Gore Vidal

                                                 
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer known for his essays, novels, screenplays, and Broadway plays. He was also known for his patrician manner, Transatlantic accent, and witty aphorisms. Vidal came from a distinguished political lineage; his grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, and he later became a relation (through marriage) to Jacqueline Kennedy

Vidal ran for political office twice and was a longtime political critic. He was a lifelong isolationist Democrat. As well known for his essays as his novels, Vidal wrote for The Nation, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the New York Review of Books and Esquire. Through his essays and media appearances, Vidal was a long time critic of American foreign policy. In addition to this, he characterised the United States as a decaying empire from the 1980s onwards. Additionally he was known for his well publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Truman Capote.

Vidal's novels fell into two distinct camps: social and historical. His best known social novel was Myra Breckinridge; his best known historical novels included Julian, Burr and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality. Vidal always rejected the terms of "homosexual" and "heterosexual" as inherently false, claiming that the vast majority of individuals had the potential to be pansexual. His screenwriting credits included the epic historical drama Ben-Hur (1959), involved a back story that spoke of a past affair, between two young men, but the content of the affair was left unsaid. Though mistaken by some as a "gay sub-plot", Vidal, in an interview with NPR, dismissed this notion by stating that the so called "affair" could have consisted of a number of various events within a young boys life, that it may have never involved physical contact, in his mind, and the only point to involving this was to draw more emotional power to a then weak script, since Vidal felt a mere political subject could not carry the film. Ben-Hur won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

At the time of his death he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J. D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and has been described as the 20th century's answer to Oscar Wilde.