Feud Season 2_ Joanne Carson on Truman Capote's Death and the Swans Fallout (Fla(1)

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00:00 You know, he always knew his worth. He knew he was a brilliant writer.

00:04 And even when Answered Prayers came out and everybody kind of like cockroaches fled,

00:09 he said, "Time will tell."

00:12 And those people will cut their own throats with their own tongues, which they did.

00:16 This is what a writer does. This is bloody and true and real.

00:22 The story of the Swans, Truman Capote's socialite-filled friend group,

00:27 and its implosion in the '70s, thanks to the author turning the women's real lives

00:32 into a thinly-veiled work of fiction.

00:35 Your story cast its spell and took away everything I had!

00:39 Is set to play out in the second season of Ryan Murphy's Feud.

00:43 You have to pull this.

00:45 These are portraits of those who have shared their deepest secrets with you.

00:49 Why would you want to hurt them?

00:51 But E.T. broke it all down first with the Swan who stood by him, Joanne Carson.

00:57 When Truman got into trouble and he had some real tough times,

01:00 I was able to take him under my wing and become his champion.

01:04 So kind of what goes around comes around. But that friendship was solid.

01:09 Molly Ringwald brings the one-time wife of late-night TV titan Johnny Carson

01:14 back to life in the FX series.

01:17 He was really his last friend. He was with him when he died.

01:21 Truman taught me total acceptance because I loved him so much

01:27 that everything he did was wonderful, even when it wasn't.

01:30 I just loved him with all my heart.

01:32 I met him at a dinner party in New York just as In Cold Blood was being published,

01:36 and I was fascinated by this very tiny, odd, brilliant person.

01:40 It just mesmerized me. I was stunned.

01:43 And after dinner he kind of collected me and took me off into a corner and said,

01:46 "Now, tell me all about yourself."

01:48 Well, the thing about it was we found out that we had both been abandoned as children,

01:53 and that formed a very tight bond and a very loyal friendship

01:58 because we knew we would never abandon each other.

02:01 And that kind of carried us for the next 20 years.

02:03 We were kind of joined at the hip because I learned something really valuable from Truman.

02:08 I learned about friendship and the importance of strong friendships,

02:13 the supportive, nourishing, nonjudgmental friendships.

02:16 Boy, they stick, and they get you through anything.

02:20 Truman was the most flamboyant person I've ever met in my life,

02:23 and fun and delicious and delightful to be with.

02:25 I think of you as a commentator.

02:28 A commentator? Oh.

02:31 I don't think of you as a commentator.

02:33 Truman. When Johnny and I separated and I moved out to California from New York,

02:37 Truman picked a house out for me.

02:39 So as soon as I signed the papers and bought it, guess what?

02:42 He sold his house in Palm Springs, moved all his furniture,

02:45 and moved in with me saying, "Why should I worry about upkeeping a housekeeper when you have one?"

02:51 He wrote some of the dog's bark there.

02:53 He wrote some of "Answered Prayers" there, some short stories, some interviews.

02:59 I mean, he wrote all the way to the last day of his life.

03:02 Please welcome Truman Capote, radio.

03:08 The minute he went on television, he was known.

03:11 How could you miss that voice? How could you miss that animation and that brilliance?

03:17 And this is what I think happens with people who have a certain sort of genius.

03:23 It doesn't matter what their appearance is, whether they're homely or beautiful or not beautiful,

03:30 or whatever it is, it's some kind of extraordinary rapport that they make with themselves with the camera.

03:37 Joanne, it must be hard to part with all of this.

03:39 Not really.

03:41 You know, Truman was very cute.

03:43 When he moved in with me and started bringing Baccarat that was given to him by Babe Paley

03:47 and gifts from the Black and White Ball, I said to him, "How can you part with all of this?"

03:51 And he said, "My dear, they're just things, and they will outlive us many, many, many years and many generations.

03:59 We are only the caretakers of it for a short while."

04:02 These are Truman's hearts.

04:04 I mean, this is his heart because he loved animals with all of his heart.

04:07 And I think he loved animals better than people because animals treated him a lot better than some people did.

