Feud: Capote vs The Swans

I checked Plimpton's book. He called the man Danny to keep his identity anonymous. The people interviewed said he was married with two kids, though the show said he was returning to his fiance. That's an interesting change-protecting Rick's identity? Leamer's book identifies him as Rick McKuen (pseudonym?). No teddy bear mentioned in either book.

The show is definitely painting Truman as high-maintenance and could certainly do more to show the little kindnesses you mentioned. However contradictory his behavior patterns may have been, he was still the person who wrote some of the most insightful and sensitive prose of the Twentieth Century and that couldn't have come from nowhere and couldn't have entirely disappeared behind the haze of alcohol.

In the most recent episode he finally came to the conclusion that "It's official. I'm out of style.", amusingly arrived at when he finds himself in the position of Rick offering to let Truman service him if he'll wait for the commercials while they're watching The Love Boat. But Truman's been working toward that conclusion the whole span of the series and I think the fear of his approaching irrelevance is partly responsible for his acting out in ungenerous and spiteful ways. He tells Kate that his job now is to be outrageous on TV and he has to be disappointed in himself for letting it come to that. Plus the "just a f**" label from Lee must have rankled in the special way an aging gay man feels something like that. Lots pulling him in different directions.

One thing which stood out this episode as Truman's travelling pharmacy-in-a-satchel, including a drug not legally available in the U.S. I wonder whether there was any drug swapping among the Swans and Truman. The 1970's was a decade of amateur pharmacological enthusiasts, so I wouldn't be surprised. 

Last night's episode seems surreal, full of, what do I call it, hallucinations? I will watch this episode again to try to understand it.

I know this is fiction, but I wanted to ask now-Have any of the families of the swans complained? Because this is a fiction and these people would be considered public figures, there's lots of leeway before you can yell slander or libel. But the stunner, the shocker was Babe's daughter telling Bill maybe she'd visit Babe when she has the death rattle. Is this incident in some biography? So far in the series the only conflict presented between Babe and her daughter was the daughter's embarrassment that Babe was drunk at her birthday party. And then we jump to the daughter refusing to see Babe, maybe when there is the death rattle. I would imagine Fox's legal department okayed the script, but wow! surely there will be some backlash over it.

NEVER eat fruit displayed in the homes of the super rich. It's proof that we are so rich we can use food to decorate and throw away uneaten. Oh my, that was snide of me. All the same if you are in the home of the super rich, it is true do not eat the fruit unless it is offered to you.

Next week is the finale? Ought to be another weird episode since Truman died in this episode.

Back to the Paley kids, like you said Guest, they had nannies and most likely sent to boarding schools. This would be true of their friends also, therefore I'm still puzzled by the lack of explanation of daughter's hate.

The writers do seem to imply Babe regrets abandoning Truman. I've only read Leamer's and Plimpton's books about Capote and there is no indication of regret. Maybe she missed the friendship she thought they had. But not regret. Same as she would not regret firing a servant if one went to the press about her, but regret losing a good servant.

For anyone curious about the ways of the superrich back in the day, Dominick Dunne books are an entertaining source. If you don't like novels, try his more autobiographical THE WAY WE LIVED THEN.

Phantasm Forgiveness, the final episode, gives us their version of what happened to Answered Prayers.

Truman tells Jack that he is finishing Answered Prayers as an apology of sorts to the swans. We see a fictionalized version of the women getting a happy ending, "Kiki" stands in for CZ letting her hair down and having some fun, "Lady Ina Coolbirth" is rewarded with a new love, and he even helps the fictionalized Lee knock off an unwanted husband.

Jessica Lange comes back as the specter of Capote's mother, urging him to take a drink to loosen up his writing. She subtly undercuts his writing as only a mother can do. There's a flashback to his miserable childhood as he's locked in a room while his mother entertains a gentleman caller next door. He's visited by another ghost, Ann Woodward, who tells him that the swans won't appreciate the book and that no matter what he writes. He helped put an end to the swans dated way of life. Truman takes his manuscript and burns it while the ghost of Ann looks on. The scene changes to Truman dying at Joanna Carson's home. Did he imagine all of what came before, that he had indeed finished the book but destroyed it to spare his former friends?

The series ends with the odd but true auction of part of his ashes that Joanna Carson had kept.

I've heard that sisters Olivia DeHavilland and Joan Fontaine didn't get along-don't know if it rose to the level of a feud.

Parsons and Hopper has been done.

Anne Landers and dear Abby has been done.

How about Steve McQueen and everybody-well, that was an exaggeration. But he shed John Sturges, Norman Jewison and other people he had trusted. Reportedly his paranoia would lead him to treat them brutally.

For the last episode of Capote, that was one episode too many. Personally, I would have liked the series to end with the Key found by Alan Schwartz, Truman's attorney. He couldn't find the safety deposit box it fit--is the manuscript of ANSWERED PRAYERS in some bank?

I agree that Joan and Olivia would be a natural fit. As kim said, Louella and Hedda have been done, but not in the kind of multi-episode arc in the Feud series. I remember a network movie-of-the-week called Malice in Wonderland (1985) with Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Alexander, which was fun but wasn't particularly in-depth. The two of them touched virtually all areas of show business in their day and lots of careers were boosted and lots were ruined at their hands. Something which also occurred to me was the "Yoko-broke-up-The-Beatles scenario", because it seems like there were many forces at work there, not the obvious one. Maybe more a toxic, simmering situation than a feud, and The Beatles as personas are maybe too set in the public's mind, unlike longer-ago movie stars. Also, it wouldn't fit Ryan Murphy/s style of creating roles for older actresses, whereas either Joan/Olivia or Louella/Hedda would.