Vidal v. Mailer - The Fight of the Century!

[Tomconroy]

Last edited Wed Jul 7, 2021, 08:15 PM - Edit history (1)

It all happened in prime time television: The Dick Cavett Show. Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal do everything but get into a physical brawl on national TV. The woman is Janet Flanner, the long time Paris correspondent for the New Yorker.
What amazes today is that two writers could so dominate the popular culture. Their feud was the stuff of legend.
Mailer later admitted he was pretty much bombed on the show.

[littlemissmartypants]

1. Truly deserving of the description, "epic."

Thanks for sharing this, Tomconroy.



❤ pants

[Warpy]

2. I've forgotten how insufferably smug Mailer was.

Dick Cavett was famous for always being the gentleman, no matter how much he might dislike a guest. Mailer brought out the worst in him, the one thing I remembered from this show so many years ago.

I read two Mailer books while I was in high school, "The Naked and the Dead" and "The American Dream" and after the second, I figured I was pretty much done with him, even though his most prolific writing period came a bit later on. I had his number, oh yes I did.

I found Vidal much more entertaining, especially "Myra Breckenridge" and sought out his articles. His greatest triumph, I think was outliving Mailer by five years.

The main thing I realized as I watched this is how much I miss having literate and witty people on TV. That has been a rarity for decades, even on PBS, as networks have gone for the cheapest lowbrow crap they can find to sell cars and life insurance. I miss wit.

Oh, and Vidal was absolutely right about the "3 Ems." They all had the same thing running through them, the same vicious hatred of women you find in the incel online community.

[thucythucy]

4. For me the breaking point with Mailer was when he wrote that it was better for men

to rape rather than masturbate.

Much of his political writing is brilliant, if self-centered. His book "The Idol and the Octopus" on JFK and LBJ is a good example.

But his views on women were abhorrent, and his insistence on talking over everybody and monopolizing this and other conversations can be difficult to take.

Kudos to Cavett for remaining cool and managing to get off some great spontaneous one-liners.

[Tomconroy]

5. Vidal and Mailer reconciled in later years.

Mailer was staging a play in Provincetown and asked Vidal to play a part. Vidal would come over every morning to Mailer's house to eat breakfast prepared by Norris Church.
Cavett and Mailer never had a breakup. Mailer was back on the show a few weeks later explaining that he had been drinking and expressing admiration for Cavett's anal remark.
I agree that the Mailer novels I've tried are tough sledding. I thought highly oh his nonfiction. I wonder if Armies of the Night and Miami and the Siege of Chicago still hold up. I thought The Executioner's Song was a masterpiece.
Vidal's historical novels like Burr, Lincoln and 1876 are brilliant. His big book of essays 'United States' justly won universal praise.
It is astonishing that shows like this once appeared on network tv. I remember when Barry Goldwater appeared on the Cavett show, reminiscing about when he was young he knew Wyatt Earp, when Salvador Dali showed up one night with an anteater in tow, when Truman Capote and Groucho Marx appeared on the same show (Groucho knew Capote's work).
There was a Golden Age of television. It was called The Dick Cavett Show.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Fascinating program.

Thanks for the thread Tomconroy.

[Tomconroy]

6. The Lions in Winter: