A great writer and a great American is gone. They don’t make them like Gore Vidal anymore. Here’s the official obit:
Celebrated author, playwright Gore Vidal dies at 86
By Hillel Italie and Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press
July 31, 2012: Author, playwright, politician and commentator Gore Vidal, whose vast and sharpened range of published works and public remarks were stamped by his immodest wit and unconventional wisdom, died Tuesday at age 86 in Los Angeles.
Vidal died at his home in the Hollywood Hills at about 6:45 p.m. of complications from pneumonia, his nephew Burr Steers said. Vidal had been living alone in the home and had been sick for “quite a while,” Steers said.
In a world more to his liking, Vidal might have been president, or even king. He had an aristocrat’s bearing — tall, handsome and composed — and an authoritative baritone ideal for summoning an aide or courtier.
But Vidal made his living — a very good living — from challenging power, not holding it. He was wealthy and famous and committed to exposing a system often led by men he knew firsthand. During the days of Franklin Roosevelt, one of the few leaders whom Vidal admired, he might have been called a “traitor to his class.” The real traitors, Vidal would respond, were the upholders of his class.
Read the rest here.