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At the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, where "The Best Man" (now called "Gore Vidal's
'The Best Man'") is running, producers plan to start each of the next week's shows with an announcement that the performance will be dedicated to Vidal and to end them by showing pictures of him on monitors. Broadway as a whole will honor him Friday night when marquee lights are dimmed for one minute. "I'm honored to have been able to call Gore a close friend," cast member Cybill Shepherd said in a statement. "I'm privileged to currently be appearing in his play
'The Best Man' and speaking his witty and eloquent words every night only reinforces for me what a genius he was." He feared irrelevance, but he was also among the last of the great, entitled writers, those who expected deference because of who they were and what they did. A tall, handsome man, he had a scornful stare, an imposing baritone and cache of retorts. Reporters who phoned him learned quickly he was in no mood to socialize. Editors such as Doubleday's Gerald Howard, who worked with Vidal over the past decade, learned to permit him the last word. "Once at a lunch at a large bookseller's, the imp of the perverse seized me and I had the temerity to disagree with Gore. He was going on, as was his wont, about the perfidiousness of The New York Times, so I interjected,
'Gore, I know the Times is far from perfect, but the world would be a far poorer place without it, I think,'" Howard said. "Without missing a beat he replied,
'Ah, you mean like Pravda?' Smackdown! I never tried that again."
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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