0:00:55 > 0:00:58DOORBELL RINGS
0:01:00 > 0:01:02Well...here you are.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06At the end of the road - literally! Come on in!
0:01:06 > 0:01:12It's called La Rondinaia - the swallow's nest.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15It was first built in 1925 -
0:01:15 > 0:01:19the same year that I was built!
0:01:19 > 0:01:24There was no approach to it. You had to climb a mountain.
0:01:24 > 0:01:27350 steps up and 350 steps down.
0:01:27 > 0:01:34Everything had to be brought in on people's backs - a highly expensive, insane thing to do.
0:01:37 > 0:01:42That's from the first century AD, near Hadrian's villa.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46Who are the photographs of?
0:01:46 > 0:01:47Well...
0:01:47 > 0:01:51My favourite dog, of course, is at the centre.
0:01:51 > 0:01:57My mother, I believe, is among "the usual suspects"!
0:01:57 > 0:02:03Amelia Earhart, my grandfather, Senator Gore, and I.
0:02:03 > 0:02:07There's my father when he was in Roosevelt's cabinet.
0:02:07 > 0:02:15I first came to Revellos in 1948, when I came up here in a jeep with Tennessee Williams.
0:02:15 > 0:02:22We'd taken a tour - it was all torn up from the war - starting from Rome.
0:02:22 > 0:02:26We then stayed in Amalfi and came up here one day.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30It was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen -
0:02:30 > 0:02:32particularly the gardens above.
0:02:32 > 0:02:37Over the years, I used to come to work and get away from people.
0:02:37 > 0:02:39I'd stay in a hotel.
0:02:39 > 0:02:45Then, one day - 22 years ago - we saw there was a villa for sale!
0:02:45 > 0:02:47We came, looked...
0:02:47 > 0:02:52Actually, by the time I had walked down the cyprus alley,
0:02:52 > 0:02:56I decided I would somehow try and buy the house.
0:02:58 > 0:03:03This whole area here was sacred to the great god Pan.
0:03:03 > 0:03:08There's a lovely story from the first, second century -
0:03:08 > 0:03:12when Christianity finally infected the West.
0:03:12 > 0:03:13A traveller,
0:03:13 > 0:03:16obviously of the pagan persuasion,
0:03:16 > 0:03:19was gliding along this coast.
0:03:19 > 0:03:25And from the hills, the forest, he heard this voice say,
0:03:25 > 0:03:29"The great god Pan is dead."
0:03:30 > 0:03:34I think he's still lurking somewhere here.
0:03:34 > 0:03:36I'm not in the worship business,
0:03:36 > 0:03:42but if I was to select a deity, Pan is as amiable as one can think of.
0:03:47 > 0:03:51It's Magna Graecia, this part of the world.
0:03:51 > 0:03:56It's all Greek - everything from Sicily up to Naples.
0:03:56 > 0:04:03Magna Graecia is to Greece, sort of like Texas or California is to the East of the US -
0:04:03 > 0:04:07a bit too rich, a bit too vulgar and showy.
0:04:07 > 0:04:12And that rather appeals to my American temperament.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14HE READS IN ITALIAN
0:04:14 > 0:04:21I picked another country because you're more concentrated in another language.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25Also, if I'm in America, I'm going to be a politician.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28I'm in such a rage, generally.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31When I finish the New York Times
0:04:31 > 0:04:37my blood pressure is so high that I couldn't concentrate on writing a novel.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41Italy is Italy. I don't much care what happens.
0:04:43 > 0:04:48Everything I've written from Burr on, has been written at this table
0:04:48 > 0:04:50in long hand.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53And, though I have visitors...
0:04:53 > 0:05:00Tennessee came to see me - on the wrong day, naturally, at the wrong hour. Pure Tennessee!
0:05:01 > 0:05:06And he said, "I think Gore has made more money than I suspected!"
0:05:06 > 0:05:11He practically picked up things to see how much they'd cost.
0:05:11 > 0:05:16I've never seen such an invidious, commercialite approach
0:05:16 > 0:05:19from my great, artistic friend.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23'But, people do come.'
0:05:23 > 0:05:26THEY CHAT INDISTINCTLY
0:05:26 > 0:05:29'There's a wonderful line of...
0:05:29 > 0:05:35'It's a line of Horace that Flaubert used to quote.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38'In English, "He stayed home and wrote."
0:05:38 > 0:05:46'Which is what Flaubert did, and what Horace wanted said about him once he'd found his perfect house.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50'And...I stayed home and wrote.'
0:05:50 > 0:05:52- HOWARD:- It was pretty close.
0:05:55 > 0:05:58I liked his solution to the drug problem.
0:05:58 > 0:06:04- WOMAN: Whose?- Perot. His answer was, "It won't be pretty!"
0:06:05 > 0:06:09That was a very substantive statement(!)
0:06:09 > 0:06:14- Then there was the wake-up call!- He wanted to have a 6am wake-up call?
0:06:14 > 0:06:19Did you have to get up or could you go back to sleep?
0:06:19 > 0:06:24You can see it, like sirens in the neighbourhood - aaeeeeee!
0:06:24 > 0:06:26"Wake up, America!"
0:06:26 > 0:06:31'I gave up politics when I was... In 1964.'
0:06:31 > 0:06:37I would have been elected to the House and I said, "Do I really want to go to Congress?"
0:06:37 > 0:06:40I'd sort of psyched myself into it.
0:06:40 > 0:06:45I decided, "No, I'll write Julian and go back to novel writing."
