Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M Part 2

"Yes, yes, I understand, but-"

"Mademoiselle, I don't have many a.s.sistants, and I am pressed for time."

It was no empty excuse. Charmed though he was, Givenchy was simply too busy.

"Please?"

"No, dear, I am sorry..."

"Please, please, please?" she insisted. "There must be something that I can try on!"

This could go on, Givenchy thought, for a long time. Better to appease her for the sake of peace and quietude than stand here all afternoon.

So he listened as she described the story of Billy Wilder's new film, which would star Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, and her, of course, in the t.i.tle role, and how Edith Head was designing the secondary costumes, but that she was sent on a mission from Paramount to purchase only the voguest-and with her own money-for her very own collection, which she would wear for certain scenes- "Okay," he said, "okay," and led her inside with the proviso that he had not the time to create something new, but she was welcome to peruse the previous season's collection. If she found anything that interested her, Givenchy said, she could have it.

Audrey happily agreed and with her signature effervescence, she went straight to work. To those who looked on, she betrayed no sign of the uneasiness she might have felt at having to make such an expensive and indeed perspicacious decision. Although she had experience as a dressmaker-wartime rationing had forced it upon her-here, in the summer of 1953, Audrey was hardly a fas.h.i.+on expert. As countless pre-Givenchy photographs attest, she undoubtedly knew what looked good on her, but when it came to la mode, la mode, the girl was the girl was naif naif. At the time she sailed into 8 Rue Alfred de Vigny, it's likely she hadn't owned a single piece of haute couture.

Offscreen, Audrey favored skirts, but more often wore slacks (they were more practical, she said). She liked short heels on her shoes (her feet, she knew, were big), and always, wherever and whenever she could manage them, the coziest sweaters imaginable. In short, simplicity set the pace for her wardrobe, as did physical comfort. It sounds obvious (who wouldn't wouldn't want to be comfortable?), but in this era of straps and bands and pointed bras, the directive was closer to no pain, no gain. want to be comfortable?), but in this era of straps and bands and pointed bras, the directive was closer to no pain, no gain.

And so, without any aesthetic agenda, willful resistance to the times, or urge to do anything other than what she thought was right for her, Audrey Hepburn set into motion a kind of polite rebellion. As the imposing Hubert de Givenchy looked on, she selected a slim suit of gray wool, which she wore with a lighter chiffon turban; a long white gown of embroidered organdy; and finally, a black c.o.c.ktail dress held up by two tiny bows at both ends of a wide and narrow neckline (once called a decollete bateau, decollete bateau, soon to be renamed soon to be renamed decollete Sabrina decollete Sabrina). With a long V-shaped back culminating in a strip of b.u.t.tons, the dress featured a snug bodice offset by a ballerina-shaped skirt, and unusually s.p.a.cious armholes that didn't conceal Audrey's tiny shoulders. Neither, for that matter, did its narrow neckline conceal the collarbones Edith Head had so painstakingly camouflaged in Roman Holiday, Roman Holiday, or the Civil Warsized waistline she attempted to overcome with a long skirt. So artfully did the dress embrace-and even celebrate-Audrey's so-called faults, that when beheld by audiences of 1954, it communicated not just Sabrina's transformation and Audrey's burgeoning influence as a style icon, but the new schismatic potential of what being a woman could mean. or the Civil Warsized waistline she attempted to overcome with a long skirt. So artfully did the dress embrace-and even celebrate-Audrey's so-called faults, that when beheld by audiences of 1954, it communicated not just Sabrina's transformation and Audrey's burgeoning influence as a style icon, but the new schismatic potential of what being a woman could mean.

Audrey would become the muse Givenchy had been waiting for; and he, the Pygmalion she needed to bring her to life. Their working relations.h.i.+p would grow over the course of the next five years before reaching its high point in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Breakfast at Tiffany's, but by then, Audrey and Hubert would be like a needle and thread, symbiotic to the point of total congruity. but by then, Audrey and Hubert would be like a needle and thread, symbiotic to the point of total congruity.

MEL.

Audrey's life had shot up to full speed, stretching her time and tired body in all directions at once. Where she once moved laterally, working ceaselessly from one day to the next, she was now pushed upward by the very new tasks of growing her star in America and abroad. There were press junkets, studio directives, and temporary accommodations. There were planned introductions, faceless names, and nameless admirers. Merely floating was a thing of the past. Now Audrey flew. Looking below her, behind her, she could glimpse traces of her home in Arnhem, her first meeting with Colette, Gigi, Gigi, and in the distance, James Hanson. They dropped away from her in copper flourishes, like rusted pennies down a well. and in the distance, James Hanson. They dropped away from her in copper flourishes, like rusted pennies down a well.

In London that summer of 1953, Audrey met the actor-director Mel Ferrer. It was Gregory Peck who introduced them. He had thrown a party in Audrey's honor at his flat in Grosvenor Square. The occasion was the British premiere of Roman Holiday Roman Holiday.

Audrey was not yet the celebrity she was about to become, but with all of the magazine covers and the buzz about her debut, it was obviously only a matter of time. The night of the party, all eyes were on her.

