0:00:24 > 0:00:28Gore Vidal is America's greatest living man of letters.
0:00:28 > 0:00:34For 50 years his writings have delighted and shocked the public,
0:00:34 > 0:00:39and his political views have never been less than radical.
0:00:42 > 0:00:48He's the wittiest American writer. Most of us aren't witty at all.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52He has a rather prickly personality, you know!
0:00:52 > 0:00:57How popular do you expect a porcupine to be?
0:00:57 > 0:01:01- < We're taking pictures. - I'm trying to look natural.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04He was so beautiful, men AND women flirted -
0:01:04 > 0:01:08his sexuality was such that it was there for all!
0:01:14 > 0:01:19I follow him in the press and as a politician and as a friend.
0:01:19 > 0:01:25He's one of the players in American politics and has been for 30 years.
0:01:25 > 0:01:31There is something about this impenetrable wit and intelligence
0:01:31 > 0:01:37that doesn't lend itself to images of a man suffering little children,
0:01:37 > 0:01:40but in his own way he's very sweet.
0:01:40 > 0:01:44I would cast him as a psychopathic killer.
0:02:01 > 0:02:07- Do you enjoy writing your memoir? - I don't know if "enjoy" is quite the verb.
0:02:07 > 0:02:12It's significant in the life of anybody, I suppose -
0:02:12 > 0:02:16when you get to the memoir you know the life is done with.
0:02:16 > 0:02:20It's the sort of thing you put off till last,
0:02:20 > 0:02:24the sort of thing I thought I'd put off for good.
0:02:24 > 0:02:31You can only tell the truth about people in fiction. That's why we invented it.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35There are a lot of problems to writing a memoir.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39I think it might be better to call it
0:02:39 > 0:02:43"A Tissue Of Lies", and make it all up,
0:02:43 > 0:02:48with its central character an invented character like myself.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52Many things interest me,
0:02:52 > 0:02:57but I don't seem to have caught my own attention over the years.
0:02:57 > 0:03:01I feel I'm writing about a stranger when I write about my life.
0:03:01 > 0:03:06One thing is interesting - I must ask other memoirists about it -
0:03:06 > 0:03:11there's not one moment that I would like to relive.
0:03:11 > 0:03:16And it's been quite a contented life. Perhaps too contented.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19It's odd, because everybody says,
0:03:19 > 0:03:24"Oh, that summer in Lake Odense was the high point of my life."
0:03:24 > 0:03:27There's been none of that.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31There's no great love affair in your life
0:03:31 > 0:03:35which has...er...prompted you...?
0:03:35 > 0:03:41There was one very early, and one was enough. I don't think it happens twice.
0:03:41 > 0:03:46There are some people partial to the notion of having a twin.
0:03:46 > 0:03:51And all that I was not, he was; and all that he was not, I was.
0:03:51 > 0:03:57The two of us would've been pretty good had we been rolled into one.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01He was killed 50 years ago on March 1st at Iwo Jima,
0:04:01 > 0:04:06so doing the memoirs I was somewhat haunted by him,
0:04:06 > 0:04:10and I was intrigued by another self that didn't survive.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14I was, er...
0:04:14 > 0:04:17very interested in sex.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21I was not interested in love affairs.
0:04:22 > 0:04:26I won't ever be able to write an agony story,
0:04:26 > 0:04:30but I might find a few jokes along the way.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34Is that because there really wasn't any agony?
0:04:34 > 0:04:37Well, if there was, I'm... I'm a stoic,
0:04:37 > 0:04:42or so I like to think and so I was brought up.
0:04:42 > 0:04:48When you're brought up by a man who was accidentally blinded aged ten,
0:04:48 > 0:04:51and made his way in the world, um...
0:04:51 > 0:04:57Self-pity is hard to indulge in when you live with someone like that.
0:05:01 > 0:05:07I was raised in the house of my grandfather, Senator TP Gore.
0:05:07 > 0:05:09FANFARE
0:05:09 > 0:05:13'Friends, to obtain votes with false promises
0:05:13 > 0:05:18'is worse than to obtain money with false pretences.'
0:05:18 > 0:05:22Grandfather was an extraordinary influence on me.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26He got me interested in history and literature.
0:05:26 > 0:05:33He got me interested in politics, the politics of the people. He was an old populist.
0:05:33 > 0:05:38My left-wing positions are those of the party of the people.
0:05:38 > 0:05:43'..I will never rob your cradle to feed the dogs of war.'
0:05:43 > 0:05:46BLUES MUSIC
0:05:51 > 0:05:53I was brought up in Washington.
0:05:53 > 0:05:59It was a nice place to grow up in, but it was a small southern town.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02It had about 300,000 people.
0:06:02 > 0:06:04Everybody knew everybody else,
0:06:04 > 0:06:08and the race war was not as intense as now.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12Politics was the only subject that anybody talked about.
0:06:18 > 0:06:22The only thing attractive to me in the city
0:06:22 > 0:06:28is the White House - it's the only game in town.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32I'd put up with Washington if one could live there.
0:06:32 > 0:06:35Driving around, I am struck over and over again
0:06:35 > 0:06:38that this is a city of the dead.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44Everywhere you look there's a memorial to someone shot,
0:06:44 > 0:06:48and it's creepy - I don't care to go back.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03After my birth, my father, my mother and I
0:07:03 > 0:07:08moved to Rock Creek Park, the house of Senator Gore, her father.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14'It is now the residence of the Malaysian ambassador
0:07:14 > 0:07:17'and his wife, a very charming woman.
