In 2017, Ryan Muyphy premiered
Feud
, a series with anthology aspirations that aims to recreate and explain juicy rivalries from the golden age of American culture.
Then the protagonist was the festering hatred between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, an excuse to expose the cruelty of Hollywood, the ageism and machismo that created what is known as
old
divas .
After an attempt at a second season that would recreate the conflictive end of the marriage of Charles of England and Diana of Wales that was canceled in 2018 and that coincided with Murphy's millionaire contract with Netflix (where there was also already a series exploring the conflicts of that family,
The Crown
), it took five years until a second installment was confirmed and seven until it was released.
Feud
:
Capote vs the Swans
, announced in 2022 and released last week (in Spain it can be seen on HBO Max) focuses on the story of friendship and betrayal between the writer Truman Capote and his
swans
, pleiades from high society to the which – and with which – he entertained himself until one ill-fated day in November 1975 when Capote published
the story
La Cote Basque 1965 in
Esquire
magazine , an extract from what was to be his new novel,
Prayers Attended
.
In the text she revealed intimacies – some even criminal – that her friends had confessed to her and, although the protagonists appeared under a pseudonym as in all good
roman à clef
, neither the New York high society nor the victims themselves missed the real identities of the protagonists.
More information
“I don't know how I got here”: this was Capote's spiral of self-destruction after betraying the jet set
The publication of that story was the culmination of that network of friendships and also the beginning of the end for Capote, who suffered ostracism from the world he loved so much, his alcoholism worsened greatly, and he was never able to finish
Answered Prayers
,
which can be read today. as an unfinished work composed of the only three chapters that saw the light.
Such material, joyful in itself, is joined by the usual spectacular cast, the hallmark of the Murphy factory, full of great stars, especially female ones.
Naomi Watts, Demi Moore, Diane Lane, Calista Flockhart, Molly Ringwald and Chloe Sevigny play those lazy and hateful ladies who fascinated with their lifestyle and refinement.
And along with them, their husbands, figures who remain in the background here but are also fascinating not only for being men of enormous power and influence, but for being architects and even victims of these women who first inspired the author of In Cold
Blood
and then they destroyed it
William S. Paley in 1948.CBS Photo Archive (Getty Images)
William S. Paley, the lord and owner of television
Husband of
: Babe Paley, played by Naomi Watts.
Treat Williams, who died in a motorcycle accident in 2023, plays tycoon William S. Paley, creator of CBS, in the series.
His story could not be more American: the son of some Ukrainian Jews who became rich with tobacco, he realized by advertising his products on a small radio station the opportunities that lay in the media.
He acquired stations until he formed a complex conglomerate that soon also included television.
As in any good amalgamation of feelings and business, William married Dorothy Hart Hearst, ex-wife of one of the sons of William Randolph Hearst, king of the press and inspiration for
Citizen Kane
.
His numerous infidelities ruined the relationship.
Her marriage in 1947 to Babe Cushing, fashion editor at
Vogue
, maintained the appearance of respectability and happiness until its end, which came with her death in 1978.
Jean Murray Vanderbilt and Barbara 'Babe' Paley with Truman Capote in 1957.ullstein bild Dtl.
(ullstein bill via Getty Images)
Paley would boast that he and Babe had spent no more than five nights apart during their marriage.
Reality hid a few skeletons behind the closet, and Capote gave a good account of them by saying that William had cheated on Babe with “the governor's wife,” supposedly Happy Rockefeller, wife of Nelson Rockefeller.
Other unphotogenic details include the fact that William spent years paying a $200-a-month pension to his ex-lover, the disgraced actress Louise Brooks (about whom there is also a movie,
The Chaperone
), on the condition that she did not reveal anything about their
affair
(something she finally did in her memoirs
Lulú en Hollywood
).
After being widowed, Paley had a relationship with the model and actress Barbara Allen, fifty years younger, who alternated with Bryan Ferry.
Johnny Carson in 1975.NBC (NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
Johnny Carson, the beloved and unfaithful presenter
Husband of
: Joanne Carson, played by Molly Ringwald.
“Here’s Johnny!”
A living television legend, the host of
The Tonight Show,
a pioneer of late-night entertainment (with permission from Ed Sullivan) was an American institution the size of Mount Rushmore.
His love life was up to par: four wives and several lovers, including comedian Joan Rivers, starlet Mamie Van Doren and actress Morgan Fairchild.
Others, like Sally Field, refused to go out with him after defining him as “an octopus.”
Former PanAm airline stewardess Joanne Copeland and Johnny married in 1963, after he obtained a divorce from his first wife.
The marriage ended in 1972, when Carson confirmed that his suspicions were true: Joanne had an
affair
with football player Frank Gifford, with whom she met in a secret apartment in Manhattan, full of photos of the athlete.
Johnny Carson and his wife Joanne Copeland.
Bettmann (Bettmann Archive)
The divorce came shortly after, and that same year, in 1972, the jilted Carson (despite the fact that he too had been unfaithful to his wife) married another Joanne, Joanna Holland.
It was a short-lived marriage.
His fourth and last wife was Alexis Maas.
Joanne Carson received a substantial pension that she maintained until the death of her ex-husband in 2005. In 1974, Joanne attempted to write a book about the entertainment world that she had known so closely.
She stayed in an attempt that was corrected by her friend Truman Capote.