From his place against the wall, Mel Ferrer watched Audrey's eyes, silently imploring her to look up and see his. Once or twice he caught her trying not to be caught, and she opened up a smile that exploded the room. Describing it later, Ferrer would not be ashamed to say he loved her immediately, nor would he hesitate to admit he was well aware of his advantage; previously, at the urging of Gregory Peck, he had called Audrey at her mother's. When Audrey picked up the phone, Mel could tell from her enthusiasm that she meant it when she said she loved him in Lili, Lili, though exactly how much, and in what way, neither of them had any idea. though exactly how much, and in what way, neither of them had any idea.

Here, in person, she drank in the full bottle of him for the first time. He was a gruff and slender man in his middle thirties-over ten years older than she-and had that look she liked. He was direct, s.h.i.+ning with stamina, and obviously unafraid of enjoying the attention he so clearly knew was his. Others saw arrogance in Mel, but at that moment Audrey only saw conviction; as someone who didn't have it, she was quick to spot it in others.

In the low light, Mel and Audrey talked of Sabrina, Sabrina, which was to begin shooting in September, and of the possibility of doing a play together sometime soon. How fun that would be. They laughed and touched and said goodnight. which was to begin shooting in September, and of the possibility of doing a play together sometime soon. How fun that would be. They laughed and touched and said goodnight.

THE MOST SOPHISTICATED WOMAN AT THE GLEN COVE STATION.

Well into production on Sabrina, Sabrina, with the clock ticking and the finish line fast approaching, Billy Wilder and Ernest Lehman were still bickering over the script, which remained, for the most part, unwritten. Cursing at each other into the night, the writers turned out drunken pages on through the morning as the actors arrived for makeup and the lights were put up around the set. There wasn't a scene or line or story point too small to fight over-nothing escaped their attention-but there was no argument like the one that raged over Sabrina's-and ultimately Audrey's-celibacy. with the clock ticking and the finish line fast approaching, Billy Wilder and Ernest Lehman were still bickering over the script, which remained, for the most part, unwritten. Cursing at each other into the night, the writers turned out drunken pages on through the morning as the actors arrived for makeup and the lights were put up around the set. There wasn't a scene or line or story point too small to fight over-nothing escaped their attention-but there was no argument like the one that raged over Sabrina's-and ultimately Audrey's-celibacy.

"Billy wanted Bogie to sleep with Audrey Hepburn," recalled Lehman. "I said we can't do it, no dice, people don't want that, particularly for Audrey Hepburn. She was just a slip of a girl...gentle and sweet. She had won the Academy Award for Roman Holiday Roman Holiday. He was furious at me for insisting they don't sleep with each other. I wouldn't give in on this point." Night after painful night, Lehman and Wilder seesawed through it, first trying the character one way ("What if she-no, never mind..."), and then another ("What if he he..."), starting the night at Billy's house, and ending it, broken down and crazy, on the pavement outside of the Beverly Hills Hotel at three o'clock in the morning. They were scheduled to shoot the scene at seven and the only words they had on the page were INTERIOR-LARRABEE OFFICE-NIGHT.

When 4:30 rolled around, they called it quits. Billy had his a.s.sistant director cancel Bogie and Audrey's morning call, and Lehman's doctor told them to take a vacation from rewrites. Two weeks prior, Lehman collapsed from overwork and before that, he even had a few hysterical weeping episodes. Far from improving, the doctor saw that Lehman was actually getting worse, and wrote him a prescription for fourteen days without Billy Wilder. But if Billy took time off every time someone told him he had to take time off, he wouldn't have become Billy Wilder, which is why, days later, Billy and Ernie were back at it again, smoking and boozing and shouting at each other over whether or not Audrey Hepburn should be allowed to copulate when Dr. Spritzler arrived to pay a surprise visit on his patient. s.h.i.+t. Wilder thought for a moment and then did what for the future writer of Some Like It Hot Some Like It Hot was the only natural thing to do: he leapt into the closet. was the only natural thing to do: he leapt into the closet.

(While Billy's in there, it should be known that the matter of Audrey's virginity was not just about keeping her image clean, nor had it to do with any kind of prudishness on Lehman's part, but rather, was born of a very real understanding that like Big Brother, the Production Code Administration was watching them-them, George Axelrod, and everyone else in Hollywood. So Lehman and Wilder weren't just up against each other in the brawl over Audrey's s.e.x life, they were up against the censors.) In dead silence, Billy waited inside the closet while the doctor examined his patient. A few moments later, Lehman was declared back to normal.

"Well, Doc," Lehman said, sitting up in bed, "then I guess I can tell Mr. Wilder to come out now."

The door flew open and out came the greatest director in Hollywood with a lit cigarette in his hand. He tipped his hat and left.

In the end, Lehman won: Audrey and Bogie make an omelet, not love. Wilder would have to hold off a few years until the Production Code office loosened up before he could make his most challenging statements about s.e.xual freedom, and in fact, so would Audrey have to wait for the right national temperature before she could do the same, quite marvelously, in Breakfast at Tiffany's Breakfast at Tiffany's. But here in Sabrina, Sabrina, with the help of Hubert de Givenchy, they changed Audrey for good. The designer gave her a style, and the director made her an icon. with the help of Hubert de Givenchy, they changed Audrey for good. The designer gave her a style, and the director made her an icon.