0:07:17 > 0:07:24'Here we lived, off and on, for the first ten years of my life,
0:07:24 > 0:07:29'and as living with the in-laws is a sure route to divorce,
0:07:29 > 0:07:32'in due course my parents did divorce.
0:07:32 > 0:07:36'But I was very happy with my "proper" parents,
0:07:36 > 0:07:38'my grandfather and grandmother.'
0:07:38 > 0:07:46I was prematurely taught to read by my grandmother so she would be able to do other things than read to him.
0:07:46 > 0:07:52He was blind from the age of ten, so he was read to all day long.
0:07:52 > 0:07:59- I was reading grown-up books at six.- Did you like to read to your grandfather?- Oh, yes!
0:07:59 > 0:08:03He was very interesting, a very witty man,
0:08:03 > 0:08:07and would explain enough so I knew what was happening.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10I read a lot of history to him.
0:08:10 > 0:08:15I was bored by the congressional records, but on the other hand
0:08:15 > 0:08:21by ten I understood bimetallism, which no ten-year-old understands,
0:08:21 > 0:08:27and fiat money, because he was on the banking and finance committee.
0:08:32 > 0:08:37In his day the entire top of the house was one long, raw room...
0:08:39 > 0:08:44..with plain, deal-wood floors and twenty thousand books.
0:08:44 > 0:08:50I was constantly reading, and I sat in windows set in rather funny embrasures,
0:08:50 > 0:08:53which would just fit a seated child,
0:08:53 > 0:09:00and I would just sit there and read, removed from the house and removed from the world.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06I began to suspect that a writer had been born
0:09:06 > 0:09:11when I first read a book to myself, not aloud.
0:09:11 > 0:09:17As I started to read, I began to think of an alternative work to what I was reading.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20I was all of seven, then.
0:09:20 > 0:09:27The book was called "The Duck And The Kangaroo, a Tale of Unnatural Affection".
0:09:27 > 0:09:32So I began to write my own version of this when I was reading it.
0:09:32 > 0:09:37By the time I was 14 I think I'd started about three novels,
0:09:37 > 0:09:44and Williwaw, my first published novel, must have been my seventh attempt.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47So one was a novelist,
0:09:47 > 0:09:54and I had the good - or bad - fortune, I think, of being published very early,
0:09:54 > 0:09:57before I was ripe enough.
0:09:57 > 0:10:04Tennessee Williams said, "It's a pity, Gore, you became so successful so young.
0:10:04 > 0:10:11"You always got to see the world from a successful person's perspective."
0:10:11 > 0:10:16He was so hard on people's characters. I felt that about him, too.
0:10:16 > 0:10:20But there was something in it, perhaps...
0:10:20 > 0:10:26I was recording life before I really understood what I was recording.
0:10:26 > 0:10:31And then, rather naturally, thanks to a childhood in this room,
0:10:31 > 0:10:34in this house,
0:10:34 > 0:10:36um...
0:10:36 > 0:10:42history and politics were the air I breathed, the way my brain worked.
0:10:42 > 0:10:46It was inevitable I would go in those directions.
0:10:50 > 0:10:55- I used to bring my grandfather down here...- HE brought YOU down.
0:10:55 > 0:10:57No, he was blind!
0:10:57 > 0:11:02I came on the floor on a hot summer day in a bathing suit.
0:11:02 > 0:11:09I was barefoot. Back then you took off your shoes from June to September.
0:11:09 > 0:11:14And I remember we went on the floor and I sat down beside him,
0:11:14 > 0:11:20- and suddenly the vice president, Mr John Nance Garner...- Cactus Jack!
0:11:20 > 0:11:26Cactus Jack came down, and said, "Senator, that boy's naked!"
0:11:26 > 0:11:31And my grandfather was holding my arm like that as we walked along...
0:11:31 > 0:11:35I had short sleeves, and his arm went down...!
0:11:35 > 0:11:39He sprinted out of there, blind as he was!
0:11:39 > 0:11:45'It was always pretty clear to me that I was going to be a writer...
0:11:45 > 0:11:48'whether I liked it or not.
0:11:48 > 0:11:55'And I'm not so sure I did like it all that much, cos I wanted to be a politician, like my grandfather.'
0:11:55 > 0:12:01But I've quickly figured out that the writer has just one job -
0:12:01 > 0:12:05to tell the truth as he understands it -
0:12:05 > 0:12:10and the politician has only one end, which is not to give the game away.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13The two things are in opposition.
0:12:13 > 0:12:16Would you, without your grandfather,
0:12:16 > 0:12:19have written historical and classical novels?
0:12:19 > 0:12:24Can't tell how else I would have been brought up.
0:12:24 > 0:12:26Certainly it made them easy for me.
0:12:26 > 0:12:28It made them inevitable,
0:12:28 > 0:12:35because between us our lives span over half the life of the Republic.
0:12:35 > 0:12:40He remembers his grandfather, who was in the Revolution.
0:12:40 > 0:12:44So there's a straight line to the beginning.
0:12:44 > 0:12:48To me, American history was always a family affair,
0:12:48 > 0:12:55so in novels like Burr and Washington DC, I told it through the eyes of one family,
0:12:55 > 0:12:59as indeed one family might have experienced it all.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02Had it not been for him,
0:13:02 > 0:13:09and the fact that I was exposed to politicians and the floor of the Senate, and these books...
