He was born in West Point, N.Y. as Eugene Louis Vidal Jr. on Oct. 3, 1925, which he later changed to Eugene Luther Vidal before adding his mother’s surname Gore and getting rid of the first two names at the age of 14.
Vidal’s well known novels tended to fall into two categories: social and political.
His first novel, “Williwaw,” which was published in 1946 when Vidal was 19, was based upon his tour of duty in the Alaskan Harbor Detachment during World War II and launched Vidal into success.
“When I think of Gore Vidal, I think about the changes he saw take place in this country,” said Michael Yawney, an assistant professor at the Department of Theatre. “He came from a time when books mattered and writers were considered significant contributors to the national discourse.”
His third novel, “The City and the Pillar,” published in 1948, which chronicled the life of Jim Willard, an openly gay protagonist who was not killed off at the end of the novel for defying social norms at a time when homosexuality was considered a sin, still remains one of his most recognized works, even though it blacklisted Vidal for many years afterward and forced him to write under various pseudonyms in subsequent years.
A Democrat all his life, Vidal ran for office twice, once in 1960 as a candidate for Congress and another in 1982, against incumbent Governor Jerry Brown, for the United States Senate of California; Vidal lost in the primary election.
His political career was much more than his attempts at being elected to Congress. From 1970 to 1972, he was one of the chairmen of the People’s Party and advocated on behalf of Ralph Nader for president during the 1972 election. Vidal was also a member of the advisory board of The World Can’t Wait, a left wing organization that advocated for the impeachment of President George W. Bush for war crimes.
“Sometimes I think he said or wrote controversial things just to get a rise out of people, which made a lot of what he had to say seem trivial,” said Mariltn Skow, chair and artistic director at the Department of Theatre. “I was much more impressed with the works of Norman Mailer and Truman Capote, both of whom were contemporaries and rivals of Vidal, than I was with Vidal’s works; although, I did like his book on Abraham Lincoln.”
His most famous literary rival was, in fact, Norman Mailer, who is said to have head-butted Vidal backstage before The Dick Cavett Show in 1968. Vidal also came to verbal and (almost) physical blows with William F. Buckley during a stint on ABC News when they were invited as political analysts. The arguments downgraded to vicious, insulting verbal spats in which Vidal called Buckley a “crypto-Nazi” and Buckley called Vidal a “queer.”
His satirical novel, “Myra Breckinridge,” published in 1968, sparked heavy debates about feminism as well as trans-sexuality and was dismissed by many of the era’s conservative critics as pornographic, although it went on to become a world wide bestseller and a classic in some literary circles.
“My first awareness of Gore Vidal came when I was in college in the 60s. I saw him as being pretty outrageous just for the sake of being outrageous. With ‘Myra Breckinridge,’ I recognized that he had something important to say about the state of a person’s sexual life just at the time when there began to be an awareness of a disease called AIDS,” Skow said.
“Myra Breckinridge’s” sequel, “Myron,” published in 1974, shortly after an anti-pornography ruling by the Supreme Court, where Vidal took action by replacing the profanity in the novel with the names of the justices involved in the ruling.
His provocative nature, however, also bled into his personal life, often getting himself recognized as an early champion of sexual liberation. “The City and the Pillar,” which was simply dedicated to “J.T.,” was confirmed decades later to be James “Jimmy” Trimble III, who Vidal said was the only person he ever loved.
“Vidal may not have been a great writer, but he was a courageous one. His pop-fiction was filled with criticism of American culture. He came out as bisexual at a time when even glam rockers rarely dared make such statements,” said Yawney.
In a September 1969 edition of “Esquire,” Vidal defended homosexuality as natural, stating, “Certain societies at certain times, usually in the interest of maintaining the baby supply, have discouraged homosexuality. Other societies, particularly militaristic ones, have exalted it. But regardless of tribal taboos, homosexuality is a constant fact of the human condition and it is not a sickness, not a sin, not a crime… despite the best efforts of our puritan tribe to make it all three.”
His essays, in many respects, were regarded higher than his novels. In 1987, his collection of essay, titled “Armageddon,” explored the intricate web of power in contemporary America and publicly attacked incumbent President Ronald Reagan. In 1993, he won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for his collection entitled, “United States: Essays 1952-1992.” “The Last Empire,” a collection published in 2000, criticized American expansionism, the military-industrial complex, the national security state and the Bush administration.
“He [Gore Vidal] used his connections to the rich and powerful to reveal how political power really works. Vidal put himself on the line over and over. I think that is his greatest accomplishment,” said Yawney.
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