After Sabrina, Sabrina, Audrey was forever branded, on screen and off, a young woman who a.s.serts her individuality through her taste-and that, in an age of big b.r.e.a.s.t.s in big bra.s.sieres, was an altogether novel spin on her s.e.x. ("This girl," Wilder once said, "singlehanded, may make bosoms a thing of the past.") On the surface, Sabrina is a girl who behaves exactly how girls were supposed to-as a Cinderella who longs only (and not carnally) for princes-but with the subversive power of glamour, she, Wilder, and Givenchy, smuggled in some new ideas from the women of the future. Key in that equation is the smuggling: were they to have been overt about it, Audrey would have been shut down by the censors, the critics, and the moviegoing public. Why she wasn't-indeed why she thrived throughout the late fifties and early sixties-was due to the public's understanding of Audrey as a good girl princess. Audrey was forever branded, on screen and off, a young woman who a.s.serts her individuality through her taste-and that, in an age of big b.r.e.a.s.t.s in big bra.s.sieres, was an altogether novel spin on her s.e.x. ("This girl," Wilder once said, "singlehanded, may make bosoms a thing of the past.") On the surface, Sabrina is a girl who behaves exactly how girls were supposed to-as a Cinderella who longs only (and not carnally) for princes-but with the subversive power of glamour, she, Wilder, and Givenchy, smuggled in some new ideas from the women of the future. Key in that equation is the smuggling: were they to have been overt about it, Audrey would have been shut down by the censors, the critics, and the moviegoing public. Why she wasn't-indeed why she thrived throughout the late fifties and early sixties-was due to the public's understanding of Audrey as a good girl princess.

THE DREAM BEGINS.

Only weeks after Sabrina Sabrina premiered in September of 1954, Audrey married Mel Ferrer in Burgenstock, Switzerland. The ceremony was held in a tiny mountain chapel overlooking Lake Lucerne. Audrey wore a white robe of organdy and a halo of white roses. premiered in September of 1954, Audrey married Mel Ferrer in Burgenstock, Switzerland. The ceremony was held in a tiny mountain chapel overlooking Lake Lucerne. Audrey wore a white robe of organdy and a halo of white roses.

Returning from their Italian honeymoon, the Ferrers discovered that they would be parents in only nine short months. The baby, Audrey said, "will be the greatest thing in my life, greater even than my success. Every woman knows what a baby means."

At last, this was the happiness Audrey had longed for. Not the kind of happiness that went away, but the forever kind, the one that never stopped renewing every morning and every night.

OSCAR NIGHT.

Sabrina was nominated for six Academy Awards. Two of them belonged to Billy Wilder for writing and directing, one of them to Audrey, and another to Edith Head for Best Costume Design. was nominated for six Academy Awards. Two of them belonged to Billy Wilder for writing and directing, one of them to Audrey, and another to Edith Head for Best Costume Design.

Amazingly, Audrey and Billy lost. But Edith Head won.

After the envelope was opened and her name was read aloud, Edith ascended the stage at the Pantages Theater to collect her Oscar. Her acceptance speech was two words, neither of which was "Hubert" or "Givenchy." They were only "Thank you." It was her sixth Academy Award.

MRS. MEL FERRER.

In March of 1955, Audrey miscarried. Brittle now, and frail, she took to her bed. There she battled a despair so ferocious, it seemed to the few who saw her that despite her soft smiles and rea.s.suring air, she would never fully recover. Somehow, losing a child meant losing the chance to rewrite the wrongs of her own childhood. It was forsaking little Audrey, the tenuous dancing girl of war-torn Belgium. She kept the press from her grief.

What the public saw was presented through the sugary veil of virtue. In the years following, a blissfully happy Audrey could be seen in print throughout the world, praising the virtues of wifedom. Of her life before Mel, she said to Photoplay, Photoplay, "I don't think I was a whole woman then. No woman is without love." In a piece ent.i.tled, "Audrey's Advice: Have Fun, Let Hubby Wear the Pants," she confided, "He's a protective husband, and I like it. Most women do.... It's so nice being a wife and having your husband take over your worries for you." "I don't think I was a whole woman then. No woman is without love." In a piece ent.i.tled, "Audrey's Advice: Have Fun, Let Hubby Wear the Pants," she confided, "He's a protective husband, and I like it. Most women do.... It's so nice being a wife and having your husband take over your worries for you."

"She was in part attracted to Mel," Audrey's future companion, Robert Wolders, explained, "because he was like a father figure to her. Some people say that he misused her trust in him, but I don't think that's the case at all. If he decided which parts were and were not suitable to her, I think it was because she wanted him to. It's true that he took over her life, but she wanted to be protected and she trusted Mel. In a sense, she did that with me as well."

Audrey's supplication was so well publicized, that Ferrer, who already had a reputation for being controlling, came to be known as a kind of Svengali. The article "My Husband Doesn't Run Me" took dead aim at these rumors ("She's known dictators in her early war-shadowed life. And you can take it from Audrey Hepburn-she didn't marry one!"), but as countless Ferrer-Hepburn intimates would attest, the truth was a little different. To Hepburn biographer Warren Harris, Yul Brynner said, "Mel was jealous of her success and could not reconcile himself to the [fact that] she was much better than he in every way, so he took it out on her." Harsh, yes, but Brynner's observation matches the general consensus; Mel Ferrer lagged behind, and it hurt him. "Of course, it's a problem," he confessed, "when the wife outs.h.i.+nes the husband as Audrey does me."

3.

SEEING IT.

1955-1958.

THE SWANS.

Like every fiction, Holly Golightly was a composite of multiple nonfictions. She took her dreams of society from Truman's own mother, her existential anxieties from Capote himself, but her personality, which seemed so intimately hers, would come from the tight-knit coterie of Manhattan divas Truman so flagrantly adored. He called them his swans.