0:13:09 > 0:13:10who knows?
0:13:10 > 0:13:15I might have been a serious and important novelist
0:13:15 > 0:13:19who would write about the only important subject -
0:13:19 > 0:13:21which is marriage.
0:13:25 > 0:13:27'I was very close to my father.
0:13:27 > 0:13:33'He had a charming and serene disposition - he was a droll man.
0:13:33 > 0:13:36'And he was an inventor. He was a true artist.'
0:13:36 > 0:13:41- ..If a ten-year-old could handle it? - Sure! I'll try it!
0:13:41 > 0:13:45'My father was eager to find a cheap, popular plane.
0:13:45 > 0:13:50'He dreamed of being the Henry Ford of aviation,
0:13:50 > 0:13:54'so he always came up with prototypes of aeroplanes
0:13:54 > 0:13:59'that were so safe that even I, at the age of ten, could fly them.'
0:14:01 > 0:14:04He was rather mean, and so was the senator.
0:14:04 > 0:14:12One reason they were so fond of me was that at 17 I enlisted in the army, so the government paid for me.
0:14:12 > 0:14:18By the time I got out I was 19 and I'd already written my first book.
0:14:18 > 0:14:21From then on I never cost them a penny.
0:14:21 > 0:14:26My father and I didn't agree about anything. He was very right-wing.
0:14:26 > 0:14:32Yet in the 43 years I knew him, we never quarrelled.
0:14:32 > 0:14:34Nor did I with Senator Gore...
0:14:34 > 0:14:38though he was far too awesome to quarrel with.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42On the other hand, my mother was a virago!
0:14:42 > 0:14:47The only way I can handle her in the memoirs, I think,
0:14:47 > 0:14:49is as a character of great comedy.
0:14:49 > 0:14:55I mean, here she is, an honest-to-God lush, a 1920s flapper.
0:14:55 > 0:15:00"Let's face it, I'm the guy who gives the shirt off his back!"
0:15:00 > 0:15:05She loves this butch talk, as though she were a man.
0:15:05 > 0:15:11She's always done so much for others, and others always let her down(!)
0:15:11 > 0:15:17The more I keep doing the dialogue, it starts to come back to me...
0:15:17 > 0:15:23I am in stitches! I mean, she is so funny...inadvertently.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28But I used to think, "How on earth did I get THIS as a mother?"
0:15:28 > 0:15:33That was bad luck - you might say I had a moment of self-pity...
0:15:33 > 0:15:37in my early adolescence, but I soon got over it.
0:15:37 > 0:15:43Then I solved it by refusing to see her the last 20 years of her life.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45It was a great burden off my back.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51In 1935 my father and mother were divorced.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55I arrived here in November 1935.
0:15:55 > 0:15:59My mother had just married Hugh Auchinchloss,
0:15:59 > 0:16:04who had just remodelled what was then a fairly new house.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08I can remember the smell of the raw paint and wet plaster.
0:16:08 > 0:16:11Everybody had a headache.
0:16:15 > 0:16:20The dining room is the same size and shape that it was.
0:16:20 > 0:16:25I remember my stepfather, Hugh Auchinchloss, was a great fisherman,
0:16:25 > 0:16:30and over the fireplace he had an enormous marlin he had caught,
0:16:30 > 0:16:35a hideous fish with, you know, a long sword on it.
0:16:35 > 0:16:42The quarrels that went on for eight years between them to get that damned thing off the wall!
0:16:42 > 0:16:47"It spoils dinner!" But he wouldn't take it down. That fish is history.
0:16:53 > 0:16:58In my first memory of the house, we came out at night,
0:16:58 > 0:17:03and I got up in the morning as ten-year-olds do, at seven,
0:17:03 > 0:17:05and I went exploring the place.
0:17:05 > 0:17:11I came back in, and what should I find sitting right here in this spot?
0:17:14 > 0:17:18It was my mother after her wedding night.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21I never remembers what anyone wears,
0:17:21 > 0:17:27but she was wearing a grey silk dressing gown with a red...border.
0:17:28 > 0:17:33Looking rather disconsolate, she asked if I liked it here.
0:17:33 > 0:17:36I said, "I just arrived. I can't tell."
0:17:36 > 0:17:41She said, "Would you like it if I went back to your father?"
0:17:41 > 0:17:47Even at ten, I knew that wasn't possible. He was far, far away.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50I said, "Well, I don't know."
0:17:51 > 0:17:57Apparently the wedding night, the marriage, proved to be a disaster.
0:17:57 > 0:18:03However, she stayed married to Auchinchloss for six or seven years,
0:18:03 > 0:18:09and had two children, who were born and brought up on the third floor.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14But I've often...re-thought in memory
0:18:14 > 0:18:18the figure of her on these stairs,
0:18:18 > 0:18:23wondering what to do, and already wondering how to get out.
0:18:29 > 0:18:31That was my bedroom...
0:18:31 > 0:18:35for about six years when I lived here...
0:18:35 > 0:18:41I moved out. My mother divorced Mr Auchinchloss, who married a lady.
0:18:41 > 0:18:45They had two daughters, called Jackie and Lee.
0:18:45 > 0:18:52Jackie moved into my room and found some of my old shirts, which she wore when she went riding.
0:18:52 > 0:18:57She married Jack Kennedy and they came back after their honeymoon,
0:18:57 > 0:19:00and they stayed in that room.
