Photo Credit: Creative Commons
“Some of them I can’t repeat,” director Nicholas Wrathall told Hollywood on the Potomac at a private screening of Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia when asked what were the most interesting things he discovered about marathon writer Gore Vidal whose books often dealt with political corruption of what he called a ‘decadent empire’ when referring to the USA.
“There were so many interesting things, but I guess that which surprised me most was how sort of kind he was towards all the people around him. He had such a prickly exterior reputation, but when I got to know him and saw him with his grand nieces, his assistants, he was always very kind and very caring and sort of like this grandfatherly figure telling stories to the interested younger generation. I was actually quite surprised at that because I had always seen him in his public persona as being quite difficult. I did see the prickly kind of side of him too, but was just surprised at how kind and generous he was.”
The screening was held at the MPAA Theater on I Street, courtesy of MPAA President Chris Dodd with an after party at The Graham Hotel and hosted by Nina Gore Auchincloss Straight, Kevin Chaffee, Deborah Gore Dean, Carol Blue, Leslie and Andrew Cockburn. That’s a lot of Gore’s. Sorting out Gore, Gore, Gore and Gore is kind of like playing What Your Line? Gore Vidal was born Eugene Louis Vidal. Here is how the audience was related to Vidal: Nina Gore Auchincloss Straight was the daughter of Hugh Dudley Auchincloss, Jr. who became the second husband of Nina Gore, mother of Gore Vidal, and also the second husband of Janet Lee Bouvier, the mother of First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and Caroline Lee Bouvier. Burr Gore Steers is an American actor, screenwriter, and director and the son of Nina Gore Auchincloss Straight and thus the nephew of Gore Vidal. – we’re guessing. All this ‘half’ stuff really complicates things. Deborah Gore Dean is a distant relative of Senator Albert Gore Sr. and second cousin once removed of former Vice President Albert Gore Jr. Vidal claimed his grandfather, Sen. Thomas P. Gore of Oklahoma, and Al Gore‘s father, Sen. Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee, were sixth cousins. That would make Gore Vidal and Al Gore Jr. seventh cousins, once removed, although this has been disputed by professional genealogists who has charted Vice President Gore’s family. But what do we know? Blame it on Wikipedia! Guests not named Gore included Buffy Cafritz, Marie Ridder, Carol Schwartz, Rep. Steve Cohen (D.-Tenn.), interior designer John Peters Irelan, Jacqueline Ohrstrom, National Theater President Jay Adams, photographer Lucian Perkins, Roxanne Roberts and Mary Mochary
Nina Gore Auchincloss Straight and Sarah Tanguy
“He lived in Rome a long time ago but then he moved to a big house in Ravello,” Wrathall told us. “It’s called La Rondinaia and overlooked the Mediterranean. When I met him, he was still living there, but his partner Howard had died a few years before so he was getting ready to move to Los Angeles and was putting the house on the market and closing it down. That is when we started filming actually. I rushed out when I heard he was leaving the house so we filmed him leaving for the final time. That was sort of the starting point of the filming.”
We also asked Wrathall on a scale of 1-10 what Gore’s intelligence was. “Eleven,” he said. Intelligence, of course, played into his like-ability: “I think he got away with being so prickly because of his intelligence – because he could always outwit everyone, was smart and knew everything about every subject there was and knew everyone that was personally involved. It was astounding to me that he sort of knew and witnessed the whole or the second half of the 20th century first hand and knew everyone involved in politics and writing first hand.”
“Recently, Wrathall did a book called The Modern Gulag, which caused quite a stir in the press,” said co-host Washington Life’s Kevin Chaffee when introducing Nicholas. “The New York Times picked it up. It was about the incidents of the Russians allowing Northern Korean slave labor inside their own territory. So he’s here to tell us about how he got from the Gulag to Gore.”
“I don’t usually like to say too much about the film beforehand, but some of you probably knew Gore and many of you probably met him, probably know all about him anyway. The way that I came to this film was through Burt Steers, who was one of the producers on the film. He and I have been great friends for about 20 years, and so I had heard stories about Gore all through that period and had the opportunity to meet him a few times. Then I just sort of realized there was an amazing opportunity to make a film about Gore before it was too late. So that’s what we did.”
Gore Vidal
William F. Buckley, Jr. with Gore Vidal
The Trailer:
Gore Vidal vs William Buckley at the Republican Convention 1968 Debate. You don’t find them like this anymore!
