Today's Talk Show Guests Could Use More of Truman Capote's Audacity

Four decades after his death, the infamous Truman Capote continues to dominate pop culture through the second season of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series Feud, titled Capote vs. The Swans. The show chronicles Capote’s falling-out with his socialite inner circle as well as his self-destructive spiral.

A pivotal moment of that spiral occurred during an intoxicated interview on the July 18, 1978 episode of The Stanley Siegel Show, which the series recreates in its penultimate episode. That single appearance eclipsed nearly a decade in which Capote was one of the most in-demand guests on talk shows, including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Dick Cavett Show, and Firing Line. During this time, Capote and the talk show format that erupted in the 1960s and 1970s had a symbiotic relationship fed by one’s ability to tell stories and the other’s ability to reach a vast audience.

Before his television appearances, Capote was a raconteur regaling the New York elite with his thoughts, stories, and gossip at their soirees. These skills combined with his provocative-yet-playful persona made Capote a sought-after guest. He made hosts and audiences laugh with concise one-liners, quipping on The David Susskind Show: “If I’m in love with anyone, I’m in love with myself.” He could even disarm a host with a single word, like when Dick Cavett asked who should play him in a movie, and Capote simply answered “Garbo.” The national talk show circuit became Capote’s dinner party and the guests were the television audience of the United States.

In contrast to today’s media-trained celebrities, Capote gossiped, embellished, and, importantly in a post-McCarthy era, named names. He told a story about New Yorker humorist James Thurber and his mistress and called revered poet Robert Frost the meanest person he’d ever met. At times his mouth would get him in trouble — rival Gore Vidal went so far as to sue him for libel — but Capote was always willing to fan the flames. When Susskind asked Capote if he was sorry about what happened with Vidal, Capote venomously said “I’m always sad about Gore. It’s very sad that he has to breathe every day.”

This side of Capote ranged from poetic pontifications on Marilyn Monroe’s screen presence on The Dick Cavett Show to bluntly declaring Marlon Brando “so dumb it’ll make your skin crawl” on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He applied that razor wit to himself in self-deprecating ways ranging from his troubles with the IRS or his plastic surgery. His frankness was a draw for talk shows of the time and his audacity is nearly absent from the current landscape.

Apart from his catty side, Capote proved to be an adept cultural commentator unafraid to discuss controversial issues. It would be unthinkable now to have Ariana Grande discussing capital punishment on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon or Travis Kelce taking a stance on reproductive rights on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Contemporary talk shows keep it light; they promote products, not ideas. Capote, on the other hand, lent his trademark candor and opinions to issues such as censorship and obscenity, civil rights, and capital punishment.

During a panel appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Capote debated the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Miller vs. California that found “obscene materials” do not have protection under the First Amendment. Later, Capote found himself in the middle of a fight around racial justice when Cavett had both Georgia Governor Lester Maddox, a restaurateur and staunch segregationist, and Jim Brown, the pro-football player and activist. Maddox became so incensed when his voters were called “bigots” that he abruptly left the stage. It became one of Cavett’s highest-rated programs. Capote later remarked “I’ve been to his restaurant and his chicken isn’t that finger lickin’,” which both slighted Maddox and defused the tense situation.

Unsurprisingly, considering his work on In Cold Blood, Capote most often discussed his views on capital punishment when appearing on talk shows. On Good Company, the short-lived talk show hosted by famed attorney F. Lee Bailey, Capote asserted he was “no bleeding heart,” but opposed capital punishment for its systematic failures. He advocated reform and consistency between federal and state law.

While not exactly an abolitionist, he recognized the horrors of capital punishment during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Capote shared his experience of witnessing the execution of Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, which he called “an unbelievably horrendous thing to watch.” Carson proposed that “if anyone would ever witness an execution … that one would probably not be for capital punishment no matter how heinous the crime.” However, Capote saw something darker from his knowledge of the subject and human nature. Rather than recoil from such a spectacle, Capote argued that “human nature is so peculiar that really millions of people would watch it and get some sort of vicarious sensation out of it.” This was a discussion on the country’s most popular late-night talk show. Imagine if RuPaul discussed public executions on The Daily Show.

While celebrities and publicists would balk at such topics, Capote was a pioneer in the way celebrities use talk show appearances to promote their work and themselves. He spent a substantial amount of time, consciously or unconsciously, self-mythologizing and legacy-building through talk show appearances. A key component of this revolved around his childhood. In conversation with Cavett, Capote framed himself as an unwanted child of extremely high intelligence. Not just precociousness — Capote spoke of truancy and near criminality.

One of his most fascinating anecdotes involves nearly running away with Martha Beck, who later became one half of the “The Lonely Heart Killers.” Years before In Cold Blood, Capote was already drawn to murder. Likewise, there is a powerful antecedent to his work on Answered Prayers. Capote discussed publishing his first story at 10 years old in the local paper. The subject was the happenings of his neighbors and he said it nearly got him run out of town. He would do the same thing decades later and be exiled from high society.

Capote also proved media savvy in his interviews. On Good Company, he discussed the film adaptation of In Cold Blood and its contrast to Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He was quick to assert his authorial stamp on the project after his displeasure with the production and censorship of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Capote asserted that he “wasn’t interested in selling it except to someone who would do it exactly as [he] wanted it to be done.” With unknown actors, location shooting, and particular cinematography, Capote established his fingerprints on the final project and called it an “extraordinary experiment in realism.”

However, his most impressive public relations coup has to be the decade-long press tour he created for Answered Prayers, a book that he would never finish. By releasing the text chapter by chapter in magazines which he promoted during talk show appearances, Capote managed to get paid more than once for the work he was contracted to deliver. Even in 1982, years after his falling-out with the Swans, Capote was on Late Night With David Letterman calling Answered Prayers a “new work.”

During a joint appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Groucho Marx called Capote “pretty shifty,” to which the author responded “elusive.” In a later one-on-one interview with Cavett, Capote divulged “I had to create my own life. I had to create myself.” Where Capote’s use of talk shows is most fascinating is in the creation of himself. Capote once mused, “It’s just a theory of mine that people have some kind of rapport that works between themselves and the camera.” Capote had that rapport on talk shows and with television cameras. He was the ideal guest, both frivolous and extremely thoughtful, and he understood the power of the medium and how to harness it for himself.

Trae DeLellis is a freelance culture writer whose work has appeared in the Miami New Times, Yahoo Entertainment, The A.V. Club, and New Times Broward-Palm Beach.