0:19:00 > 0:19:02We'd show you, but it's a closet!
0:19:09 > 0:19:12It's odd, what you dream about.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15Most people have the same experience I do,
0:19:15 > 0:19:20which is that you dream about the places you grew up in.
0:19:22 > 0:19:24I dream of this river.
0:19:26 > 0:19:30I dream often that I am running at great speed,
0:19:30 > 0:19:35through these woods, over these rocks, to the river at the bottom.
0:19:35 > 0:19:40We were told it was dangerous to swim, so we always swam there.
0:19:40 > 0:19:45The scene between Bob Ford and Jim Willard
0:19:45 > 0:19:48in The Pillar And The City took place there.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53"Abruptly, Bob pulled away.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56"For a moment, their eyes met.
0:19:56 > 0:20:00"Then, gravely, Bob shut his eyes and Jim touched him,
0:20:00 > 0:20:06"as he had so many times in dreams without words, without thought, without fear.
0:20:06 > 0:20:10"When the eyes are shut, the true world begins.
0:20:10 > 0:20:16"As faces touched, Bob gave a shuddering sigh,
0:20:16 > 0:20:19"and gripped Jim tightly in his arms.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22"Now they were complete.
0:20:22 > 0:20:29"Each became the other, as their bodies collided with a primal violence.
0:20:29 > 0:20:34"Like to like, metal to magnet... half to half,
0:20:34 > 0:20:36"and the whole restored."
0:20:45 > 0:20:49This is about the only thing left of the ill-named Merrywood
0:20:49 > 0:20:52that is still the same.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54This was the pool house,
0:20:54 > 0:20:59and there used to be a swimming pool here which has gone.
0:20:59 > 0:21:04I'm not particularly autobiographical as a writer,
0:21:04 > 0:21:06but when I wrote Washington DC,
0:21:06 > 0:21:13I used houses I grew up in - I used Merrywood, which we've seen as it now is,
0:21:13 > 0:21:17and the house of my grandfather in Rock Creek Park.
0:21:17 > 0:21:23The pool house was emblematic to me of the book, and maybe of my life.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27It begins with an adulterous affair on the floor -
0:21:27 > 0:21:31that's his, that's hers, dressing room -
0:21:31 > 0:21:33in the summer of 1937.
0:21:33 > 0:21:41They're having a big party up there at Merrywood to celebrate the defeat of Franklyn Roosevelt in the Senate.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44They're all very right-wing here.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49My own clans, the Vidals and the Gores...
0:21:49 > 0:21:52I was raised by the Gores so I know them better.
0:21:52 > 0:21:57Once a year, the Gores have a meeting, usually in Mississippi.
0:21:57 > 0:22:02They govern practically five southern states.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06One of the cousins is currently vice president.
0:22:07 > 0:22:14The Kays, my grandmother's family, also reunite yearly, and hundreds come.
0:22:14 > 0:22:17We have an ex-president, Jimmy Carter.
0:22:17 > 0:22:19These are support systems.
0:22:19 > 0:22:26In the absence of a republic, in the absence of governance, all we have is family.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29THEY SING A HYMN
0:22:29 > 0:22:31I'm Joy Gore, Mary Jane's sister,
0:22:31 > 0:22:34and my father is John Gore, also.
0:22:34 > 0:22:37I live in Clinton, Mississippi, now.
0:22:37 > 0:22:43I'm a computer specialist with the Veterans' Administration.
0:22:43 > 0:22:46SHE PLAYS AN INTRODUCTION
0:22:48 > 0:22:53# Praise the Lord, I've been invited to a meeting in the air
0:22:53 > 0:22:56# Jubilee, jubilee
0:22:56 > 0:23:01# All the saints of all the ages in their glory will be there
0:23:01 > 0:23:06# Oh, I'm going to that happy jubilee! #
0:23:06 > 0:23:09APPLAUSE
0:23:13 > 0:23:16I'm always asked what I think,
0:23:16 > 0:23:20and I had not expected so much musical talent.
0:23:20 > 0:23:26In the family line, my line, that of TP Gore,
0:23:26 > 0:23:30- we are all of us tone deaf. - LAUGHTER
0:23:30 > 0:23:33And I'm also kind of thrilled today,
0:23:33 > 0:23:37to see so many variations of my nose here.
0:23:40 > 0:23:45I thought it was all mine, and now I see that it's only on loan.
0:23:45 > 0:23:52You will see to it that it keeps on going in various variations down the ages.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56My grandfather came back here, you may remember,
0:23:56 > 0:24:00or certainly have heard tell of, in 1910.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04I remember some of his sayings and his statesmanship.
0:24:04 > 0:24:06Anyway, he once said...
0:24:08 > 0:24:14.."If there was any race but the human race, I would go join it."
0:24:14 > 0:24:16He had a dark side to him.
0:24:16 > 0:24:22I think today he would be properly pleased with the human race,
0:24:22 > 0:24:25as of this warm afternoon.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28APPLAUSE
0:24:31 > 0:24:33I saw TP,
0:24:33 > 0:24:39when I was a young girl, the last trip that he made back here.
0:24:39 > 0:24:44- He was just as sweet and good as he was then.- Yeah.
0:24:44 > 0:24:49- We all loved TP. - He was a very funny man.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51A good man.
0:24:51 > 0:24:54You knew how he became blind, didn't you?
0:24:54 > 0:25:01You tell me. I know a story, but the first time is the one I'm vague about.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04- A slingshot.- A slingshot?