0:06:48 > 0:06:54The choice was Rome or Athens - I needed a good Classical library.
0:06:54 > 0:06:56Athens was too hideous.
0:06:56 > 0:07:02Rome was then, in the early '60s, a blissful city.
0:07:05 > 0:07:10"Mastara sees great peril - no matter what I do.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14"I sacrificed yesterday and this morning. There is still no sign.
0:07:14 > 0:07:22"I prayed over an hour to Helios. I looked straight at him until I was blind. But, nothing.
0:07:22 > 0:07:29"I have offended. But how? I cannot believe that my anger at the war god would turn heaven against me."
0:07:29 > 0:07:34I began, like most writers, writing in "the national manner".
0:07:34 > 0:07:38That was the grey, naturalistic writing
0:07:38 > 0:07:44that most American prose had been since the late 19th century.
0:07:44 > 0:07:46It's realism, naturalism.
0:07:46 > 0:07:51I was very much in that style. I had no other models.
0:07:51 > 0:07:53And then, I began to...
0:07:56 > 0:07:58..hear my voices, I suppose.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02I like to write in a voice different to my own.
0:08:02 > 0:08:08Whether it's Myra Breckinridge or the tone of Duluth or the Emperor Julian.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10And that's fun.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14"Calderone shoves Darlene's legs apart.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17"Darlene is too terrified to scream.
0:08:17 > 0:08:22"She is also a tad - as they say at police headquarters - curious.
0:08:22 > 0:08:27"She has never seen an erect okra. Will there be a surprise in store?"
0:08:27 > 0:08:30Duluth just came booming into my head.
0:08:30 > 0:08:36"Duluth - love it or loathe it, you never can leave it or lose it."
0:08:36 > 0:08:38"What does THAT mean?" I thought.
0:08:38 > 0:08:43I remember, I was walking in Rome when that began to boom in my head.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45What does it mean?
0:08:45 > 0:08:52"She watches as three sets of trousers and drawers dropped to six pointy shoes,
0:08:52 > 0:08:59"which are never removed voluntarily by illegal aliens during a rape or even a house call,
0:08:59 > 0:09:02"due to the embarrassing, ubiquitousness of corns.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05"Pablo, leering, okra in hand,
0:09:05 > 0:09:13"now poises himself at the rim of Darlene's capacious honey pot."
0:09:14 > 0:09:17Do you think Myra and Darlene...
0:09:17 > 0:09:20Are they your interior voice, your alter ego?
0:09:20 > 0:09:23Well, I don't know. I heard them.
0:09:23 > 0:09:27"I am Myra Breckinridge who no man shall possess!"
0:09:27 > 0:09:33That line came to me. I didn't know what it meant. I started to write.
0:09:33 > 0:09:35I was one third into the book
0:09:35 > 0:09:41before I realised that Myra was a transsexual. She'd been a man.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44I didn't have that in mind at all.
0:09:44 > 0:09:50I just wanted somebody obsessed with movies of the '30s and '40s.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53Behind the comedy there IS a serious point.
0:09:53 > 0:09:58Myra IS trying to restructure the sexual lives of the human race,
0:09:58 > 0:10:05in order to create, in her case, fun-loving Amazons through castration.
0:10:05 > 0:10:07This is quite a radical vision.
0:10:07 > 0:10:10She's into...
0:10:10 > 0:10:13pan-sexuality - mega-sexuality.
0:10:15 > 0:10:18A lot of your characters don't really fit
0:10:18 > 0:10:21into clear-cut, binary male-female.
0:10:21 > 0:10:27- They transgress.- Of course! They're fluid. They go back and forth.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31And...I think most people do, given the chance.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34But the chance between the taboos, the laws,
0:10:34 > 0:10:40the nonsense that people are taught from the moment they are born...
0:10:40 > 0:10:47If there's anything more unnatural than the family in this era, I don't know what it is.
0:10:47 > 0:10:52Man and wife are to stay together for ever and neither is to cheat.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56If they do, it's a source of... at least, novels.
0:10:56 > 0:11:03I've stopped reading most novels as it's a subject I can't get interested in.
0:11:03 > 0:11:07Did you never feel the urge to procreate, replicate...?
0:11:07 > 0:11:11- How do you know I haven't?- I don't. - I know.
0:11:12 > 0:11:17To be a member of a nuclear family - no, never!
0:11:17 > 0:11:18Never, never.
0:11:20 > 0:11:26I think that we're all constructed with a desire to...
0:11:27 > 0:11:31I think we're programmed to bring up children,
0:11:31 > 0:11:33to teach.
0:11:33 > 0:11:38When I was about 40, I regretted I didn't have a son of 20
0:11:38 > 0:11:41- that I could teach some of the things- I- knew to.
0:11:41 > 0:11:47But he would be an engineer and be taking the hood of the car off,
0:11:47 > 0:11:50so we'd have nothing to talk about!
0:11:50 > 0:11:56Most men without children get a sense that they may have missed something.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59It doesn't last long, however.
0:12:05 > 0:12:10At the beginning of 1968 I published Myra Breckinridge,
0:12:10 > 0:12:14and the war was going on and on and on.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18I suddenly got a call from ABC television -
0:12:18 > 0:12:22would I consent to about a dozen debates
0:12:22 > 0:12:26with William F Buckley Junior?
0:12:26 > 0:12:30First, at the Republican convention in Miami beach,
0:12:30 > 0:12:34then at the Democratic convention at Chicago.