She was one of the few who did not completely withdraw her support after the publication of
La Côte Basque
.
It was precisely at Joanne's house, on Sunset Boulevard, where the writer died in 1984.
Prince Stanislaw Albrecht Radziwill.ullstein bild Dtl.
(ullstein bill via Getty Images)
Stanislaw Albrecht Radziwill, the prince
Husband of
: Lee Radziwill, Calista Flockhart in the series.
What can a high-society woman who is expected to make certain decisions in life do when her sister has married a charismatic politician who will end up being president of the United States?
Raise the bet with something that in that country has the fascination of something foreign: blue blood.
According to Capote, this is what Lee Bouvier, sister of Jacqueline, wife of John F. Kennedy, did when she married the Polish prince “Stash” Radziwill.
She would deny that jealousy for the rest of her life, but it's true that on paper, Stash seemed as much of a husband to her as John did to Jackie.
Lee Radziwill and Truman Capote.Bettmann (Bettmann Archive)
A sophisticated mix of diplomat, entrepreneur and businessman, Stash had already been divorced twice and lived in two English mansions to which he soon added an apartment in Manhattan to Lee's liking.
Both Lee and Stash were married to other people at the time they met – she to Michael Temple Canfield – and it should be noted that the equation that led to the marriage was surely influenced by the fact that their first child, Anthony, was born four months ago. and a half after their wedding, in 1959.
It was not a happy couple: Aristotle Onassis soon entered the equation, with whom Lee was in love and who, as things are, would end up marrying Jackie.
She had affairs when the marriage was already on the rocks with Mark Shand, brother of the current Queen Camilla of England, or the photographer Peter Beard.
The divorce came in 1974. Just two years later Stash died in London, at the age of 62, enveloped in the mystery and darkness in which he had spent his life, despite being the husband of one of the most watched women in the world. ..with his sister's permission.
Winston Frederick Churchill Guest and CZ Guest in 1953.Slim Aarons (Getty Images)
Winston Frederick Churchill Guest (yes, one of
those
Churchills)
Husband of
: CZ Guest, played by Chloë Sevigny.
If with such an accumulation of names –Winston Frederick Churchill Guest and yes, he was a cousin of that Winston Churchill– someone did not guess the pedigree of this character, it would be enough to add that among his greatest triumphs was being a polo champion.
A millionaire and well-connected from birth, Guest led a harmonious and smooth existence;
After divorcing his first wife, Helena Woolworth McCann, in 1944, who would also not look out of place in an Edith Wharton novel, he married Lucy Douglas Cochrane in 1947, better known as CZ (read
sisi
), in Hemingway's Cuban mansion. .
Considered one of the best-dressed women of her time and the author of a long-running column on gardening, CZ Guest was such a prodigy of elegance that she even emerged unscathed from Capote's indiscretions.
William Woodward III and James, the sons of Jimmy and Ann Woodward.New York Daily News Archive (NY Daily News via Getty Images)
Jimmy Woodward, the murdered
Husband of
: Ann Woodward, Demi Moore in
Feud.
Here gossip is inextricably mixed with black history.
What happened was that Ann Woodward shot and killed her husband, the millionaire Jimmy Woodward – played in the series by Hudson Oz – with several shots, according to her accidentally, mistaking him for an intruder.
Rumors soon broke out suggesting that it was nothing accidental, because the marriage was on the rocks and Jimmy planned to divorce his wife, whose origins and education were much more precarious than his.
Despite being exonerated by justice, she Ann was never able to do anything against the persistence of her slander, which would also be put in black and white in Capote's story published in
Esquire
, where she appeared renamed Ann Hopkins.
Unable to cope with the ostracism, Ann she committed suicide in 1975, three days before the magazine issue came out.
This whole story would be collected by Dominick Dunne in his wonderful novel
The Two Ladies Greenville
, in which Capote himself appeared camouflaged, adding another literary layer to this game of reality and fiction.
Slim Keith.WWD (Penske Media via Getty Images)
Sir Kenneth Keith, the English patient
Husband of
:
Slim
Keith, played by Diane Lane.
Baron Kenneth Keith was the third husband of Nancy Gross, nicknamed
Slim
for her height and slenderness, but by no means the most interesting.
The life of this actress,
socialite
and aristocrat was marked by encounters and romances with tempestuous personalities.
The first of them, the actor William Powell, who fell in love with her when she was just 16 years old.
Director Howard Hawks abandoned her wife, Norma Shearer's sister, to marry her, and tailored Lauren Bacall in
To Have or Have Not
to suit Slim's bubbly, sassy personality.
Leland Hayward and his wife Slim with publisher Gardner Cowles Jr. at a party in 1952.Slim Aarons (Getty Images)
After separating from Hawks, she ended up in Cuba at Hemingway's house, and there she fell in love with agent Leland Hayward, who was married to Margaret Sullavan, ex-wife of Henry Fonda and William Wyler.
Slim and Hayward were a happy marriage until he left her for
socialite
Pamela Churchill.
That's where Kenneth Keith came into the picture and a quiet life in England that bored Slim to death until they divorced in 1972. There is another much more sinister name that she never confirmed, but appears in Capote's text: in it a character called Ina Coolbirth, a copy of Slim, gets drunk and tells that Joe Kennedy raped her when she was 18.
In the episodes broadcast so far, that question has not been addressed.
But there are many left.
And Murphy, like Capote, usually holds nothing back.
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