0:25:04 > 0:25:06He said...
0:25:06 > 0:25:11He told me something about throwing nails at a cow when he was eight.
0:25:11 > 0:25:15Then he said he went to Jackson as page to a state senator.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18He bought a boy a birthday present.
0:25:18 > 0:25:22It was a gun with a spike that came out.
0:25:22 > 0:25:24Held it to his eye and it went off.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28And he said, "I am blind." Like that.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32We don't have any Gores, other than young Al.
0:25:32 > 0:25:37Young Al - not on the national scene, no.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39I liked him.
0:25:39 > 0:25:44I liked Albert senior - junior I'm not so keen about.
0:25:45 > 0:25:48The populist movement,
0:25:48 > 0:25:52which he started and to which the Gore clan belonged,
0:25:52 > 0:25:58was rebellion against the...banks, and what they call the "Bourbons".
0:25:58 > 0:26:04They were old guard democrats and the great planter families.
0:26:04 > 0:26:09Yet when he married my grandmother, he married into a planter family...
0:26:09 > 0:26:15proving, as a great English anthropologist once said,
0:26:15 > 0:26:19"All great men, early in life, commit hypergamy."
0:26:19 > 0:26:27I do not need to translate the Greek, which means "marrying someone above your social station".
0:26:27 > 0:26:33TP Gore did that, and my father did it by marrying TP Gore's daughter.
0:26:33 > 0:26:37And the long line of hypergamists ends in me.
0:26:44 > 0:26:49Eudora, you are a watcher of people. One question passes through my mind.
0:26:49 > 0:26:54My grandfather, Senator Gore, was what they call a freethinker.
0:26:54 > 0:27:01Suddenly I am surrounded by 200 relatives who really believe in Our Lord,
0:27:01 > 0:27:08and round there at every crossroads there is a Baptist or Methodist church.
0:27:08 > 0:27:12I asked a couple - these are doctors, lawyers -
0:27:12 > 0:27:17these are not what they sometimes condescendingly call simple folk.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20They're complicated, well-educated people.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24This thing was the centre of their lives,
0:27:24 > 0:27:29and I wondered, as you have lived here all your life, is this new?
0:27:29 > 0:27:36Did this start with TV evangelicals? Has this been consistent?
0:27:36 > 0:27:42I think it's consistent. It's just a part of life in small towns.
0:27:42 > 0:27:44It's the centre of life.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48I had a visitor from New York one time,
0:27:48 > 0:27:52who said, "I've just come from the centre of Jackson,
0:27:52 > 0:27:57"and something must be wrong - I saw these people pouring into church."
0:27:57 > 0:28:00I said, "It's Sunday, that's all!"
0:28:00 > 0:28:06I think it's part of the way of life. I don't think it's new.
0:28:06 > 0:28:10Maybe it's the occasion, everybody getting together.
0:28:10 > 0:28:14- Yeah...- Establishing contacts and connections.
0:28:14 > 0:28:18- We had eight hymns at the beginning. - That's a lot!
0:28:18 > 0:28:22Luckily only one chorus of each, but...
0:28:22 > 0:28:27I have never seen the state of Mississippi before,
0:28:27 > 0:28:31and it was green, just as I had expected,
0:28:31 > 0:28:36but I did recognise some of the same...
0:28:36 > 0:28:41There was the Kentucky Fried Chicken stand, and McDonald's...
0:28:41 > 0:28:46Have you noticed that there's more homogenisation?
0:28:46 > 0:28:50Yeah, but I was thinking in a deeper sense, maybe,
0:28:50 > 0:28:54because back when nobody left where they grew up,
0:28:54 > 0:28:59they really had certain aspects of caricature you could identify with.
0:28:59 > 0:29:03They said, "Those girls from the Delta are so FAST!"
0:29:03 > 0:29:08"You can tell a girl from the coast by her high heels."
0:29:08 > 0:29:13We were forced to wear uniforms so you couldn't see differences
0:29:13 > 0:29:17- in how they...- Arranged the collar. - How they spoke.
0:29:17 > 0:29:23Those things have gone, so you can't tell the Delta from anywhere else.
0:29:28 > 0:29:32'This production is brought to you by your Pontiac dealer,
0:29:32 > 0:29:35'who sells and services Pontiac,
0:29:35 > 0:29:37'a General Motors masterpiece.'
0:29:37 > 0:29:42I first met Eudora Welty in 1946 when my first book was published.
0:29:42 > 0:29:49The New York Times' reviewer hated The City And The Pillar, and blacked out my next five books.
0:29:49 > 0:29:54I was desperate because I had to make a living -
0:29:54 > 0:30:00I was desperate because something new had started called live TV,
0:30:00 > 0:30:02so I plunged in.
0:30:14 > 0:30:18Haven't seen you for ages. Welcome home.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22In 1954 I went into live television.
0:30:22 > 0:30:29And I...I started in '54 and I ended in...'61.
0:30:29 > 0:30:33So I spanned most of a career in live TV.
0:30:33 > 0:30:36It was very exciting. It was like a club.
0:30:36 > 0:30:43It excited me... It's the only thing that's ever excited me artistically.
0:30:43 > 0:30:49I mean the adverb without any... ironic gloss.
0:30:50 > 0:30:55I was doing something that a country wanted.
0:30:55 > 0:30:59..Killed a man he didn't know, out of a sense of justice.