0:12:34 > 0:12:40'Mr Vidal, wasn't it a provocative act to try to raise the Vietcong flag?'
0:12:40 > 0:12:44You must understand some of the political issues.
0:12:44 > 0:12:49Many people in the United States believe that US policy is wrong,
0:12:49 > 0:12:56and that the Vietcong are right in wanting to organise their country in their own way, politically.
0:12:56 > 0:13:01This is pretty much the opinion of much of the world.
0:13:01 > 0:13:05If it is a novelty in Chicago that is too bad.
0:13:05 > 0:13:12- I assume that the point of the American democracy...- Some people were pro-Nazi...- Shut up.- No!
0:13:12 > 0:13:16They were well-treated by people who ostracised them,
0:13:16 > 0:13:22and I'm for ostracising people who egg on others to shoot US marines...
0:13:22 > 0:13:27As far as I'm concerned, the only pro-Nazi I can think of is yourself!
0:13:27 > 0:13:32- I'll only say... - Let's not call names. >
0:13:32 > 0:13:39Don't call me a Nazi, or I'll sock you in the goddam face and you'll stay plastered!
0:13:39 > 0:13:46Let the author go back to his pornography and stop making allusions of Naziism
0:13:46 > 0:13:52- to someone who was in the infantry in the last war... - You were not in the infantry...
0:13:52 > 0:13:55'Was that a radicalising point?'
0:13:55 > 0:14:02I was starting in the '50s - before I ran for Congress and before Jack was president.
0:14:02 > 0:14:08I was working in television and I saw friends blacklisted as Commies.
0:14:08 > 0:14:13If they had been, so what? And most of them had not been.
0:14:13 > 0:14:19So it was a terrible time, and I realised we were losing our civil rights.
0:14:19 > 0:14:26But I hadn't yet put together the national security state in my mind, nor the rationale.
0:14:26 > 0:14:33It wasn't till '72 that it was revealed how, under an executive action of Truman,
0:14:33 > 0:14:38we lost the Republic and became a permanently militarised economy -
0:14:38 > 0:14:41to which Jack contributed hugely.
0:14:41 > 0:14:46He will go down as one of our worst presidents because of that.
0:14:46 > 0:14:53He wanted war, and he sacrificed the internal good for imperial adventures abroad -
0:14:53 > 0:14:55specifically, Vietnam.
0:14:55 > 0:15:00A distaste for Imperial America runs through your historical novels.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03Is that what drew you to writing them?
0:15:03 > 0:15:09I had an interest in my family and in why they were what they were.
0:15:09 > 0:15:14Then I got interested in the country - why we were what we were.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18Then I started to study the history with great horror.
0:15:18 > 0:15:21Then I thought I had better do it.
0:15:21 > 0:15:25If someone else had, I would never have bothered!
0:15:25 > 0:15:30A book like Lincoln would take about four years of reading.
0:15:30 > 0:15:37I would buy books and go through libraries in New York and Los Angeles, where I have a house.
0:15:37 > 0:15:39I don't use a researcher.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42It's like breaking rocks to...
0:15:42 > 0:15:46You have a million facts for one of those books,
0:15:46 > 0:15:50and you have to go over and over and over.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55"A man on crutches approached the President,
0:15:55 > 0:15:58"and, in silence, shook his hand.
0:15:58 > 0:16:03"Others came forward, one by one, and each took Lincoln's hand.
0:16:03 > 0:16:08"To each he murmured something that the man alone could hear.
0:16:08 > 0:16:15"At the end, as Lincoln made his way, stopping to talk to those who could not move,
0:16:15 > 0:16:19"half of them were in tears, as was Washbourne himself.
0:16:19 > 0:16:26"In the last bed by the door, a young officer turned his back on the President,
0:16:26 > 0:16:29"who touched his shoulder and murmured,
0:16:29 > 0:16:34"'My son, we shall all be the same at the end.'
0:16:34 > 0:16:36"Then, the President was gone."
0:16:38 > 0:16:44I bring in fictional characters as counterpoint to the real ones.
0:16:44 > 0:16:46When I'm with the real ones,
0:16:46 > 0:16:51I keep it as close to what they said and did as I can.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55I think one should be pretty meticulous there.
0:16:56 > 0:17:00- <- Would you like some, Mr Lincoln?
0:17:00 > 0:17:03It's a speciality of the Willard.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06I have enough on my plate, Mr Seward.
0:17:06 > 0:17:11Indeed you have, sir. Six states gone from the Union.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14Well, they gave us plenty of warning.
0:17:14 > 0:17:20They said if I was elected they'd leave the Union. I was and they did!
0:17:20 > 0:17:25We are well rid of those cotton republics with their slavery.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29Our destiny is expansion in Canada and Mexico.
0:17:29 > 0:17:33'With Lincoln, you really had a revolution.
0:17:33 > 0:17:39'He reconceived what was a loosely federated republic,
0:17:39 > 0:17:44'into a highly centralised federal republic
0:17:44 > 0:17:51'with, I guess, the most powerful army and navy in the world by the time the civil war was over.
0:17:51 > 0:17:59'This mystical notion of a Union did not exist anywhere except in the psyche of Abraham Lincoln.
0:17:59 > 0:18:05'Then he made it possible for Theodore Roosevelt
0:18:05 > 0:18:11'to make us a great Pacific power by seizing the Philippines.'
0:18:11 > 0:18:15Will you carry on from Washington DC and cover...
0:18:15 > 0:18:19Kennedy and Camelot would be the next in the series.