For Capote, they were it: the most glamorous and often the most powerful girlfriends in town. Feasting on daiquiris at La Grenouille or Quo Vadis, or El Morocco or 21, or sunk in a back banquette at La Cote Basque, Truman and his swans could turn lunch into performance art. With one of their gem-covered hands wrapped around his, Capote and his confidante du jour would be seen-and overheard-lost in the t.i.tillating round of who's heard what about who. ("Oh, Tru, you're so bad! Now tell me exactly exactly what she told you." "Wellll...") They included Oona O'Neill Chaplin, Gloria Vanderbilt, Carol Marcus, and Gloria Guinness, who wore a ring so big she couldn't fit a glove over her hand, and to the seedling Holly Golightly, they were the richest soil. what she told you." "Wellll...") They included Oona O'Neill Chaplin, Gloria Vanderbilt, Carol Marcus, and Gloria Guinness, who wore a ring so big she couldn't fit a glove over her hand, and to the seedling Holly Golightly, they were the richest soil.

"I rarely asked anyone to my studio," wrote Gloria Vanderbilt, but Truman had wanted to see it, so one day I invited him there to meet my unexpected houseguest, Russell Hurd. He'd been a friend since childhood, with the looks of Charlton Heston and the wit of Noel Coward. Although Russell was gay, we had been in love with each other ever since the days when we tea danced at The Plaza.... What I didn't know yet was that Truman had started weaving Russell into a story set in a brownstone very like mine, and that the heroine was a girl whose confidant was a man very like Russell. The girl in some ways was like me, in other ways like Carol Marcus, who was at that very moment on a plane from L.A. to New York, fleeing from her second marriage...with no place to land but my studio.

Gloria's apartment, a four-story brownstone on Sixty-fifth between Fifth and Madison, was stocked with flowers, delicacies, and all the compulsory accoutrements of fas.h.i.+onable life on the Upper East Side-compliments of her beau, Frank Sinatra. It was there that Carol Marcus, single and heartbroken, met Truman Capote for the first time. Lucky for her, he had an ear for distress. "You have freed yourself," Truman said to her. "I can see it all now. Your life is just beginning. Now why don't you sleep with some of these rich men who always want to sleep with you? There would be nothing wrong with doing that, and it would solve a lot of your problems."

When it came to heart pain, Capote was a master healer. One touch of his magic medicine, and he could make any woman into a friend for life. Two touches, and they would become swans. In her memoir, Carol Marcus explained exactly how: At 3:00 every morning that I was in New York, I would meet Truman Capote at a private club called the Gold Key Club on West Fifty-fifth Street. The lights were low and we would sit in big chairs in front of a fireplace and talk and talk.... One night, though, he began talking about something different. "I knew a girl once, she was nothing like you. In fact, she was almost a hooker, but I liked her a lot. She came from the South. I don't know how she ended up, and I've always wanted to write about her. But I'd like to do her as you, I'd like to have the things that I know happened to her happen to you. I want you to stick around with me a little bit. I'm going to do you as Holly Golightly." And every morning about 7:00, we left the Gold Key Club and walked to Fifth Avenue, where there was man with a cart of doughnuts. We'd buy some and then continue on toward Tiffany's.

BEAUTIFUL BABE.

Gloria and Carol and all the others went through the revolving door of Truman's affection, but Babe Paley, beautiful Babe, had a door all to herself. As swan queen, there was hardly another human being more important to Truman, and as wife of Bill Paley, the broadcasting t.i.tan who made CBS, there was hardly a more important wife in the whole of New York.

Had she met Babe, Truman's mother would have been proud of her son for reaching so high, for seeing so much of what she could only imagine. She died in 1954, a year before Babe and Capote met.

They met only a few months before he began to work on Breakfast at Tiffany's Breakfast at Tiffany's. The Paleys were off to their Jamaican estate for a long weekend with the David O. Selznicks, when Selznick, who had enjoyed Truman's company in the past, suggested they might have a bit more fun if they brought Capote along. Paley, who thought they were talking about President Truman, agreed and the invitation was made. Quelle chance! Quelle chance! Capote was used to traveling in fast circles, but weekending with two of the world's media monarchs and their wives was about as fast as it got (outside of Hollywood and royalty). He couldn't pa.s.s it up. Capote was used to traveling in fast circles, but weekending with two of the world's media monarchs and their wives was about as fast as it got (outside of Hollywood and royalty). He couldn't pa.s.s it up.

"When I first saw her," Capote said, "I thought that I had never seen anyone more perfect: her posture, the way she held her head, the way she moved." By the time the plane touched down in Jamaica, Babe and Truman had become enmeshed in each other's lives. He was her ears, eyes, and sometimes mouth, her escape from the humdrum whir of society, and a guide through intellectual terrain Babe had never explored. Like Holly would be to the unnamed narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Babe was to Truman the creme de la creme of sheer fabulosity. If each of his swans, as Truman would write, was an artist "whose sole creation was her perishable self," then surely Babe was a masterpiece. Babe was to Truman the creme de la creme of sheer fabulosity. If each of his swans, as Truman would write, was an artist "whose sole creation was her perishable self," then surely Babe was a masterpiece.

