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Years later, he reflected, "Not a very grand job, for all it really involved was sorting cartoons and clipping newspapers. While still attending Franklin in 1942, Capote began working as a copyboy in the art department at The New Yorker, a job he held for two years before being fired for angering poet Robert Frost. That was the end of his formal education. When they returned to New York City in 1941, he attended the Franklin School, an Upper West Side private school now known as the Dwight School, and graduated in 1942. In 1939, the Capote family moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, and Truman attended Greenwich High School, where he wrote for both the school's literary journal, The Green Witch, and the school newspaper. I was obsessed by it." In 1932, he attended the Trinity School in New York City. I say seriously in the sense that like other kids go home and practice the violin or the piano or whatever, I used to go home from school every day, and I would write for about three hours. Of his early days, Capote related, "I was writing really sort of serious when I was about 11. However, José was convicted of embezzlement and shortly afterwards, when his income crashed, the family was forced to leave Park Avenue. In 1932, he moved to New York City to live with his mother and her second husband, José García Capote, a bookkeeper from Union de Reyes, Cuba, who adopted him as his son and renamed him Truman García Capote. Capote received recognition for his early work from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in 1936. Busybody", to a children's writing contest sponsored by the Mobile Press Register. On Saturdays, he made trips from Monroeville to the nearby city of Mobile on the Gulf Coast, and at one point submitted a short story, "Old Mrs. He was given the nickname "Bulldog" around this age. Capote was often seen at age five carrying his dictionary and notepad, and began writing fiction at age 11. Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird likely models Dill's characterization after Capote.Īs a lonely child, Capote taught himself to read and write before he entered his first year of school. In Monroeville, Capote was a neighbor and friend of Harper Lee, who would also go on to become an acclaimed author and a lifelong friend of Capote's. "Her face is remarkable – not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind", is how Capote described Sook in " A Christmas Memory" (1956). He formed a fast bond with his mother's distant relative, Nanny Rumbley Faulk, whom Truman called "Sook". His parents divorced when he was two, and he was sent to Monroeville, Alabama, where, for the following four to five years, he was raised by his mother's relatives. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Lillie Mae Faulk (1905–1954) and salesman Archulus Persons (1897–1981).
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Capote spent six years writing the book, aided by his lifelong friend Harper Lee, who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird (1960). Capote earned the most fame with In Cold Blood (1966), a journalistic work about the murder of a Kansas farm family in their home. The critical success of " Miriam" (1945) attracted the attention of Random House publisher Bennett Cerf and resulted in a contract to write the novel Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948).
#HAROLD HALMA PHOTOGRAPH OF CAPOTE PROFESSIONAL#
He began his professional career writing short stories. He had discovered his calling as a writer by the time he was eight years old, and he honed his writing ability throughout his childhood.
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Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966), which he labeled a "non-fiction novel." His works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television dramas.Ĭapote rose above a childhood troubled by divorce, a long absence from his mother, and multiple migrations.
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Truman Garcia Capote ( /kəˈpoʊti/ born Truman Streckfus Persons, Septem– August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor.
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