0:18:19 > 0:18:25Well, the memoir's going to do all that I have to say about Kennedy.
0:18:25 > 0:18:31I wouldn't have much good to say about the administration -
0:18:31 > 0:18:33though I certainly liked HIM.
0:18:35 > 0:18:42He had a great sense of humour, he was a superb gossip - there was nothing he didn't know.
0:18:42 > 0:18:48He was the best company of any politician, and the least self-important.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52Jack was restlessly firing away at a target
0:18:52 > 0:18:58and he said, "Tennessee, would you like to try a shot at the target?"
0:18:58 > 0:19:04- IN SOUTHERN DRAWL:- "Well," he said. "I haven't shot a gun in some time!"
0:19:04 > 0:19:08Tennessee picked it up and made four bull's-eyes!
0:19:10 > 0:19:16Once, Tennessee was looking at Jack and said, "That boy's got a cute ass!"
0:19:16 > 0:19:20I said, "Tennessee, that's the next president!"
0:19:20 > 0:19:27He said, "He'll never be president. They're much too attractive for the American people!"
0:19:29 > 0:19:32I remember one evening at the White House,
0:19:32 > 0:19:37Jackie slyly said, "Oh, why don't we go to the horse show?"
0:19:37 > 0:19:42Jack groaned. She said, "No, no, no! We'll JUST look in."
0:19:45 > 0:19:50He groaned and moaned and complained, but he said all right.
0:19:50 > 0:19:55"What shall I wear?" She went out and came back in a bright red dress.
0:19:55 > 0:20:00He said, "No. Things are going too bad in Europe to wear red."
0:20:00 > 0:20:07She made about three changes and ends up in a Chanel suit, I think it is.
0:20:07 > 0:20:11So we're at the horse show for almost an hour,
0:20:11 > 0:20:17and he is squirming and raging and gossiping with ME behind her back.
0:20:17 > 0:20:22He's telling me the entire plot of an Edgar Wallace novel
0:20:22 > 0:20:28about how a Prime Minister has been told that he'd be shot by midnight.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32I said, "If they shot you here, they'd probably hit me!"
0:20:32 > 0:20:36He said, "That's no great loss!" He was fun!
0:20:36 > 0:20:40I could pick up later with Johnson, a more interesting figure,
0:20:40 > 0:20:43and bring it up to the present.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47I have a character in Washington DC who would be my age.
0:20:47 > 0:20:50He would have lasted this long
0:20:50 > 0:20:55and would have watched the empire go from its peak in 1945,
0:20:55 > 0:20:59to fall on its face in Korea in 1950, '51,
0:20:59 > 0:21:05and then just go RIGHT off the wall in the Vietnam War.
0:21:07 > 0:21:12But do I want to write such a SAD book? I don't know.
0:21:14 > 0:21:17So, instead, you turned to Golgotha.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21Well, because that's a happy book with a happy ending.
0:21:21 > 0:21:23A Japanese ending.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28My tribute to the great empire to the west of us.
0:21:30 > 0:21:34I love the inventions - they take my mind off everything.
0:21:36 > 0:21:41You start in a world of "what could have been", "what might be".
0:21:43 > 0:21:47"'Timothy! Bishop Timothy, I should say. Saint Timothy.
0:21:47 > 0:21:49"'Tim boy!
0:21:49 > 0:21:52"'I want to level with you.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55"'Your Gospel is all-important to Christianity.
0:21:55 > 0:22:00"'However, creative programming is all-important to General Electric
0:22:00 > 0:22:04"'and its subsidiary, the network NBC.
0:22:04 > 0:22:09"'We are getting ready for a big technical breakthrough in software.
0:22:09 > 0:22:16"'We'll be able to get a crew back here and we'll be able to tape all sorts of historical events live -
0:22:16 > 0:22:18"'as of then, anyway.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21"'Which is where you come in.'
0:22:21 > 0:22:26"I chuckled, a noise I do rather well. 'Shouldn't I get a lawyer?'
0:22:26 > 0:22:30"Chet gave me a sick smile, I had struck pay dirt.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34"'It's too soon to be talking deal, but here's the plan.
0:22:34 > 0:22:40"'We're going back to Golgotha to shoot the actual crucifixion,
0:22:40 > 0:22:45"'resurrection - the whole ball of wax - LIVE!
0:22:45 > 0:22:49"'Because viewer identification is the name of the game,
0:22:49 > 0:22:56"'we'll need in-depth interviews with the notables AND the man in the street.
0:22:56 > 0:23:02"'I don't want to raise your hopes, but for anchor person, you're the frontrunner.'"
0:23:02 > 0:23:08Gore's been saying unspeakable things about me.
0:23:08 > 0:23:15He's been acting even worse than he usually does as a polemicist and er...
0:23:15 > 0:23:20He's absolutely without character or moral foundation,
0:23:20 > 0:23:23- or even intellectual substance. - OK, um...
0:23:23 > 0:23:31I mean, leave it to Gore to write a play about Richard Nixon - I'm going to end up liking Nixon!
0:23:31 > 0:23:38'I first met Norman Mailer in 1950, and relations were always... quite friendly -
0:23:38 > 0:23:42'until I criticised his book, The Prisoner Of Sex,
0:23:42 > 0:23:46'because he had taken on, harshly, women's liberation.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49'I attacked his attack on them.
0:23:49 > 0:23:57'He took it very personally, got very upset and asked himself on the Cavett programme to attack me.'
