The literary scandal between the famous writer Truman Capote and the circle of New York high society women in which he joined (whom he nicknamed “the swans”) arrives this Wednesday the 7th on the small screen through HBO Max with the new installment of Feud. The anthology series about media conflicts and wars is titled this second season Capote vs the Swans and is based on the book Capote’s Women: a true story of love, betrayal and a swan song for an era, by writer Laurence Leamer.
After tackling the mythical rivalry of Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange) and Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) in Feud: Bette and Joan, prolific creator and executive producer Ryan Murphy now delves into this story of vanity and revenge with Capote at the center. The author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood surrounded himself in the sixties and seventies with a group of women from the elite of society who Murphy defines as “the first influencers” in history.
Rich, beautiful and glamorous, the group included fashion icons like Babe Paley and Slim Keith, C.Z. Guest, Ann Woodward and Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy’s sister). In the series they are played by a luxurious cast of Hollywood stars that includes Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloë Sevigny, Demi Moore and Calista Flockhart. Capote is played in fiction by the British Tom Hollander.
Charmed and captivated by these ladies, Capote entered their lives, befriended them and became their confidant, having access to all their secrets and weaknesses. With his intelligence and wit he became the essential guest at the best social gatherings of the time. The “swans” boasted of having the most fashionable guest of the moment in their salons and in return he could rub shoulders with the elite… and take good note of the behind the scenes behind New York high society.
Between 1975 and 1976, four chapters of the novel Answered Prayers that Capote had been preparing for years appeared in Esquire magazine. Some chapters, especially the one titled La Cote Basque, that caused a scandal in the jet set circle. The story revealed intimacies that had been told to Capote and showed in a very unfavorable way the hedonistic life of the characters who, despite using pseudonyms, were easily recognizable. The work had disastrous repercussions for their reputations.
These chapters caused Capote to be expelled from the circle of his jet-set friends and the doors of this world to close definitively for him. Answered Prayers was published for the first time, unfinished and posthumously, in 1985. Capote had died a year earlier, at the age of 59.
Murphy advances that this series seeks to “do justice” to those representatives of the jet set whom Capote exposed in the novel. “The tragedy of that generation was its misogynistic society,” says the television creator before adding that those women were the “original influencers” and that today “they would have followed a Kardashian-style lifestyle” to finally regret: “No. There is nothing more depressing than that lost potential.”
The second installment of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series for FX will premiere the first two episodes on February 7 while the remaining six episodes will premiere weekly. The entire first season of Feud: Bette and Joan is available again on HBO Max starting February 1.
