TRUMAN CAPOTEAnd In Cold Blood

Truman Capote Biography

• Truman Streckfus Persons Born September 30, 1924 (The Sun Also Rises is published in 1926)

• 1930: Sent to live with his mother’s family in Alabama, where he meets lifelong friend Nelle Harper Lee (author of To Kill A Mockingbird)– Critics believe he is the character of Dill– Some critics believe he wrote TKAM; others believe he just

helped– Harper Lee becomes his research assistant for In Cold Blood

• Parents divorce in 1931, and his mother marries Joseph Capote in 1932. The new family moves to New York.

• 1935: changes last name to Capote.• 1939: moves to Greenwich, CT. Begins writing and

submitting short stories.• When he fails to graduate from high school in CT, he

moves back to New York and enters the Franklin School.

Biography (con’t)

• Works as a copyboy for the New Yorker while finishing school

• 1943: Graduates from Franklin School• 1943: First published work "The Walls

Are Cold" in Decade of Short Stories • 1944:"A Mink of One's Own" and "The

Shape of Things" published in Decade of Short Stories

• 1945: Signs contract for his first novel Other Voices, Other Rooms

Biography (con’t)

• 1945: Moves away from his mother due to her alcoholism

• Jan. 19, 1948: Other Voices, Other Rooms published

• 1951: The Grass Harp is published. He adapts it into a play, which begins its run on Broadway in 1952 for one month. Moves to Rome in 1952.

• 1954: His mother dies from an overdose of sleeping pills.

• 1956: Moves back to New York from Rome. Travels to Asia to write about the filming of a Marlon Brando movie.

• 1958: Short story “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is published in the Esquire.

• 1959: Travels to Kansas with Harper Lee to research Clutter murders.

• 1960 - Begins work on In Cold Blood .• 1965: In Cold Blood runs in the New

Yorker in 4 installments.• 1966: Hosts first Black and White Ball.

• 1967: Movie In Cold Blood releasedInteresting side note: Robert Blake starred in

thefilm as Perry Smith. In 2002, Blake was

arrestedand later tried for the shooting murder of his

wife.He was found not guilty despite evidence that

hetried to hire a hit man to kill her.

• 1981: Arch Persons, Capote’s birth father, dies.

• 1984: Capote dies of hear failure.

Truman Capote and Harper Lee

Capote with Alvin Dewey And

Mrs. Dewey

Holcumb, Kansas aerial view 2008 Holcomb remains primarily a farming

town. On the outskirts of Garden City, KS (much like how Marietta is Just outside of Atlanta), the townwas made famous by Capote. PeopleStill visit the town to see the ClutterHome and other cites that were thefocus of the investigation and Capote’s novel.

The Clutter Home Today

The Clutter House BasementDining room of the home

The caretaker’s houseBonnie Clutter’s

Bedroom

Capote’s style: In Cold Blood

• Takes credit for creating what he calls the “non-fiction novel”: depicts real events narrated with techniques of fiction. The non-fiction novel is an otherwise loosely-defined and flexible genre.

• Hints of this type of novel exist before Capote, but the non-fiction narrative, as it is now referred to, is considered to have been born with the publication of In Cold Blood.

A drawing of Jesus

by Perry Smith

Richard Hickock and Perry Smith

Perry Smith talks with Truman Capote