04:12 Kind of in the last years of his life.

04:14 You know, a lot of people, there was a lot of gossip after he died that he died of a drug overdose or for alcohol.

04:20 And neither one was found in his system.

04:22 He actually died from phlebitis.

04:24 It was a blood clot that broke loose.

04:26 And probably liver disease, too, because he did drink a lot.

04:29 But look at how well he looked.

04:32 He's a happy man.

04:34 This makes me laugh at first because I see this cheesy Woolworths line notebook, which cost $1.20.

04:41 But it's my favorite piece in the whole collection.

04:44 It is. And when we open it...

04:47 This is a short story that Truman was writing for my birthday.

04:50 And he started this the day before he died.

04:53 And he was working on this the night before he died.

04:56 And the thing that is very special about this, it's all handwritten.

05:03 17 pages.

05:04 The story is "Remembering Willa Cather."

05:06 It's Truman's memory of meeting her.

05:09 And what makes this special to me is, as you know, a lot of critics said Truman couldn't write anymore.

05:15 This is Truman at his best, exactly hours before he passed.

05:20 Truman was a pack rat.

05:22 I have things in his closet that he had cleaned when he was living in Brooklyn Heights that he just moved from his apartment to mine.

05:29 In '71, when Johnny and I separated, Truman was still at the height of his game.

05:34 But little by little by little by '79, I think everybody knows he wrote "Le Cote Basque," which turned a lot of people off.

05:43 And he lost a lot of his friends. Not all of them, but a lot of them.

05:47 So he understood.

05:49 Truman. Truman. Truman Capote.

05:52 He's our great protector and our best friend.

05:54 We tell him everything.

05:56 Even the awful things we've all done to each other.

05:59 This is the tuxedo he wore for the party of the century.

06:05 Truman really didn't care that much about clothes.

06:07 But he always looked very dapper.

06:09 I guess this is the essence of Truman Capote, a very stylish seersucker suit.

06:14 On the cover of Capote.

06:16 Oh my.

06:17 And if you'll notice, this little...

06:19 So this is what he wore. This is one of his favorite outfits.

06:22 And this is his favorite outfit for Studio 54.

06:27 And it still has a VIP drink ticket in the pocket.

06:31 Now, this is a very stylish hat. Great hat band.

06:34 But what's the story with this?

06:36 Truman always ventilated his hats.

06:38 He would always take a piece out of the crown.

06:41 And he said that was for ventilation.

06:44 Here it is before it had been ventilated.

06:47 I keep saying Jill St. John has an IQ of 145 or something.

06:50 Yeah, she's a rotten actress.

06:52 Truman was a very prompt person, as was Johnny.

07:01 And the first time I invited Truman for dinner,

07:04 there's a clock outside of U.N. Plaza, a digital clock on the IBM building.

07:09 And Johnny was watching it.

07:11 And as soon as it turned 7 o'clock, Truman rang the doorbell.

07:15 And Johnny appreciated that so much,

07:17 he had a carte blanche open invitation for dinner.

07:20 This is very special because this is how Truman carried it in his breast pocket.

07:24 This is a sterling silver pen that Truman wrote his last manuscript with.

07:30 And he always just carried it in his breast pocket.

07:33 As you see, I wear very small little pieces of jewelry.

07:38 When I moved out from New York in 1971,

07:41 Truman and I went to a lot of parties in Bel Air and Beverly Hills and benefits and openings.

07:46 And the wattage of gems from the Hollywood ladies just kind of were dazzling.

07:52 And out shone my little pieces.

07:54 So for my birthday that year, Truman put this on my breakfast tray

07:58 with a little note saying, "Every woman should have one important piece of jewelry."

08:03 So this was Truman's gift to me, and it is a brown diamond.

08:07 And you will not find another brown diamond in the world.

08:11 I don't wear it anymore because Truman's not here to enjoy it with.

08:14 It's hard to picture what it would have been like to know him

08:18 and to know him on an intimate basis for such a long time.

08:21 He was very special. He was one of the kindest, most gentlest people I ever knew.

08:26 [music]

08:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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