0:23:57 > 0:24:01There'll be a message and we'll be right back.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08I met Gore back in 1950.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11He said, "I'm gonna outlive you.
0:24:11 > 0:24:17"Then I'm gonna write the history of our literary time." PEOPLE CHUCKLE
0:24:17 > 0:24:19Implicit in that was,
0:24:19 > 0:24:25"Mailer, mind your manners around me for the rest of your time!"
0:24:25 > 0:24:28Gore and I have had our differences...
0:24:30 > 0:24:34..they've been small and famous. LAUGHTER
0:24:34 > 0:24:39But I wouldn't have come here tonight if I couldn't salute him!
0:24:39 > 0:24:43I have to tell you that I have had the pleasure
0:24:43 > 0:24:47of working with a great - if limited - actor!
0:24:47 > 0:24:52Anyway, wherever you are, Gore - your health! Cheers!
0:24:52 > 0:24:54WOMAN: Well done.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59I am startled to read how venomous I am.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02"Vitriolic!" "Vicious!"
0:25:02 > 0:25:05I often ask journalists who say it,
0:25:05 > 0:25:11"Could you quote something I said that was vicious or venomous?"
0:25:13 > 0:25:16And they can't.
0:25:17 > 0:25:19I may make a joke.
0:25:19 > 0:25:24"Once again, words failed Norman Mailer - he threw a glass at me!"
0:25:24 > 0:25:27I don't regard that as venomous!
0:25:27 > 0:25:30'Now we have a great entry!'
0:25:30 > 0:25:33- Oh, my Lord!- Hello, Gore! How ARE you?
0:25:35 > 0:25:39To think...some day, all this will be mine!
0:25:40 > 0:25:47- How are you?- Well. And you? - Better for seeing you, as the Irish treacherously say!
0:25:47 > 0:25:53- You were in New York.- Yes.- Being a movie star.- Being a movie star.
0:25:53 > 0:25:59- Why didn't you do that?- You did not see me in Back To School.
0:25:59 > 0:26:06- I was with Rodney Dangerfield and you missed it.- That was my part. I turned it down!
0:26:06 > 0:26:13- And they got you! Dangerfield came and I said... - I'm sorry I came to England(!)
0:26:13 > 0:26:16"..I draw the line at nudity.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19"But I think Vonnegut is your man!"
0:26:19 > 0:26:22The next thing I knew, you had my part!
0:26:22 > 0:26:27I know I wasn't first choice, but I didn't know who the others were.
0:26:27 > 0:26:30- They asked Mailer before you!- No!
0:26:30 > 0:26:33He's the wrong height!
0:26:33 > 0:26:39Going back to Capote, did you say what I heard you had said when he died?
0:26:39 > 0:26:45Well, I said it, but I said it in private to Jason Epstein, my editor.
0:26:45 > 0:26:52He rang me from New York to say that Truman had ridden on ahead and crossed the shining river.
0:26:52 > 0:26:57And I DID say, "Well, that was a good career move!" I did say it.
0:26:57 > 0:27:00But not to the public.
0:27:00 > 0:27:08Jason told everybody, so I got credit for being stony-hearted at the loss of a confrere
0:27:08 > 0:27:15without price, the greatest jewel... the greatest zircon in the diadem of American literature!
0:27:17 > 0:27:22Is it a relief from writing to be able to act in movies,
0:27:22 > 0:27:24do the talk shows?
0:27:24 > 0:27:26Yes.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28It's um...
0:27:28 > 0:27:35How to say writing is a lonely business without saying writing is a lonely business is impossible.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38So I'll repeat it rapidly!
0:27:38 > 0:27:41It IS a solitary business - which I quite like.
0:27:41 > 0:27:46But there are times when you think, "What are other people doing?
0:27:46 > 0:27:53"Why can't I be out romping over the greensward with the other lads and lassies?"
0:27:53 > 0:28:01To make a movie, you get to know a lot of people quite intensly for a short time - that's perfect for me!
0:28:01 > 0:28:03I have a short attention span.
0:28:03 > 0:28:10It's very enjoyable to have two or three weeks with everyone working towards the same end.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15It's er... It's collegial.
0:28:15 > 0:28:20It's nice - rather better than being in the Senate, I would say,
0:28:20 > 0:28:25where you have colleagues, but you end up not liking any of them.
0:28:25 > 0:28:31- Is that still one thing you would like most, to be a senator?- Not any more.
0:28:31 > 0:28:3630 years ago, yeah. There was still some point to it.
0:28:36 > 0:28:41Now the Senate has no power - or it has powers that don't interest me.
0:28:41 > 0:28:47Like the power to funnel money from federal government to your friends.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50This is not my idea of a noble activity.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55No, it's much better telling stories...
0:28:57 > 0:29:01..and being a flickering image on a screen.
0:29:01 > 0:29:05It has a sort of ghostly afterlife to it...
0:29:06 > 0:29:08..which is intriguing.
0:29:11 > 0:29:14Good luck, Monty.
0:29:16 > 0:29:21Less theatrical. Like, "Good luck." "Good luck, Monty."
0:29:21 > 0:29:27'My generation was brought up on the talking film, which came in when I was four.
0:29:27 > 0:29:34'I was 14 years old in the year of Gone With The Wind, The Wizard Of Oz -
0:29:34 > 0:29:40'the great, classic films were made as I was growing up. And I saw them.
0:29:40 > 0:29:43'So my generation was riveted by films.
