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Gore Vidal Biography
Birth Name:
Eugene Luther Vidal Jr.
Birth Place:
West Point, New York, United States
Profession
Author, screenwriter, actor
Fast Facts
- Father, Gene Vidal, was a decathlete at the 1920 Summer Olympic Games in Antwerp and an aviation pioneer, one of the founders of TWA
- He was portrayed by Ewan McGregor in the film Amelia (2009)
- After his parents divorced, his mother married Hugh D
- Auchincloss Jr
- , who would later marry Jackie Kennedy Onassis' mother, Janet Bouvier
- Enlisted in the U
- S
- Army after high school, training at the Virginia Military Institute, and was later deployed to the Aleutian Islands during WWII
- Published his first novel, Williwaw, in 1946
- Worked as an uncredited script doctor on Ben-Hur (1959)
- His play The Best Man, starring Melvyn Douglas, opened on Broadway in 1960
- Unsuccessfully ran for Congress in New York in 1960 and for Senate in California in 1982
- Won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1993 for the collection United States: Essays 1952-1992
Awards
- 1986Emmy-Outstanding Writing in a Miniseries or a Special: nominated
- 1965Writers Guild Awards-Drama: nominated
Relationships
- Eugene Luther Vidal -- Father
- Thomas Gore -- Grandfather
- Thomas Gore Auchincloss -- Half Brother
- Vance Vidal -- Half Brother
- Nina Straight -- Half Sister
- Valerie Vidal Hewitt -- Half Sister
- Nina Gore Olds -- Mother
- Hugh Auchincloss Steers -- Nephew
- Howard Austen -- Significant Other
- Robert Olds -- Stepfather
- Katharine Roberts -- Stepmother