Their relations.h.i.+p was perfect. She would lead Truman in and out of restaurants all over the world, like a pet or talking accessory or personal therapist that she couldn't shop, drink, or cry without. And Truman needed her, too. She looked great on him. They looked great on each other. "I was madly in love with her," Truman said to Gerald Clarke. "I just thought she was absolutely fantastic! She was one of the two or three great obsessions of my life. She was the only person in my whole life that I liked everything about. I consider her one of the three greatest beauties in the world, the other two being Gloria Guinness and Garbo. But Babe, I think, was the the most beautiful. She was in fact the most beautiful woman of the twentieth century, and with the single exception of Gloria, who was sort of neck-and-neck with her, she was also the most chic woman I have ever known." She was voted one of the best-dressed women in America fourteen times over. most beautiful. She was in fact the most beautiful woman of the twentieth century, and with the single exception of Gloria, who was sort of neck-and-neck with her, she was also the most chic woman I have ever known." She was voted one of the best-dressed women in America fourteen times over.

Babe was so chic, in fact, and so commanding in her elegance, that once after removing her scarf on her way to lunch, she nonchalantly tied it around her handbag only to discover that within a matter of weeks, women all over New York were doing the very same. She was almost embarra.s.singly rich, owning over one million dollars' worth of Harry Winston, Cartier, Tiffany's, and Van Cleef & Arpels, most of which, like her $50,000 emerald ring and $75,000 diamond necklace, she kept locked away in her husband's bank. If she wanted to wear them, Mrs. Paley had only to interrupt Bill at the office ("I'm sorry, darling, but...") and he would discharge a limousine and secretary for the pickup. Waiting for the jewels to arrive, Babe would sit in the foyer, drawing L&M cigarettes from a twenty-four-carat gold case, which she smoked, demurely, out of her ivory holder. She burned through two packs a day, but her lips never touched a single cigarette.

She dressed up for her husband. That's why he'd built her a labyrinthine dressing room of hidden closets containing over a hundred drawers, each one lined with pale blue stripes and labeled according to their contents. There were six that held nightgowns alone: silk nightgowns, old chiffon nightgowns, new nightdresses, cotton nightgowns, thin nylon nightgowns, and winter nightgowns. Of course, there were other closets at Kiluna Farm, their eighty-five-acre Long Island estate; the house in Jamaica; and the St. Regis apartment where she threw her fabled dinner parties. Naturally, Truman became a resplendent fixture at every one. He coached her through precarious turns in conversation and chimed in at dull moments with a choice anecdote or literary equivoque, which he displayed as precisely as Babe had the baby vegetables.

Everything Babe served she served for Bill, though he was closer to gorger than gourmet. (After the war, Paley met Billy Wilder in Bad Homburg. Using a broken toaster, Billy remembers, they would grill steaks specially granted to them by the general's post exchange, and Paley would shovel them down one after the next. "The Germans have a word," Billy said, "essen, which means to eat. They also have fressen fressen, which means to devour. That suited him much better.") Paley was often seen to devastate upwards of eight meals a day, and Babe, as his connection to the kitchen, devoted herself to his satisfaction. She would spend literally days searching every shop in Manhattan from Lexington Avenue to Chinatown in hectic pursuit of le food juste juste.

Pleasing her husband was Babe's number one purpose. At each dinner party, she had at her place a small notepad encased in gold. In it she would note anything that had disappointed or satisfied him, be it about food or books or ideas exchanged. Those who were seated beside her husband were of unique value to Babe, and had been a.s.signed specifically, both in service of her purpose and his amus.e.m.e.nt. At the evening's end, when her guests were preparing to leave, she would corner them at the door. "Did he mention the olives?" she would ask, pen in hand. "They're new. Did he like them?" Mrs. Paley would write it all down.

She was, in short, everything Truman's mother, and Holly Golightly, had wanted to be. But Nina was dead, and Truman, though he threw himself into the swans, would never find peace. Neither, for that matter, would his beautiful Babe. Though she had New York society's full attention and Truman's fervent devotion, she was down in the depths on the ninetieth floor.

For all of her minks and earrings and vacations and dinner parties, Babe was unhappy. It was her marriage. Love had long since fled the scene (if it was ever truly there to begin with), and whatever warmth their guests had observed in Bill and Babe was, like the green and gold on their Louis Seizes, only a part of the upholstery. Since the beginning, the wife had been compliant, tending to Bill's directives with the precision of a star secretary, always sure to put her face on well before he woke up in the mornings, and keep her differences of opinion to herself. But it was never enough. At Bill's request, the children and their governesses were housed primarily at Kiluna, where they saw their parents on certain weekend visits and then only in the moments between guests. When they were together, Bill instructed Babe not to embrace the children or even touch them, and she obliged. Babe obliged.

All this she told to Truman. She couldn't speak freely to most of her intimates, and to journalists, Bill had told her to confine her remarks to dressing and entertaining, but to Capote, who poured out his own heart to her like a barrel of quicksand, Babe was real and candid. She confessed that they had stopped having s.e.x entirely. Not since the early fifties, she gathered, had they slept together. It wasn't that Bill was no longer interested in s.e.x-he openly flirted with many of her friends (Carol Marcus among them)-it was that he wasn't interested in her. her. Like his children, Bill's Babe was for looking, not touching. Like his children, Bill's Babe was for looking, not touching.

Later, Truman told Gerald Clarke that Babe was so unhappy she had twice tried to kill herself. Once she took pills, once she slashed her wrists, and both times Truman (he said) had saved her. More than once, Babe told Truman she had to get out. At the end of one such talk, sitting with Babe in the Paleys' Manhattan apartment, Truman urged her to stay put.

