Episode Details

Truman Capote charmed his way into the inner circle of New York high society, befriended the richest and most powerful women in Manhattan, and then published their secrets in a magazine excerpt that destroyed every friendship he had. It was literary suicide committed in public, and he never recovered. He spent his final years drinking himself to death on television.

This episode traces Capote from his abandoned childhood in the Deep South through In Cold Blood, his Black and White Ball, and the Answered Prayers excerpts that turned his closest friends into his worst enemies.

• In Cold Blood, published in 1966, invented the "nonfiction novel" and became one of the best-selling true crime books ever written
• His Black and White Ball at the Plaza Hotel in 1966 was called the party of the century
• The publication of excerpts from Answered Prayers in Esquire exposed the secrets of his society friends and ended those relationships permanently
• He died of liver disease at fifty-nine, his final novel unfinished and his social world in ruins