_Charles Baker "Dill" Harris
A.K.A. Truman Capote (1924 - 1984)
Capote in 1959
_The character of Dill was based on the life of author and artist Truman Capote. Truman Capote was the neighbour of Harper Lee and they were 'betrothed'.
Truman Streckfus Persons was born in New Orleans on September 30, 1924 to mother 17-year-old Lillie Mae Faulk and father and salesman Archulus Persons. They divorced when he was four, and he moved to Monroeville Alabama, where he developed a strong relationship with his mother's distant relative, Nanny Rumbley "Sook" Faulk. It was in Monroeville that he met his lifetime friend, Nelle "Harper" Lee (his next-door neighbour at the time), who one day would write the Pulitzer Prize Winning novel To Kill A Mockingbird, where, the relationship between Jean-Louise "Scout" Finch and Charles Baker "Dill" Harris. Like "Scout" in To Kill A Mockingbird Capote taught himself to read before he went to school, and was also punished for this.
Later in his childhood the young Truman moved to New York City with his mother and her second husband of who the young Truman took a greater liking too, Joseph Capote, a Cuba-born textile broker, who adopted him as his stepson and renamed him Truman Garcia Capote.
Capote went on to write many novels, most famously Breakfast At Tiffany's, and In Cold Blood (co-written with Harper Lee), and over twenty film screenplays.
For the last fourteen years of his life Capote was in and out of rehabilitation clinics, as he had taken to drinking and frequently had turns and mental breakdowns due to depression, claiming several times he would attempt suicide, after his homosexuality was exposed. Truman Capote died of liver cancer, aged 59 on August 25, 1984. After his death, fellow writer Gore Vidal described Capote's demise as "a good career move".
Since 1996 an award has been held in Capote's honour: The Truman Capote Award For Literary Criticism. The reward for the prize, US $30,000, is the largest annual cash prize for literary criticism in the English speaking world. The full name of the prize is The Truman Capote Award For Literary Criticism In Memory Of Newton Arvin, a distinguished critic and professor at the Smith College, until his homosexuality was exposed and his career shattered. The award also has a lifetime recognition prize of US$100,000 that has been awarded only twice (1996 to Alfred Kazin and George Steiner in 1998).
EXTERNAL LINKS:
Truman Capote's Official Biographical Website
Recipients of The Truman Capote Award For Literary Criticism
Truman Streckfus Persons was born in New Orleans on September 30, 1924 to mother 17-year-old Lillie Mae Faulk and father and salesman Archulus Persons. They divorced when he was four, and he moved to Monroeville Alabama, where he developed a strong relationship with his mother's distant relative, Nanny Rumbley "Sook" Faulk. It was in Monroeville that he met his lifetime friend, Nelle "Harper" Lee (his next-door neighbour at the time), who one day would write the Pulitzer Prize Winning novel To Kill A Mockingbird, where, the relationship between Jean-Louise "Scout" Finch and Charles Baker "Dill" Harris. Like "Scout" in To Kill A Mockingbird Capote taught himself to read before he went to school, and was also punished for this.
Later in his childhood the young Truman moved to New York City with his mother and her second husband of who the young Truman took a greater liking too, Joseph Capote, a Cuba-born textile broker, who adopted him as his stepson and renamed him Truman Garcia Capote.
Capote went on to write many novels, most famously Breakfast At Tiffany's, and In Cold Blood (co-written with Harper Lee), and over twenty film screenplays.
For the last fourteen years of his life Capote was in and out of rehabilitation clinics, as he had taken to drinking and frequently had turns and mental breakdowns due to depression, claiming several times he would attempt suicide, after his homosexuality was exposed. Truman Capote died of liver cancer, aged 59 on August 25, 1984. After his death, fellow writer Gore Vidal described Capote's demise as "a good career move".
Since 1996 an award has been held in Capote's honour: The Truman Capote Award For Literary Criticism. The reward for the prize, US $30,000, is the largest annual cash prize for literary criticism in the English speaking world. The full name of the prize is The Truman Capote Award For Literary Criticism In Memory Of Newton Arvin, a distinguished critic and professor at the Smith College, until his homosexuality was exposed and his career shattered. The award also has a lifetime recognition prize of US$100,000 that has been awarded only twice (1996 to Alfred Kazin and George Steiner in 1998).
EXTERNAL LINKS:
Truman Capote's Official Biographical Website
Recipients of The Truman Capote Award For Literary Criticism