"Bobolink," Truman whispered-it was his pet name for her-"Bill bought you. It's as if he went down to Central Casting. You're a perfect type for him. Look upon being Mrs. William S. Paley as a job, the best job in the world. Accept it and be happy with it."

It was not often that Babe let anyone see her cry, but this was an exception. Truman was an exception.

She told him that she needed to rest, that she needed to think it over. Would he permit her that? Would he occupy himself for a couple of hours while she napped? Yes, he said. Yes, darling, of course.

A couple of hours later, Babe woke up and returned to Truman. Her face was made. "You're right," she said.

And that was that.

Babe was caught. Truman would fas.h.i.+on Breakfast at Tiffany's Breakfast at Tiffany's so Holly Golightly wouldn't be. so Holly Golightly wouldn't be.

GEORGE AXELROD DREAMS OF RICH PEOPLE SAYING WITTY THINGS AND s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g.

The film of The Seven Year Itch The Seven Year Itch was released in June 1955. Wilder and Axelrod saw then that their plan to hoodwink the censors-to make adultery a figment of their hero's imagination-ruined the whole picture. "The film version of was released in June 1955. Wilder and Axelrod saw then that their plan to hoodwink the censors-to make adultery a figment of their hero's imagination-ruined the whole picture. "The film version of The Seven Year Itch, The Seven Year Itch," Variety Variety wrote, "bears only a fleeting resemblance to George Axelrod's play of the same name on Broadway. The screen adaptation concerns only the fantasies, and omits the acts, of the summer bachelor, who remains totally, if unbelievably, chaste. Morality wins if honesty loses, but let's not get into that." wrote, "bears only a fleeting resemblance to George Axelrod's play of the same name on Broadway. The screen adaptation concerns only the fantasies, and omits the acts, of the summer bachelor, who remains totally, if unbelievably, chaste. Morality wins if honesty loses, but let's not get into that."

George was depressed. His next a.s.signment, an adaptation of Bus Stop, Bus Stop, only made him feel worse. In one scene, Axelrod had Don Murray's character-a cowboy who wants to prove how literate he is-break into Marilyn Monroe's room and recite the Gettysburg Address as he's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her. Of course, the Breen Office nailed him on it, and made Axelrod rewrite the scene sans s.e.x. It depressed him further. only made him feel worse. In one scene, Axelrod had Don Murray's character-a cowboy who wants to prove how literate he is-break into Marilyn Monroe's room and recite the Gettysburg Address as he's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her. Of course, the Breen Office nailed him on it, and made Axelrod rewrite the scene sans s.e.x. It depressed him further.

No wonder he wrote Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, a play about a writer (named George) who sells his soul to a devilish agent (named Irving "Sneaky" LaSalle). No wonder Fox bought the rights for Jayne Mansfield and sc.r.a.pped the s...o...b..z setting for Madison Avenue, effectively transforming Axelrod's revenge piece into a movie about a nebbishy ad man that the world believes is sleeping with a large-breasted movie star. It was a theme Axelrod had introduced in a play about a writer (named George) who sells his soul to a devilish agent (named Irving "Sneaky" LaSalle). No wonder Fox bought the rights for Jayne Mansfield and sc.r.a.pped the s...o...b..z setting for Madison Avenue, effectively transforming Axelrod's revenge piece into a movie about a nebbishy ad man that the world believes is sleeping with a large-breasted movie star. It was a theme Axelrod had introduced in The Seven Year Itch The Seven Year Itch-about a nebbishy book editor with the hots for his upstairs neighbor (played in the movie by Marilyn Monroe)-causing Axelrod, somewhat ruefully, to label his specialty: b.o.o.bs and b.o.o.bs. Dumb guys and curvy girls.

What the public didn't know, however, was that deep down, beneath his brash, frat house raunch, George Axelrod wanted to be Noel Coward. He wanted to write old-fas.h.i.+oned high comedies of the beautiful rich standing on balconies at midnight uncorking one another with wit and quelques cuvees de prestige quelques cuvees de prestige. But he was too late. America was already at war with its natural urges, and movie wit was paying the price. Now, the slightest whiff of anamorphic t.i.t and the country collapsed into puerile hysteria. In came Jerry Lewis, but for a price: sophisticated romantic comedy-the kind so prevalent in the thirties and forties-became a total anachronism. "In the Eisenhower years," Norman Mailer wrote, "comedy resides in how close one can come to the concept of hot p.u.s.s.y while still living in the cool of the innocent." It regressed Hollywood's depiction of adult men and women considerably.

So George Axelrod was depressed. What he didn't know was that Truman Capote was coming to his rescue.

TWO YEARS IN THE LIFE OF TRUMAN CAPOTE.

In the spring of 1955, only months after he and Babe met on that jet to Jamaica, Capote began to think seriously about Breakfast at Tiffany's Breakfast at Tiffany's. He took a cottage on Fire Island with his partner, the writer Jack Dunphy, dug in, but didn't get very far. There were distractions-namely, a piece about an American opera company that planned to take Porgy and Bess Porgy and Bess into the Soviet Union-and Holly was tabled. What he required, if Truman was really to get into into the Soviet Union-and Holly was tabled. What he required, if Truman was really to get into Breakfast at Tiffany's, Breakfast at Tiffany's, was the peace and tranquility he found at the seaside. Only there could he maintain the total concentration he needed to compose a longer piece, which is what was the peace and tranquility he found at the seaside. Only there could he maintain the total concentration he needed to compose a longer piece, which is what Tiffany's Tiffany's was turning out to be. was turning out to be.

