Pink Triangle: The Feuds and Private Lives of Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and Famous Members of Their Entourages (Blood Moon's Babylon Series) (88 page)

“I had to take a leak.,” Austen continued. “I asked Johnny if I could use his dressing room. Just as I whipped it out, Johnny came into the room and stood beside me at the toilet bowl. ‘Sorry, but I had to join you,’ he said to me. As he took a piss, he told me that, ‘You can look at it and salivate—no harm in that—but touching it or sucking it will have to be confined to your dreams.’”

In Manhattan, Gore and Austen attended parties and other events as a couple. At one party hosted by Garbo’s former companion, Cecil Beaton, a dozen muscular, well-endowed men “served drinks in the nude and later were used as party favors,” Austen said.

Noël Coward often invited them to dinners, parties, and special events when he was in New York. At one of them, Gore and Austen met Princess Margaret, who was Coward’s guest of honor. “Gore spent most of the evening talking to her,” Austen said. “They became great friends.”

As the years went by, and as Gore’s income increased, he and Austen moved to larger quarters, purchasing a brownstone in Manhattan at 416 East 58
^th
Street. In their brownstone, Gore and Austen maintained a guest bedroom, which was frequently occupied by various guests. Gore wrote a note to red-haired Maureen O’Hara inviting her to stay with them. “You will be most welcome. Now you had better have a lot of gossip, and it should be more than your meager letter suggests.” Gore confided to Austen that Maureen had walked into John Ford’s office and caught him tongue-kissing Tyrone Power.

When another brownstone nearby (this one at 417 East 48
^th
Street) became available, they bought it for $87,000 and restored the triplex on its top three floors and put it on the market for rent.

To their surprise, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. was the first person to show up on their doorstep. They rented it to him, and he often invited Austen and Gore over for dinner.

[Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. (1914 – 1988) was the fifth child of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor. Although not associated with scandals as frequently as his elder brothers James and Elliott, Franklin Jr. was in frequent legal trouble, usually for traffic violations, He was married five times, once to a member of the du Pont family (Ethel du Pont), who committed suicide in 1965, sixteen years after their divorce in 1949. The family thought that FDR Jr. was the one most like his father in appearance and behavior.]

“Sometimes FDR, Jr.’s family went away, and Franklin remained in the triplex by himself,” Austen said. “Well, not always by himself. Whenever he was living as a bachelor, we noticed Jackie Kennedy arriving to spend the night with him, discreetly leaving before dawn.”

For a few months, Gore and Austen relocated to London, renting a flat there. Nina Vidal showed up for a visit, and Austen carried her baggage to their guest room. She hardly spoke to him, privately telling her son later that night, “I detest your friend.”

During her stay, tensions mounted. Right before Gore kicked her out, she accused him of disgracing her among her social set. “Your being a homosexual is painful enough for me, but taking as your lover this horrible Jew boy who still speaks with a Bronx accent! It’s too much for me.”

He called a taxi and had her luggage delivered to the street outside their apartment house.

He would never speak to his mother again.

***

When Gore was hired as a scriptwriter for MGM, he and Austen moved to Hollywood, where they lived temporarily at the Château Marmont, the retreat of celebrities who included Greta Garbo, off Sunset Boulevard. Austen picked up young hustlers on the boulevard and brought them back to service Gore and himself in their hotel room. From the garage, a client could escort a guest directly to his or her bedroom, without attracting attention by parading him or her through the lobby.

Before they were married, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward lived together in a house in Malibu. They were such good friends with Gore that they invited Howard and him to move in with them.

In Malibu, Newman, Woodward, Austen, and Gore entertained many notables, including the diarist Anaïs Nin, the French author Romain Gary, and actress Claire Bloom, who delivered a devastating impersonation of Queen Elizabeth II. At the time, Bloom gave every indication of being madly in love with Richard Burton.

“It was obvious to me that Gore was madly in love with Paul,” Austen confided to Elizabeth Taylor one night at a party.

“Who isn’t, darling?” she asked. “He’s so handsome. And those baby blue eyes. They are to die for.”

Austen always opened and sorted Gore’s mail before he read it himself. Years later, in 1965, Gore received a birthday card from Newman. It read: “I’m getting sentimental in my dotage, and long to crack a bottle with you as in olden days. It’s been a long time since I’ve stared into your grateful eyes as you lovingly looked up at me with your knees on the floor of a urinal.”

As far as Austen was concerned, that ended the debate over whether Gore had ever had sex with Newman.

Isherwood said that Gore confessed to him that he’d frequently had sex with Newman. “He apparently confessed to Tennessee as well. Gore also claimed that Newman had done it with guys on many an occasion. In Gore’s words, “Paul Newman was a
bona fide
bisexual, but managed to keep it out of the press for the most part.’”

Christopher Isherwood and his young lover, Don Bachardy, often visited with Gore and Austen. “We related as one gay married couple to another young gay married couple,” Isherwood said. “I liked to talk on almost any subject with Gore. The only part of the evening I dreaded was when Howard got up to sing for us. He was no Vic Damone.”

One late afternoon, Isherwood walked with Gore along the beach. “He told me that after seeing Robert Wagner’s brief appearance with Susan Hayward in
With a Song in My Heart
(1952), he’d fallen madly in love with the kid.”

“He’s my type,” Gore said. “I like the clean cut, all American type. He’s very masculine—a real beauty.”

[In the 1940s, actor James Craig, a Clark Gable wannabe, had been Gore’s type, too.]

In 1961, in Paris, Gore bought Robert Wagner’s black 1961 Jaguar for $3,000. He later told Howard, “I’d love to have bought Robert Wagner instead.”

From Paris, they drove south to Rome.

In Rome, Gore visited Ed Cheever’s Gym every day and reported back to Austen on what was going on there. “One of the steam rooms should have been labeled the orgy room.”

On occasion, he encountered Clint Eastwood taking a shower before a bevy of appreciative queens. Eastwood was in Italy making “Spaghetti Westerns” at the time. “Clint was on exhibit, but regrettably, he never showed it hard to the queens of Rome.”

The rest of the day, Gore spent in a library, researching data on his historical novel,
Julian
, which would eventually be published in 1964.

In addition to the hustlers they brought to their apartment in Rome, Gore and Austen also hosted dinners for Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Marcello Mastroianni, and Federico Fellini.

Eventually, they moved to Ravello, along the Amalfi Drive, south of Naples, purchasing a villa there. Over the years, while living there, they often entertained many distinguished guests, none more notable than Hillary Clinton. Gore had written debating points for Bill Clinton when he faced off in a debate with then-sitting president George Herbert Walker Bush in 1992.

Perhaps Gore wanted to get even with Bush, Sr., for turning down his sexual advances when the future president was only seventeen years old and arrived at Exeter to pitch for the rival team from Phillips Academy.

To a friend, Gore wrote his impression of Hillary: “She is braced but edgy, uncommonly bright with a wry sense of humor, that, as a woman and a political figure, she dares not show the world.”