By STEPHEN MILLER And JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG
A singular presence on the American literary scene, Gore Vidal entertained and infuriated readers for more than half a century both with his voluminous writings and his provocative public personality.
Mr. Vidal, who died at age 86 Tuesday in Los Angeles, was a novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and essayist. He ran for U.S. Senate, befriended the famous and, by his own account, once made a suggestion to President John F. Kennedy that resulted in the founding of the Peace Corps.
He was acclaimed for historical novels including "Burr," "Lincoln" and "Julian," the sympathetic purported memoir of a Roman emperor who suppressed Christianity. He was notorious at least in some circles for "The City and the Pillar," a 1948 novel that frankly treated homosexuality.
Among his plays was "The Best Man," a hit on Broadway in 1960 that is now back in a revived version, and which was made into a 1964 film starring Henry Fonda.
But in later decades it was Mr. Vidal's political and literary essays that attracted the most attention and made him a prominent, if unpredictable, figure on the political left. These culminated in his 1995 memoir "Palimpsest," an exquisite recounting of his life up to age 39 that included encounters with personalities including the Kennedys, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart.
Mr. Vidal was raised as an insider to American politicsâ€"his maternal grandfather was U.S. Sen. Thomas Gore of Oklahoma, and Mr. Vidal was close enough to him to adopt his surname as his first name. He was born Eugene Luther Vidal.
His stepfather was Hugh Auchincloss, later stepfather of Jacqueline Kennedy, a confidante of Mr. Vidal's who kept him in the political loop.
Yet Mr. Vidal presented himself as the ultimate outsider to Washington, promoting dissident versions of politics and history. Occasionally he veered into conspiracy theories. He maintained to the end that President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew in advance of a coming attack on Pearl Harbor but let the Japanese attack the naval base to justify U.S. entry into World War II. Yet his reputation and literary prowess saved him from disgrace.
Mr. Vidal served in the Navy during the war, and shortly after published his first novel, "Williwaw." Several more novels followed, but most failed to sell well, something Mr. Vidal said was due to the New York Times holding an animus against his work. True or not, hostility to the newspaper was a constant for Mr. Vidal.
He pursued other public feuds as well, most notoriously with Norman Mailer, Truman Capote and William F. Buckley, who once threatened to punch out Mr. Vidal on national television.
Working with Mr. Gore could be a humbling experience. "He would occasionally take a suggestion or two of mine, but he didn't seem to find much use for editors," said Gerald Howard, an executive editor at publishing house Doubleday who edited Mr. Gore for more than a decade. Titles that Mr. Howard edited included Mr. Vidal's memoir "Point to Point Navigation," published in 2006.
Demand for Mr. Vidal's works will likely be strong today and in coming weeks. "We expect to be sold out of many of his titles by late this afternoon, and we're reordering accordingly," said Patricia Bostelman, vice president of marketing at Barnes & Noble Inc. "His historical fiction has been strongest for us, including such titles as 'Burr,' 'Lincoln' and '1876.' He brought a unique realism and was a gifted story teller."
In a review of that book published in the London Review of Books, Inigo Thomas wrote, " 'Likeable' isn't a word you would use to describe Vidal. 'Irrepressible' is one word you would."
Write to Stephen Miller at stephen.miller@wsj.com and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com
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