0:29:43 > 0:29:49'It's no accident - Norman Mailer, William Burroughs, Truman Capote
0:29:49 > 0:29:51'all acted in movies.
0:29:51 > 0:29:53'Not very well, most of them!'
0:29:54 > 0:29:58- Good luck, Monty. - That was so perfect!
0:30:00 > 0:30:05'Movies are the lingua franca of the world - or WERE until TV.'
0:30:16 > 0:30:19MAN: We were doing Mary Hartman -
0:30:19 > 0:30:25we'd only been on air for about two months.
0:30:25 > 0:30:30But Mary Hartman was different than the average weekly show.
0:30:30 > 0:30:35It was on Monday through Friday, every night of the week.
0:30:35 > 0:30:40Gore had heard about it, seen some tapes, and we got a letter!
0:30:40 > 0:30:48He was coming to the States anyway, and could he guest on the show? Could we find a way to write him in?
0:30:48 > 0:30:50And, er...of course we did.
0:30:50 > 0:30:57I believe we wrote him in when Mary Hartman was about to, or had just had, a nervous breakdown
0:30:57 > 0:31:00and was to be institutionalised.
0:31:00 > 0:31:05Gore was covering the story, ostensibly,
0:31:05 > 0:31:09for some major national publication,
0:31:09 > 0:31:11and he came on as himself.
0:31:11 > 0:31:14Nothing was the same!
0:31:14 > 0:31:18So you REALLY want to write a book with me about you?
0:31:18 > 0:31:23No, I want to write a book about me...by me about you.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27- Oh, by YOU about ME?- Yes. - That is what I thought!
0:31:27 > 0:31:32- Sometimes they try to trick you around here.- I certainly see that!
0:31:32 > 0:31:39Anyway, as I told you on the telephone from Rome, a book about you would be a book about America -
0:31:39 > 0:31:44a book about emptiness, a book about promises unkept.
0:31:44 > 0:31:47But it would also be, paradoxically,
0:31:47 > 0:31:50a book about hope.
0:31:50 > 0:31:55It would be a book about survival against pretty terrible odds.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59I would LOVE to read that book.
0:31:59 > 0:32:04Gore Vidal has his own place because he's such a part of popular culture.
0:32:04 > 0:32:09He's so welcome as a literary entertainer
0:32:09 > 0:32:12on the average talk show.
0:32:12 > 0:32:17At the same time, he's more and more welcome in literary circles...
0:32:17 > 0:32:19of great esteem.
0:32:19 > 0:32:27I mean, to hear Gore talk, the intellectual part of American literary life has not found him.
0:32:27 > 0:32:33To watch his amazing career is to understand that he's very well received.
0:32:33 > 0:32:38But he's like few other writers - there's nobody else I can think of.
0:32:38 > 0:32:44360 degrees of the culture seems to find interest in Gore Vidal.
0:32:44 > 0:32:49There's Gore Vidal, the American writer. Let's ask for an interview.
0:32:51 > 0:32:56Good evening, Mr Vidal. May we disturb you?
0:32:56 > 0:33:00I suppose you're going to ask me why I live in Rome.
0:33:00 > 0:33:05You could say I live here because it's so...central.
0:33:05 > 0:33:06Centrale!
0:33:06 > 0:33:13Mostly, I like the Romans. They don't care if you live or die. They're like cats!
0:33:13 > 0:33:16What is your most successful movie?
0:33:16 > 0:33:24The only time I ever got something of my own made in my own way, until Billy The Kid with Val Kilmer,
0:33:24 > 0:33:29was The Best Man, a play of mine which ran for two years on Broadway.
0:33:29 > 0:33:33It opened in 1960...
0:33:33 > 0:33:36and it's a very good movie about American Politics
0:33:36 > 0:33:41with Henry Fonda, Lee Tracy, Cliff Robertson.
0:33:41 > 0:33:47It was a realistic, satirical play about American politics.
0:33:47 > 0:33:48Why?
0:33:48 > 0:33:55Bill, this isn't easy to say, but I came here to... support Cantwell for president.
0:33:55 > 0:33:58I knew that this morning.
0:33:58 > 0:34:02- Did you, now? - I have SOME gift for politics.
0:34:02 > 0:34:04I never said you didn't.
0:34:04 > 0:34:08Tonight, you warned me about Cantwell's smear.
0:34:08 > 0:34:14- That means you've changed your mind about him, doesn't it?- Yes, I have.
0:34:14 > 0:34:19He wasn't smart. He figured I was gonna back you when I wasn't.
0:34:19 > 0:34:26You got my message. Joe didn't. That shows he doesn't understand character.
0:34:26 > 0:34:28And then, this smear thing.
0:34:28 > 0:34:33He fires off a cannon to kill a bug and that is just plain dumb.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36So, I mean to knock him off.
0:34:38 > 0:34:43Which means, I guess, that you are going to be our next president.
0:34:45 > 0:34:50'Being born at West Point, whose motto is "Duty, Honour, Country."
0:34:50 > 0:34:53'some of it must have rubbed off on me.
0:34:53 > 0:35:00'I notice the recurring theme in my dramatic work, is honour and justice and duty.
0:35:04 > 0:35:09'How to behave when the enemy comes. What IS honour?'
0:35:09 > 0:35:14- You want to go on?- It ain't what I want, it's what I have to do!
0:35:15 > 0:35:23I guess you've gone and forgotten all the big talk. How we were gonna die for liberty and the rest of it.
0:35:23 > 0:35:28Don't you remember the speeches, the talk, what you said in this room?
