The Betrayal of His “Swans” and the Scandal that Rocked NY High Society
In 1975, an over ambitious Truman Capote betrayed the most elite doyennes in Manhattan by exposing their secrets in Esquire magazine. If there was any doubt who the thinly disguised society ladies were, their cover was fully blown by gossip columnist Liz Smith in a New York magazine feature. Capote’s “swans” set out to destroy him in the only way that mattered: banishment from New York’s Café Society.
“Capote Vs. The Swans” is the second installment of Ryan Murphy’s “Feud” series which follows up on the earlier Feud: Bette and Joan about the simmering rivalry between Oscar winners Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
“Tell me everything,” he said. And they did.
As long as there is a Manhattan and wealthy people living in it, there will always be those who network their way up the ladder. But no outsider ever made it inside with the gusto of acclaimed writer Truman Capote (1924-1984).
A lonely, introverted child of divorce, Capote was raised by relatives in Alabama and served as the inspiration for the character “Dill” in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird by his childhood friend Harper Lee. All he ever wanted to do was fit in, and against the odds, his dream came true.
The author became the toast of New York after the success of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the publication of In Cold Blood.
He also became the confidante of New York society’s most elite women, whom he dubbed “the Swans,” listening with interest to their tales of extramarital affairs, substance abuse, sexual assaults, and a husband-shooting with a murder cover-up chaser.
Then in an act of sheer hubris, Capote shared their secrets in Esquire via a thinly veiled short story called “La Côte Basque, 1965.” (The title references a long-gone French restaurant on 55th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues where all the gossiping went down.) Vanity Fair described the article as “an atomic bomb that Truman Capote built all by himself.”
It is a scandal juicier than any season of the Real Housewives of New York and more entertaining. Hence, writer/director/producer Ryan Murphy chose Capote Vs. The Swans for the second season of his FEUD anthology, which answers the “why” and the “how” it all could happen.
Tom Hollander plays the prolific scribe who befriended Barbara “Babe” Paley (Naomi Watts), Slim Keith (Diane Lane), C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny), Ann “Bang-Bang” Woodward (Demi Moore), Joanne Carson (Molly Ringwald) and Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart).
At a recent press conference of which the panel was comprised of the producers, director, and stars, Murphy explained: “All these women in our show were so brilliant. The tragedy of that generation is that they were caught between the Dick Van Dyke Show and the pill.”
Naomi Watts, who also serves as an executive producer, added: “They were trapped. That’s how society was operating. They were uncredited for the work and the amount of time they put into making their husbands’ businesses go well.”
And then, along came Truman.
Says Tom Hollander: “For a bunch of people who were very rich [yet] disempowered by their marriages, to have the greatest writer of their generation at their dinner table, on some level, their vanity was flattered at having him around, understanding them, and listening to them in a way that their husbands weren’t.”
“When Babe shares all of her secrets with Truman,” said Watts, “she falls into this relationship as though it were the deepest romance she had ever had minus the sex. So, when the betrayal occurs, she just comes undone--they all do, because they trusted him.”
Capote was then subjected to the women’s retaliation--a backstabbing worthy of a Scully & Scully sterling silver letter opener. It was a shunning from which he never recovered. Substance abuse became Truman’s only friend until the end.
Oddly enough though, Capote was surprised by the reaction of his former circle, asking incredulously, “I’m a writer. What did they expect?”
Loyalty, according to Molly Ringwald. “They adored him so much. They thought they were going to be immune to what writers do, which is to use material in their own lives, and then fictionalize it.”
Hollander explained his character’s deceit as a resentment about the reality of his situation finally surfacing: “[The Swans] didn’t think he was one of them. And [Capote] didn’t believe he was one of them either.”
Naomi Watts plays Barbara Cushing Mortimer Paley, known as “Babe” who is the undisputed queen of the New York social scene
This past Christmas, one of my stocking stuffers was a notebook. The cover reads, “Careful, you could end up a character in my next novel.” If only I knew New Yorkers as colorful as Capote and his Swans.
“Capote Vs. The Swans” is the second installment of Ryan Murphy’s “Feud” series which follows up on the earlier Feud: Bette and Joan about the simmering rivalry between Oscar winners Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. After a seven year wait, the latest “Feud” premieres January 31, 2024 on FX Network (Streaming on HULU).
Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of three novels, the latest is The Last Single Woman in New York City (Heliotrope Books.)