0:30:59 > 0:31:02'In A Sense Of Justice,
0:31:02 > 0:31:07'I was trying to show at the height of the Jo McCarthy period
0:31:07 > 0:31:10'that someone might, out of a sense of justice,
0:31:10 > 0:31:16'act how society dared not act when a Hitler comes along,
0:31:16 > 0:31:19'or, in this case, Jo McCarthy,
0:31:19 > 0:31:26'or, in my play, the boss of a state, who is showing definite totalitarian symptoms.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30'It was a very dangerous play to write.'
0:31:30 > 0:31:33To stay alive, son, takes a lot more nerve...
0:31:33 > 0:31:37'Actors and producers came here after the show.'
0:31:37 > 0:31:43It would be broadcast live, I don't know, about nine o'clock...
0:31:43 > 0:31:46and we'd come here at 10 or 10.30.
0:31:46 > 0:31:54Everybody became an alcoholic... I'm one of the few that managed to live this long.
0:31:54 > 0:31:58But I realised - I was the last guest.
0:31:58 > 0:32:03I am Rip van With-it... come back from the past!
0:32:04 > 0:32:06And it's all half a century ago.
0:32:08 > 0:32:13I was a very unsuccessful child - I was no good at being a child.
0:32:13 > 0:32:20I was a young man for ever, and I rather thought that was my role.
0:32:20 > 0:32:24I skipped middle age, and I think I'm now going into old age.
0:32:24 > 0:32:28And as somebody old, who still has...
0:32:28 > 0:32:33Ha-ha...! Suddenly a nervous laugh.
0:32:33 > 0:32:36Eyes begin to dart about.
0:32:36 > 0:32:38..Still has some of his marbles,
0:32:38 > 0:32:42er...I may enjoy old age.
0:32:43 > 0:32:46# These little town blues
0:32:46 > 0:32:50# Are melting away
0:32:50 > 0:32:54# I'll make a brand new start of it
0:32:54 > 0:32:59# In old New York, o-o-old New York
0:32:59 > 0:33:01# If I can
0:33:01 > 0:33:05# Make it there, I'll make it
0:33:05 > 0:33:08# Anywhere
0:33:08 > 0:33:12# It's up to you
0:33:12 > 0:33:16# New York
0:33:16 > 0:33:23# New Yo-o-o-o-o-o-o-rk! #
0:33:25 > 0:33:28You don't get that very often,
0:33:28 > 0:33:31I think, on documentary television.
0:33:31 > 0:33:36- It's fantastic, Howard. - A real voice. A magnificent voice.
0:33:36 > 0:33:38You want me to get undressed now?
0:33:38 > 0:33:44No, it's a great voice and apt, because we're doing New York,
0:33:44 > 0:33:47a city I don't like and he likes.
0:33:47 > 0:33:54- When you met Gore, Howard, were you living in New York? - I was living here.
0:33:54 > 0:33:59And I was working for Lever Brothers... Dreary!
0:33:59 > 0:34:03And he was a college graduate and I was not.
0:34:03 > 0:34:08He'd put himself through college, and I never went to college.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12I think that's...43 years ago.
0:34:12 > 0:34:17When we first met that drew me to him. He was a college graduate.
0:34:17 > 0:34:19I was not.
0:34:22 > 0:34:26The first question I think I asked Gore was,
0:34:26 > 0:34:29"What is your definition of an intellectual?"
0:34:29 > 0:34:33He said, "Anybody who understands an abstract."
0:34:33 > 0:34:35That kinda cleared things up for me.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38For some reason... I don't know.
0:34:38 > 0:34:46Anyway, I try to give you colour about my life, and my life doesn't have any colour at all.
0:34:46 > 0:34:52In fact, I've forgotten practically everything I ever did. Thank God!
0:34:52 > 0:34:54Are we here?
0:34:54 > 0:34:55OK.
0:34:55 > 0:34:58Don't gamble all your money away!
0:35:28 > 0:35:33I suppose Los Angeles is my favourite American city...
0:35:33 > 0:35:39This city isn't here - I like that. You can make any life you want.
0:35:39 > 0:35:44Nothing imposes itself upon you, except probably the smog,
0:35:44 > 0:35:46and the odd earthquake,
0:35:46 > 0:35:50but largely you make your own world here.
0:35:50 > 0:35:55For somebody in the business of creating worlds, it's a good thing.
0:35:59 > 0:36:02I came here for work in the '50s.
0:36:02 > 0:36:07I had to make a living, and writing for TV and writing for movies,
0:36:07 > 0:36:10was what many novelists of my generation,
0:36:10 > 0:36:14and the generation before me, like Faulkner...
0:36:14 > 0:36:17Fitzgerald...Isherwood...Huxley...
0:36:18 > 0:36:25I was also spoilt, because I came out of TV when the writer was number one.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29You watched plays by Paddy Chayefsky or Reginald Rose -
0:36:29 > 0:36:32not a play by the director.
0:36:32 > 0:36:38At MGM we used to say the power man of the movie was the producer,
0:36:38 > 0:36:40the pretty man was the star,
0:36:40 > 0:36:44the creative man was the writer,
0:36:44 > 0:36:47and the director was a brother-in-law,
0:36:47 > 0:36:52 usually of some high-ranking official in a studio,
0:36:52 > 0:36:58since no-one wanted to spend eight hours a day on stage with actors.
