Book Award; and 1995 memoir, Palimpsest.