In Italy in the summer of 1952 Truman Capote was asked by the director John Huston (on the recommendation of David Selznick, who had admired Capote’s work on an ill-fated Vittorio De Sica movie entitled Indiscretion of an American Wife) to collaborate with him on the script for a movie called Beat the Devil. For an adventure-thriller something along the lines of The Maltese Falcon, a cast had been assembled which included Humphrey Bogart (who had financed the film), Jennifer Jones, Peter Lorre, Robert Morley and Gina Lollobrigida. The reminiscences that follow are edited from a forthcoming oral biography on Truman Capote.


TRUMAN CAPOTE   [undated, typed letter to Andrew Lyndon] The last few weeks here have been filled with peculiar adventures, all involving John Huston and Humphrey Bogart, who’ve nearly killed me with their dissipations . . . half drunk all day and dead-drunk all night, and once, believe it or not, I came to around six in the morning to find King Farouk doing the hula…