For the next two years, Capote flitted from Russia, to Peggy Guggenheim's in Venice, to his new apartment in Brooklyn Heights, and to Kyoto, where, in 1956, he trapped Marlon Brando into a drunken interview and sold it to The New Yorker The New Yorker for a cushy sum. for a cushy sum. Tiffany's Tiffany's waited in a drawer. waited in a drawer.

THE PRODUCERS.

Marty Jurow wore his black hair slicked back and combed neatly off to the side. He wasn't a tall man, but he was rugged and packed a punch. Maybe he got it from Brooklyn, where he was born, maybe from Harvard Law, or maybe he got it from all those years he spent at New York's top entertainment law firms. One look at Jurow, and the suits on the other side of the boardroom table got the picture: this guy knew the angles. At the age of forty-seven, well before he and Richard Shepherd produced Breakfast at Tiffany's, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Marty Jurow was already a show business veteran. Marty Jurow was already a show business veteran.

At thirty years old, Richard Shepherd was a lithe and dapper up-and-comer. After graduating from Stanford, he landed a first-rate agenting gig at MCA looking after the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, and Brando. But Shepherd was restless and taking meetings in skysc.r.a.pers had lost its appeal. What he wanted was to be out in L.A. making movies from the trenches. He wanted to get his hands dirty. So off he went.

Marty, meanwhile, had decided to do the same. Why not team up? With Jurow's extensive show business experience and Shepherd's immaculate client list, they could really make something of it. Great idea, but there were two things missing: money and material.

Money came first. They got it from Shepherd's father-in-law, producer William Goetz, and formed Jurow-Shepherd Productions. Then they struck a multipicture deal with Paramount and started looking for material. They started to read.

WHAT TRUMAN CAPOTE DOES IN BED.

Truman finally got back to the seaside in the summer of 1957. He, Jack, and theatrical designer Oliver Smith rented a ma.s.sive Victorian house in Bridgehampton and settled down to work. Sailaway-that's what the house was called-stood over the water on stilts, and when the tide rose, the house did indeed look as if it were being carried off to sea. Truman liked it that way; the crash of the surf was a kind of metronome for him, especially at night when he did most of his work, lying in bed. There, culled from the fan of notebook pages he had spread out around him like a paper quilt, he transcribed Breakfast at Tiffany's Breakfast at Tiffany's onto typewritten pages. onto typewritten pages.

The hardest part of writing was getting up the nerve to start, but when he did, Truman gave it a good four hours, dividing his hand between the keys and a cup of coffee, or as the afternoon wore on, mint tea, sherry, and by dusk, a row of tall martinis. Between sips there were puffs of cigarettes. If it got late and Truman needed to rest, he might look to Colette's paperweight. It helped him to slow his mind. "When it's a quarter to two and sleep hasn't come," he once wrote, "a restfulness arises from contemplating a quiet white rose, until the rose expands into the whiteness of sleep."

Truman wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's, Breakfast at Tiffany's, as he did the bulk of his oeuvre, with a cold, almost scientific precision. He scoffed at impulse, at writers who hadn't mapped out the whole thing beforehand, preferring instead to plan, reconsider, and plan again before he so much as sharpened a single pencil. With as he did the bulk of his oeuvre, with a cold, almost scientific precision. He scoffed at impulse, at writers who hadn't mapped out the whole thing beforehand, preferring instead to plan, reconsider, and plan again before he so much as sharpened a single pencil. With Tiffany's Tiffany's he intended to evolve his style away from the florid swirls of, say, he intended to evolve his style away from the florid swirls of, say, Other Voices Other Voices and move toward a more measured, more subdued prose style. Out went the likes of "he was spinning like a fan blade through metal spirals; at the bottom a yawning-jawed crocodile followed his downward whirl with hooded eyes," and in came a new technique, literal and direct. The page, he told those who asked, was no longer his playground; it was his operating room, and like a surgeon-like Flaubert, one of his heroes-he endeavored to keep surprises to an absolute minimum. and move toward a more measured, more subdued prose style. Out went the likes of "he was spinning like a fan blade through metal spirals; at the bottom a yawning-jawed crocodile followed his downward whirl with hooded eyes," and in came a new technique, literal and direct. The page, he told those who asked, was no longer his playground; it was his operating room, and like a surgeon-like Flaubert, one of his heroes-he endeavored to keep surprises to an absolute minimum.

He wrote of a nameless narrator, and of a thin, outspoken eighteen-year-old called Holly Golightly. And she does indeed go-from man to man and place to place-lightly (the permanent message on her mailbox reads, "Holly Golightly, traveling"). As he wrote Holly, Truman was discovering that, though she shared many qualities with the women he knew, she was unlike any woman Truman had ever met. She said what she wanted, did what she wanted to, and unlike the swans, outright refused to get married and settle down. It isn't just that she was a wild thing, though she most definitely was, it was that independence was the full mettle of her life, and she earned it by selling herself.