0:36:58 > 0:37:02The French, in their confusion in the 1950s,
0:37:02 > 0:37:07decided that all these directors were suddenly auteurs, creators,
0:37:07 > 0:37:12and the town shook with laughter as word spread we were artists.
0:37:12 > 0:37:17Old Western makers actually tried to learn a little French!
0:37:17 > 0:37:21The writers were pretty cynical about the directors,
0:37:21 > 0:37:25and they outranked directors until the '50s...
0:37:26 > 0:37:28They got paid more, generally.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31John O'Hara came out.
0:37:31 > 0:37:36He wrote a column, saying, "I never thought I'd meet Aldous Huxley,
0:37:36 > 0:37:41"Christopher Isherwood and Gore Vidal on the set of a Western."
0:37:41 > 0:37:46O'Hara was a great snob. I never thought I'd meet John O'Hara...
0:37:48 > 0:37:50..for opposite reasons.
0:37:50 > 0:37:54Was Huxley an influence on you at all?
0:37:54 > 0:37:56Yes, he was.
0:37:56 > 0:38:01The imaginative novel of ideas, which is what he tried to do,
0:38:01 > 0:38:05is pretty much what I have tried to do from time to time.
0:38:07 > 0:38:12We're in the Malibu colony, where I lived back in the '50s.
0:38:14 > 0:38:20It was the age of the young Paul Newman and Jimmy Dean, er...
0:38:20 > 0:38:22It was a constant party going on.
0:38:25 > 0:38:31This is a colony of... actors, writers, directors...
0:38:31 > 0:38:34sealed off from the rest of the world.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37Everyone has dogs, up and down.
0:38:38 > 0:38:41We lived here with a cocker spaniel.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45We had that house, I think the third house from here:
0:38:45 > 0:38:50Mr and Mrs Paul Newman and Howard Austin and me and a spaniel.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52How did you meet?
0:38:52 > 0:38:58Gore wrote a television play called Billy The Kid,
0:38:58 > 0:39:01which I did with Arthur Penn.
0:39:01 > 0:39:04It was the very early days of television.
0:39:04 > 0:39:10Everything was exciting... and electric, and...innovative,
0:39:10 > 0:39:13and it was quite wonderful in film.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17Er...
0:39:17 > 0:39:23The studio changed writers and Gore has not forgiven me for 40 years.
0:39:23 > 0:39:27And did you immediately hit it off with him?
0:39:27 > 0:39:30Oh, yeah! He was, um...
0:39:30 > 0:39:32Um...
0:39:33 > 0:39:39He's got a quick... and far-ranging mind,
0:39:39 > 0:39:44and of course I knew him mostly by his writing, then.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48Paul was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen.
0:39:48 > 0:39:52But when I met Gore, I said, "There are two of them!"
0:39:54 > 0:39:56He was gorgeous! He was beautiful!
0:39:56 > 0:40:02And what I loved about him was that he took me seriously -
0:40:02 > 0:40:04seriously, but he made fun of me,
0:40:04 > 0:40:08because I was very serious and pretentious as hell.
0:40:08 > 0:40:11He didn't allow that.
0:40:11 > 0:40:17He also didn't treat me as a dingbat, and he loved the fact I was southern.
0:40:17 > 0:40:23At the weekend, I was at Metro, Paul at Warners, Joanne at Fox...
0:40:23 > 0:40:28One weekend, they counted... a hundred people...
0:40:28 > 0:40:31who had just arrived.
0:40:31 > 0:40:35I didn't know... I knew hardly anyone.
0:40:35 > 0:40:38I thought they were Paul's friends, or Joanne's.
0:40:38 > 0:40:42It was THE place - 100 strangers walking around.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46We couldn't say "Get out!" - it might be a friend.
0:40:46 > 0:40:49And we had one long party.
0:40:49 > 0:40:54Everybody invited everybody, the most extraordinary people.
0:40:54 > 0:40:58Christopher Isherwood was there all the time.
0:40:58 > 0:41:02Anais Nin would come with her beautiful young men.
0:41:02 > 0:41:05Anybody who was anybody came,
0:41:05 > 0:41:08because of Gore -
0:41:08 > 0:41:11because Gore, even then, knew everybody.
0:41:11 > 0:41:17Paul had not then married Joanne, so we had Confidential magazine,
0:41:17 > 0:41:21and all sorts of those expose magazines around,
0:41:21 > 0:41:23with those...
0:41:23 > 0:41:28telescopes, looking at the house, trying to see what was going on.
0:41:28 > 0:41:33And it was mostly, you know, who left what in the sink,
0:41:33 > 0:41:39and why were those wet towels left in the middle of the bathroom?
0:41:39 > 0:41:42It was no more glamorous than that.
0:41:42 > 0:41:48- Were they wild times?- Well, no, although we must have felt as though they were.
0:41:48 > 0:41:52It was... I mean, everybody drank too much.
0:41:52 > 0:41:54Except me. I didn't drink at all.
0:41:54 > 0:42:02I was always running around cleaning, washing and complaining, and picking up people's laundry.
0:42:02 > 0:42:09But it was mainly just groups of people talking...all the time!
0:42:09 > 0:42:14And I think my education really began...
0:42:14 > 0:42:16meeting Gore,
0:42:16 > 0:42:23because...through Gore I met people like Christopher and Anais,
0:42:23 > 0:42:27people to whom you could listen and learn.
0:42:30 > 0:42:33I gave up novel-writing for ten years,
0:42:33 > 0:42:37because I set myself a ten-year plan -
0:42:37 > 0:42:42I would have enough money never to do anything I didn't want to again.