0:35:29 > 0:35:34- "Our honour's at stake!" Remember? - I didn't know...
0:35:34 > 0:35:37Nobody knew, but that don't make any difference.
0:35:37 > 0:35:40Now there are no more speeches.
0:35:40 > 0:35:43There's nothing left but dying.
0:35:43 > 0:35:47We still know how to do that! We've got a real calling for that(!)
0:35:47 > 0:35:55'Do you side with those who compromised or with the idealists, however mistaken?
0:35:55 > 0:35:59'I think people are what they are. I don't sit in moral judgment.
0:35:59 > 0:36:06- 'But you like putting them into a moral situation where they had to choose?- Oh, yes.
0:36:06 > 0:36:10'A collision of this sort involves life and death.
0:36:10 > 0:36:14'What is honour? What is national honour? What is personal honour?
0:36:14 > 0:36:18Let me go with you, I could protect you...
0:36:18 > 0:36:25'The Billy The Kid character figures in several incarnations in your work.
0:36:25 > 0:36:31- 'Is he that same morally ambiguous creature?- More the great god Pan!'
0:36:31 > 0:36:38- This was my present to YOU. - You gave me everything I own. I don't want nothing to happen to you.
0:36:38 > 0:36:46'He's sort of Huckleberry Finn - the noble savage, the beauty of the wilderness,
0:36:46 > 0:36:49'to escape civilisation.
0:36:49 > 0:36:55'As Mark Twain has Huck Finn say, "To light out for the territory.
0:36:55 > 0:36:59'Well, Billy, born in New York, lights out for the territory
0:36:59 > 0:37:02'and creates himself.
0:37:02 > 0:37:09'He was somebody who, again, believed in a personal honour and didn't much care for civilisation.
0:37:09 > 0:37:14'He thought, "If you killed my friend, I'll kill you.'
0:37:19 > 0:37:22GUNSHOTS
0:37:27 > 0:37:32APPLAUSE
0:37:38 > 0:37:44GORE ADDRESSES THE AUDIENCE IN ITALIAN
0:38:01 > 0:38:03ITALIAN SOUNDTRACK
0:38:05 > 0:38:07MAN: 'It's remarkable what happened
0:38:07 > 0:38:12'because you saw a real American tragedy unfold.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15'I talked to him later about it.'
0:38:15 > 0:38:21He said, "My grandfather had lost his seat at this time of year,
0:38:21 > 0:38:24"at my age - the age I am now.
0:38:24 > 0:38:29"And I felt his...soul in me as I was doing this."
0:38:29 > 0:38:32It entered into another realm.
0:38:32 > 0:38:37He was sitting there talking with his grandfather's voice coming out.
0:38:37 > 0:38:43Congress knows of the National Security Council and its functions.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47The fact that this is a national security state
0:38:47 > 0:38:51and less and less a representative one.
0:38:51 > 0:38:57You know the story of the frog in the pan of cold water?
0:38:57 > 0:39:02Throw a frog into hot water, it'll jump around, suffer greatly and die.
0:39:02 > 0:39:09If you put the frog in a pan of cold water, put it on the stove and heat it to boiling point,
0:39:09 > 0:39:13the frog doesn't stir, he doesn't notice it.
0:39:13 > 0:39:15At the end of it he's dead.
0:39:15 > 0:39:20These things happen incrementally. We're complicit.
0:39:20 > 0:39:24Are we revolutionaries? How do you do it, once you're here?
0:39:24 > 0:39:27There ARE no Mr Smiths in Washington.
0:39:27 > 0:39:33He's such an original. He's so American in that way.
0:39:33 > 0:39:39He's clearly such a believer in the Republic in a very idealistic way.
0:39:39 > 0:39:44It's strange to learn because you could think he was being cynical -
0:39:44 > 0:39:49his way of speaking and he's so funny and so biting.
0:39:49 > 0:39:54But, in fact, he...so believes in the purity of the Republic.
0:39:54 > 0:40:03And, er... I think after his... after he wasn't able to successfully run for office
0:40:03 > 0:40:08that it really...was devastating to him.
0:40:08 > 0:40:15It's his family thing and you could tell that was a turning point, in some way, for him.
0:40:15 > 0:40:18What would you have made of him as president?
0:40:18 > 0:40:22Well, he's too smart to ever be elected.
0:40:22 > 0:40:27He speaks too smart. I mean, he's just too intellectual.
0:40:27 > 0:40:33He never... He would probably have had to go to a finishing school
0:40:33 > 0:40:35and be re-done!
0:40:36 > 0:40:42Does being gay affect my politics? I never said I was anything at all!
0:40:42 > 0:40:46- I am ecumenical! - LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:40:46 > 0:40:51There is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.
0:40:51 > 0:40:55We've all known that for a long time.
0:40:55 > 0:41:00'I was co-chairman, with Dr Spock, of the People's Party until 1972.
0:41:00 > 0:41:03'And in '72,
0:41:03 > 0:41:06'Senator George McGovern of South Dakota
0:41:06 > 0:41:11'appeared an irresistible candidate to get us out of the war.
0:41:11 > 0:41:17'I realised what's the point of our party when we have a candidate to end the war?'
0:41:17 > 0:41:22We must have a president who will summon this nation
0:41:22 > 0:41:27to a higher standard, and rekindle the American purpose.
0:41:27 > 0:41:33I believe you'll express it tomorrow in the privacy of that voting booth.
0:41:33 > 0:41:36I believe we are going to prevail!