Holly was a high-cla.s.s call girl, an American geisha. To her, a life without love was an occupational necessity. Try to cage her and she'd fly away, just like she flew away from Doc Golightly, the ex-husband she left back in Tulip, Texas. Freedom is what she's after, and in New York City Holly finally finds it; she cuts off her hair, speaks frankly about f.u.c.king, and is unrattled by the fact that the narrator, whom she calls "Fred" after her own brother, is gay. (She even admits to being a "bit of a d.y.k.e" herself.) Though it's never explicitly stated, "Fred" is indeed a h.o.m.os.e.xual. Truman codified it somewhat, but it's in there for the taking. (Of Fred, Capote wrote, he "once walked from New Orleans to [the fictional] Nancy's Landing," and Holly calls him "Maude" in the gay slang of the day.) That means that he and Holly are bound to one another by their s.e.xually unorthodox dispositions. Unlike Holly and her lovers, they share an intimacy that isn't tethered to their erotic or financial needs. In other words, they can love each other freely, freely, the way no two married people can. the way no two married people can.

Challenging the sanct.i.ty of heteros.e.xual dominion, Capote is suggesting that the gendered strictures of who makes the money (men) and who doesn't (women) might not be as enriching as the romance between a gay man and straight woman. This isn't because he believed platonic relations.h.i.+ps were somehow ideal, or because he considered straight people bores, but because in 1958, with wives across America financially dependent upon their husbands, being a married woman was a euphemism for being caught.

Capote isn't whipping out any political pistols here, but he's certainly packing heat. In truth, he was more interested in observing a trend, being, in a sense, a journalist. "Every year," he explained, "New York is flooded with these girls; and two or three, usually models, always become prominent and get their names in the gossip columns and are seen in all the prominent places with all the Beautiful People. And then they fade away and marry some accountant or dentist, and a new crop of girls arrives from Michigan or South Carolina and the process starts all over again. The main reason I wrote about Holly, outside of the fact that I liked her so much, was that she was such a symbol of all these girls who come to New York and spin in the sun for a moment like May flies and then disappear. I wanted to rescue one girl from that anonymity and preserve her for posterity."

Truman finished Breakfast at Tiffany's Breakfast at Tiffany's in the spring of 1958 and expected to publish it that summer in in the spring of 1958 and expected to publish it that summer in Harper's Bazaar Harper's Bazaar. But he didn't. They turned him down. Truman Capote, rascal genius and cause celebre of the literary world, and they turned him down.

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, TRAVELING Apparently, it was a problem of language. Carmel Snow, the editor to whom Truman had promised the ma.n.u.script, had been fired, and in her place, the Hearst Corporation had installed Nancy White, a sort of unimaginative company cog. She objected to some of Capote's colorful usage ("d.y.k.e," "h.e.l.l," "d.a.m.n"), and most of all, to his heroine's free spiritedness. Truman was horrified by White's objections but acquiesced, and together they reached a less-colorful compromise. "The Bazaar is printing it in their July issue," he wrote to his friend Cecil Beaton, "though they are very skittish about some of the language, and I daresay will pull a fast one on me by altering it without my knowledge."

As it turned out, Bazaar Bazaar altered nothing but their intention to publish. Just as they were about to send the cleaned-up Nancy White version of altered nothing but their intention to publish. Just as they were about to send the cleaned-up Nancy White version of Tiffany's Tiffany's to press, the magazine backed out once and for all. No, they said, with a heroine as openly carnal as Holly Golightly, to press, the magazine backed out once and for all. No, they said, with a heroine as openly carnal as Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany Breakfast at Tiffany's was just too risque for their publication. Truman, naturally, was outraged and vowed never to a.s.sociate with Harper's Harper's again. He and Jack took off for Greece. again. He and Jack took off for Greece.

Truman was in Athens when he received the telegram from Esquire Esquire. The magazine offered to buy Breakfast at Tiffany's Breakfast at Tiffany's from from Harper's Bazaar Harper's Bazaar for the two thousand dollars they'd paid for it, and put up an additional thousand dollars just to sweeten the deal. (Truman said yes.) By the time he and Jack returned to New York in October of 1958, Random House had published for the two thousand dollars they'd paid for it, and put up an additional thousand dollars just to sweeten the deal. (Truman said yes.) By the time he and Jack returned to New York in October of 1958, Random House had published Breakfast at Tiffany's, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and and Esquire, Esquire, in its November issue, had serialized the novel in full. in its November issue, had serialized the novel in full.

On the whole, the book was well received, but no one was more ecstatic than Norman Mailer. "Truman Capote I do not know well, but I like him," he wrote. "He is tart as a grand aunt, but in his way is a b.a.l.l.sy little guy, and he is the most perfect writer of my generation, he writes the best sentences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm. I would not have changed two words in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Breakfast at Tiffany's, which will become a small cla.s.sic." There was, however, a bit of dissent. Several critics found the novel-and Holly herself-disconcertingly slight, and even shallow. "Whenever Capote tries to suggest the inner life of his heroine," wrote Alfred Kazin, "the writing breaks down. The image of the starving hillbilly child never comes into focus behind the brightly polished and eccentric woman about town in her black dress, pearl choker, and sandals." which will become a small cla.s.sic." There was, however, a bit of dissent. Several critics found the novel-and Holly herself-disconcertingly slight, and even shallow. "Whenever Capote tries to suggest the inner life of his heroine," wrote Alfred Kazin, "the writing breaks down. The image of the starving hillbilly child never comes into focus behind the brightly polished and eccentric woman about town in her black dress, pearl choker, and sandals."