0:42:42 > 0:42:47At the end of ten years, I had accomplished that.
0:42:47 > 0:42:50During the ten-year period,
0:42:50 > 0:42:56I did five Broadway plays, 20 movies, about 60 plays for TV,
0:42:56 > 0:42:59a lot of essay-writing,
0:42:59 > 0:43:02and I was involved in politics.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05So at end of this period I had the leisure.
0:43:05 > 0:43:08I was living up by the Hudson River.
0:43:08 > 0:43:16- Did you see much of Gore and Howard when they moved to Edgewater? - JOANNE WOODWARD: Yes, yes!
0:43:16 > 0:43:20That was the hangout. It was wonderful.
0:43:20 > 0:43:25That relationship, Howard and Gore's, is monumental
0:43:25 > 0:43:28in American literary history.
0:43:28 > 0:43:32It must have been strange or difficult at that time -
0:43:32 > 0:43:35or maybe it wasn't, I don't know.
0:43:35 > 0:43:40Well, I think it was difficult, and there were big problems,
0:43:40 > 0:43:44and big problems with Gore's mother, about Howard...
0:43:44 > 0:43:47There were cruel things done.
0:43:49 > 0:43:54I...always felt... that it's wonderful to have...
0:43:54 > 0:43:59Whether this is a romance or not a romance, I don't know.
0:43:59 > 0:44:03But it is wonderful to find the person in your life
0:44:03 > 0:44:09who fulfils that... that...that which you need!
0:44:09 > 0:44:14And for Howard and Gore, that is what happened.
0:44:15 > 0:44:22I remember at one point I did a summer stock play at the little theatre there,
0:44:22 > 0:44:27and I stayed with Gore at Edgewater for the time I was in rehearsal,
0:44:27 > 0:44:29an hilarious time.
0:44:29 > 0:44:34It was wonderful, because every morning Gore would go down to write.
0:44:34 > 0:44:37That's what he does first thing,
0:44:37 > 0:44:43so however drunk he'd been, he'd sit by the window with his coffee,
0:44:43 > 0:44:47and I was always next down with my coffee.
0:44:47 > 0:44:52And we would sit and talk in the window, looking out at the water.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55It was a wonderful place to be.
0:44:59 > 0:45:05Joanne and I both campaigned when he ran for Congress and left the colony.
0:45:05 > 0:45:07And he didn't win?
0:45:07 > 0:45:12No, but I think he got more votes than Roosevelt did.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14Would he have been a good senator?
0:45:14 > 0:45:18Well, he would have shaken things up...
0:45:18 > 0:45:22He's not, um...
0:45:25 > 0:45:27You know...
0:45:29 > 0:45:34Gore does not tremble or quake in the face of opposition.
0:45:34 > 0:45:40Of course, that's just what we need now, more than we needed it then.
0:45:40 > 0:45:46I have been a conventional, if radical, candidate for Congress.
0:45:46 > 0:45:50In 1960 I was in favour of recognising Red China,
0:45:50 > 0:45:52which was a daring thing to do.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55I thought Americans
0:45:55 > 0:45:59ought to be educated, a very radical thought,
0:45:59 > 0:46:01an idea whose time has not yet come.
0:46:01 > 0:46:07I doubled the vote in upstate New York, a very conservative district.
0:46:07 > 0:46:15I got 20,000 more votes in the district than Jack Kennedy, who was head of the ticket.
0:46:15 > 0:46:18So he was riding on MY coat-tails.
0:46:21 > 0:46:24But Jack certainly accepted the status quo,
0:46:24 > 0:46:28that the American empire was to be obeyed everywhere
0:46:28 > 0:46:30particularly in our backyard.
0:46:30 > 0:46:33Given your dislike of the empire,
0:46:33 > 0:46:38did you try and dissuade him from forays into Southeast Asia?
0:46:38 > 0:46:42No, I didn't know a tenth of what I've picked up since.
0:46:42 > 0:46:46I didn't question the empire. No-one did.
0:46:46 > 0:46:48In the '60s it got on my nerves -
0:46:48 > 0:46:55"Oh, you knew Jack Kennedy and Harry Truman, and you actually enlisted in the war!"
0:46:55 > 0:47:01I said, "You weren't there, kids. You don't know what country it was."
0:47:01 > 0:47:09We thought we were doing our patriotic best. We didn't question the interests of the United States.
0:47:09 > 0:47:15We believed the misinformation, the propaganda that was all around us.
0:47:15 > 0:47:19Would he have made a good president or senator?
0:47:19 > 0:47:22Yes. I don't know about president.
0:47:22 > 0:47:27He and I had this dream that he'd run for president and get elected,
0:47:27 > 0:47:31and then we'd overthrow the government.
0:47:31 > 0:47:37He would become the emperor and I would become sort of the empress!
0:47:37 > 0:47:42We would re-do the White House, and he'd rewrite the Constitution,
0:47:42 > 0:47:45which he still has a feeling about.
0:47:45 > 0:47:51- Do you look back on sort of halcyon days at Edgewater?- Yes, yes.
0:47:51 > 0:47:59It was halcyon days anyway, because we were all at the best and brightest moment in our lives then.
0:47:59 > 0:48:04We were glorious, and did other wonderful things,
0:48:04 > 0:48:07but that was a special moment in time.
0:48:21 > 0:48:25Subtitles by Huw Bell BBC - 1995