Gore Vidal: The writer, the wit, and his ties to Outpost Estates
Writer Gore Vidal reclines in his Hollywood Hills home in Outpost Estates in 2006. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Source: https://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-0917-gore-vidal-auction-20160909-snap-story.html
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) was one of America’s most prolific and provocative man-of-letters: a novelist, essayist, screenwriter, playwright, and public intellectual whose sharp wit and political commentary made him a fixture of 20th‑century cultural life. For neighbors in and around Outpost Estates, Vidal’s story offers a window into the long, intertwined history between Hollywood and the writers who chronicled it.
Who Gore Vidal was:
Novelist and essayist: Vidal published more than two dozen novels and a dozen major essay collections. His “Narratives of Empire” series (including Burr and Lincoln) reimagined U.S. history through fiction, while United States: Essays 1952–1992 won the National Book Award.
Boundary‑pushing early work: The City and the Pillar (1948) was one of the first major American novels to portray a gay protagonist without condemnation—controversial at the time and a landmark today.
Screenwriter and playwright: In addition to stage works like The Best Man, Vidal wrote for film and television; his uncredited work on Ben‑Hur and credited scripts such as Suddenly, Last Summer and Is Paris Burning? kept him in regular orbit with the studios.
Political voice: A lifelong public intellectual, Vidal ran for Congress in New York (1960) and for the U.S. Senate in California (1982, Democratic primary), and became a defining TV sparring partner on politics, history, and the role of American power.
Hollywood and Los Angeles:
A working base: Across the 1950s–1980s, Vidal regularly lived and worked in Los Angeles while writing for film and television, publishing novels, and developing plays bound for the screen.
Final years: After decades split between the U.S. and Italy, Vidal returned to Los Angeles later in life and died at his home in Outpost Estates in the Hollywood Hills in 2012.
Vidal’s connection to Outpost Estates:
The neighborhood backdrop: Outpost Estates and the surrounding Hollywood Hills long served as a residential enclave for artists, actors, directors, and writers—close to the studios, the Hollywood Bowl, and landmark venues like Yamashiro and the Magic Castle. Vidal’s periods of residence and work in the Hollywood Hills placed him in this creative corridor.
Literary lineage: As a novelist‑screenwriter who moved between page and screen, Vidal is often cited alongside other writers who found the Hollywood Hills an inspiring and convenient base—an ongoing tradition in and around Outpost Estates from the silent era to today.
Why he still matters:
A mirror to American power: Whether in fiction or essays, Vidal examined how politics, personality, and myth shape the United States—a perspective that continues to resonate.
Culture and candor: His televised debates and essays exemplified a vanished era of wide‑read public intellectuals—combative, erudite, and entertaining.
Local history: Remembering figures like Vidal helps preserve the literary and cinematic heritage of our hillside neighborhoods.
Have a memory or a source to share? If you have verified details about Gore Vidal’s time in or around Outpost Estates—such as dates, photographs, or published references—please share them with the Outpost Neighborhood Association so we can update this post and enrich our neighborhood history archive.