0:41:38 > 0:41:42'I think part of Gore Vidal
0:41:42 > 0:41:46'despises politics - the demagoguery,
0:41:46 > 0:41:48'the hypocrisy.
0:41:48 > 0:41:52'But an important side of him loves politics.
0:41:52 > 0:41:59'Er...if there's any...professional tragedy in his life,'
0:41:59 > 0:42:04it's that he never made it to the US Senate, or some high office.
0:42:04 > 0:42:10Because, I think an important part of him covets and admires
0:42:10 > 0:42:15the life of public service more than any other activity.
0:42:15 > 0:42:19Which book do I like best? It's probably Burr.
0:42:19 > 0:42:22APPLAUSE
0:42:22 > 0:42:24And what am I working on now?
0:42:24 > 0:42:27Getting elected!
0:42:27 > 0:42:32'I've watched him handle audiences and deal with politicians.
0:42:32 > 0:42:38'He does have a pragmatic quality that would have served him well.
0:42:38 > 0:42:43'He would have had to discipline his tongue and his pen more'
0:42:43 > 0:42:48if he'd been in public office, than as a writer, an intellectual.
0:42:52 > 0:42:58The nice thing about empires is you end up with a great many rugs!
0:42:58 > 0:43:03There's more rugs in the British Isles than anywhere else!
0:43:06 > 0:43:09I first came here in 1939,
0:43:09 > 0:43:11as a schoolboy.
0:43:13 > 0:43:19On 2 September, I went to Downing Street to watch Neville Chamberlain come out,
0:43:19 > 0:43:27on his way to tell the House of Commons that war was about to begin - which it did the next day.
0:43:27 > 0:43:31I was staying in Bloomsbury, in Russell Square.
0:43:31 > 0:43:33Oh, it was very exciting.
0:43:33 > 0:43:41The crowd was odd. I remember this...exhalation - there were only about 50 people in Downing Street.
0:43:41 > 0:43:45When he came out, looking VERY nervous...
0:43:46 > 0:43:50..there was no applause, the crowd just went...
0:43:50 > 0:43:53HE EXHALES
0:43:53 > 0:43:58I'd never heard that sound from a crowd before, just exhalation.
0:43:58 > 0:44:02And, of course, back to war again.
0:44:15 > 0:44:18Racial stereotypes are irresistible -
0:44:18 > 0:44:20particularly in wartime.
0:44:20 > 0:44:22I know.
0:44:22 > 0:44:26I was in the... I was an American soldier
0:44:26 > 0:44:29in the great race war against Japan.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32Before I left to go to the Pacific,
0:44:32 > 0:44:39we were given an indoctrination course on how to tell our exquisite allies,
0:44:39 > 0:44:41the Chinese,
0:44:41 > 0:44:45from our brutish enemy, the Japanese.
0:44:45 > 0:44:49So, on a stage like this, there was a life-size cutout
0:44:49 > 0:44:52of a naked Chinese youth.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55There was another one of a Japanese.
0:44:55 > 0:44:59The Chinese was tall, slim and well-proportioned.
0:44:59 > 0:45:03The Japanese was bandy-legged, buck-toothed, sub-human.
0:45:03 > 0:45:07These details were pointed out very seriously to us
0:45:07 > 0:45:11by an information officer with a pointer.
0:45:11 > 0:45:16"But the principle difference," he announced, "as you can plainly see,
0:45:16 > 0:45:19- "is the pubic hair." - LAUGHTER
0:45:19 > 0:45:25"The Japanese is thick and wiry. The Chinese is straight and silky."
0:45:25 > 0:45:30I fear that I, alone, raised my hand to ask...
0:45:30 > 0:45:34what sly strategies we were to use...
0:45:34 > 0:45:36ROARING LAUGHTER
0:45:36 > 0:45:39..to determine friend from foe.
0:45:40 > 0:45:45'The British still read, I think, more per capita
0:45:45 > 0:45:47'than the Americans do.
0:45:47 > 0:45:52'They're also loyal if they ever liked anything by you.
0:45:52 > 0:45:57'In America, you must have one hit best-seller after the other,
0:45:57 > 0:46:02'and if you don't for a couple of books, you are counted out.
0:46:02 > 0:46:06'Very Darwinian. The great Republic(!)
0:46:08 > 0:46:13'Well, the serious novel seems to be pretty much at an end,
0:46:13 > 0:46:16'as far as the general public goes.
0:46:16 > 0:46:20'Television is now THE central fact in most lives.
0:46:20 > 0:46:26'So, I would think that the great line of literature,
0:46:26 > 0:46:32'starting with George Eliot and peaking with Proust and Henry James,
0:46:32 > 0:46:35'is pretty much at an end.
0:46:35 > 0:46:39'I love it when they say, "There are no great writers today!"
0:46:39 > 0:46:44'Of course there are! There are just no great readers.
0:46:44 > 0:46:50'You can't have a literature without people to read it.'
0:46:55 > 0:47:00A bit of wisdom I learned 40 years ago on television.
0:47:02 > 0:47:07When you think it's really gone very boringly, then you watch it -
0:47:07 > 0:47:12which I don't any more, but if you DO watch it - it isn't boring.
0:47:12 > 0:47:17Or you may have thought it was good, and it wasn't good either.
0:47:17 > 0:47:19It's television. It just goes.
0:47:21 > 0:47:23There's nothing to choose.
0:47:23 > 0:47:26On that note, I'll leave you.
0:48:03 > 0:48:07Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd