In 2017, Ryan Muyphy premiered Feud, a series with anthology ambitions that aims to recreate and explain juicy rivalries from the golden age of American culture. Then the protagonist was the simmering hatred between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, an excuse to expose the cruelty of Hollywood, the ageism and machismo that produced the so-called divas of the past. After an attempt at a second season that would recreate the conflicted end of the marriage of Charles of England and Diana of Wales was canceled in 2018, coinciding with Murphy's millionaire deal with Netflix (which also already had a series exploring the conflicts ). this family, The Crown), it took five years until a second part was confirmed and seven before publication.
Feud: Capote vs the Swans, announced in 2022 and released last week (in Spain it can be seen on HBO Max), focuses on the story of friendship and betrayal between the writer Truman Capote and his swans, Pleiades from High Society to the – And with that he entertained himself until one unfortunate day in November 1975, when Capote published the story “La Cote Basque 1965” in Esquire magazine, an excerpt from his new novel “Prayers Attended.” In the text she revealed intimacies – some even criminal – that her friends had confessed to her, and although, as in any good roman à clef, the protagonists appeared under a pseudonym, neither the New York high society nor the victims themselves escaped the true identities of the protagonists.
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The publication of this story was the culmination of this network of friendships and also the beginning of the end for Capote, who found himself ostracized from the world he loved so much, his alcoholism greatly aggravated, and he was never able to “answered prayers “to finish what is possible to read today. as an unfinished work, consisting of the only three chapters that saw the light of day. Adding to this already joyful material is the usual spectacular cast, the trademark of the Murphy factory, full of great stars, especially female ones. Naomi Watts, Demi Moore, Diane Lane, Calista Flockhart, Molly Ringwald and Chloe Sevigny play these lazy and hateful ladies who fascinated with their lifestyle and gentility. And with them their husbands, figures who remain in the background here, but who are fascinating not only as men of enormous power and influence, but also as architects and even victims of these women who the author of “In Cold Blood” and “In Cold Blood” for the first time Once it inspired, then they destroyed it
William S. Paley in 1948.CBS Photo Archive (Getty Images)
William S. Paley, the master and owner of television
Husband: Babe Paley, played by Naomi Watts.
Treat Williams, who died in a motorcycle accident in 2023, plays tycoon William S. Paley, the creator of CBS, in the series. His story couldn't be more American: As the son of Ukrainian Jews who became rich through tobacco, he realized the opportunities the media offered while advertising his products on a small radio station. It acquired channels until it became a complex conglomerate that soon included television. As with any good marriage of feelings and business, William married Dorothy Hart Hearst, the ex-wife of one of the sons of William Randolph Hearst, king of the press and inspiration for Citizen Kane. His numerous infidelities ruined the relationship. His marriage in 1947 to Babe Cushing, fashion editor at Vogue, maintained a semblance of respectability and happiness until her death in 1978.
Jean Murray Vanderbilt and Barbara “Babe” Paley with Truman Capote in 1957.ullstein bild Dtl. (Ullstein invoice via Getty Images)
Paley bragged that he and Babe had spent no more than five nights apart during their marriage. Reality hid a few skeletons behind the closet, and Capote gave a good overview of it by saying that William cheated on Babe with “the governor's wife,” supposedly Happy Rockefeller, the wife of Nelson Rockefeller. Other unphotogenic details include the fact that for years William paid $200 a month in child support to his ex-lover, disgraced actress Louise Brooks (about whom there is also a film, “The Chaperone”). on the condition that she did not reveal anything about their affair (which she eventually did in her memoir Lulú en Hollywood). After his widow, Paley had a relationship with the model and actress Barbara Allen, fifty years his junior, who alternated with Bryan Ferry.
Johnny Carson in 1975.NBC (NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
Johnny Carson, the beloved and unfaithful presenter
Husband: Joanne Carson, played by Molly Ringwald.
“It's Johnny!” A living television legend, the host of The Tonight Show, a pioneer of late night entertainment (courtesy of Ed Sullivan) and an American institution the size of Mount Rushmore. His love life was on par: four women and several lovers, including comedian Joan Rivers, starlet Mamie Van Doren and actress Morgan Fairchild. Others, like Sally Field, refused to date him after calling him an “octopus.” Former Pan Am airline stewardess Joanne Copeland and Johnny married in 1963 after he divorced his first wife. The marriage ended in 1972 when Carson confirmed that his suspicions were true: Joanne was having an affair with football player Frank Gifford, with whom she met in a secret Manhattan apartment full of photos of the athlete.
Johnny Carson and his wife Joanne Copeland. Bettmann (Bettmann archive)
The divorce came soon after, and in the same year, 1972, the jilted Carson (although he too had been unfaithful to his wife) married another Joanne, Joanna Holland. It was a short-lived marriage. His fourth and last wife was Alexis Maas. Joanne Carson received a substantial pension, which she kept until her ex-husband's death in 2005. In 1974, Joanne attempted to write a book about the entertainment world she had known so well. It remained an attempt, which was corrected by his friend Truman Capote. She was one of the few who did not completely withdraw her support after the publication of La Côte Basque. It was in Joanne's house on Sunset Boulevard that the writer died in 1984.
Prince Stanislaw Albrecht Radziwill.ullstein picture Dtl. (Ullstein invoice via Getty Images)
Stanislaw Albrecht Radziwill, the prince
Husband: Lee Radziwill, Calista Flockhart in the series.
What can a high-society woman who is expected to make certain decisions in life do when her sister has married a charismatic politician who ends up becoming President of the United States? Up the bet with something that has the allure of something foreign to this country: blue blood. According to Capote, Lee Bouvier, the sister of John F. Kennedy's wife Jacqueline, did this when she married the Polish Prince “Stash” Radziwill. She would deny this jealousy for the rest of her life, but it's true that on paper Stash seemed as much of a husband to her as John did to Jackie.
Lee Radziwill and Truman Capote.Bettmann (Bettmann Archive)
Stash, a sophisticated mix of diplomat, entrepreneur and businessman, was twice divorced and lived in two English villas, to which he soon added a Manhattan apartment that Lee liked. Both Lee and Stash were married to other people at the time they met – she to Michael Temple Canfield – and it should be noted that the equation that led to marriage was certainly influenced by the fact that her First child, Anthony, aged four, was born a month and a half ago after their wedding in 1959.
It was not a happy couple: Aristotle Onassis soon came into play, with whom Lee was in love and who, as things were, would end up marrying Jackie. She had affairs with Mark Shand, the brother of the current Queen Camilla of England, and the photographer Peter Beard when the marriage was already in crisis. They divorced in 1974. Just two years later, Stash died in London at the age of 62, shrouded in the mystery and darkness in which he had spent his life, despite being the husband of one of the most watched women in the world. ..with his sister's permission.
Winston Frederick Churchill Guest and CZ Guest in 1953.Slim Aarons (Getty Images)
Winston Frederick Churchill Guest (yes, one of those Churchills)
Husband: CZ Guest, played by Chloë Sevigny.
If someone had not guessed the pedigree of this figure from such an accumulation of names – Winston Frederick Churchill Guest and yes, he was a cousin of this Winston Churchill – it would suffice to add that one of his greatest triumphs was being a polo champion . A millionaire and well-connected from birth, Guest led a harmonious and smooth life. After divorcing his first wife, Helena Woolworth McCann, in 1944, who wouldn't be out of place in an Edith Wharton novel, he married Lucy Douglas Cochrane, better known as CZ (pronounced Sisi), in Hemingway's Cuban villa in 1947. Considered one of the best-dressed women of her time, CZ Guest is the author of a long-running gardening column. She was such a prodigy of elegance that she even survived Capote's indiscretions unscathed.
William Woodward III and James, sons of Jimmy and Ann Woodward.New York Daily News Archive (NY Daily News via Getty Images)
Jimmy Woodward, the murdered man
Husband: Ann Woodward, Demi Moore in Feud.
Here, gossip is inextricably mixed with black history. What happened was that Ann Woodward shot her husband, millionaire Jimmy Woodward – played in the Hudson Oz series – with several shots, she said accidentally, mistaking him for an intruder. Rumors soon began to circulate that this was no coincidence, as the marriage was on the rocks and Jimmy was planning to divorce his wife, whose background and education were much more precarious than his. Although Ann was exonerated by the judiciary, she was never able to do anything about the continuation of the slander, which was also laid out in black and white in Capote's story published in Esquire, in which she was renamed Ann Hopkins. Ann couldn't bear the exclusion and committed suicide in 1975, three days before the magazine issue was published. This whole story would be summarized by Dominick Dunne in his wonderful novel The Two Ladies Greenville, in which Capote himself appeared in disguise, adding another literary layer to this game of reality and fiction.
Slim Keith.WWD (Penske Media via Getty Images)
Sir Kenneth Keith, the English patient
Husband: Slim Keith, played by Diane Lane.
Baron Kenneth Keith was the third husband of Nancy Gross, nicknamed “Slim” because of her height and slenderness, but was by no means the most interesting. The life of this actress, socialite and aristocrat was marked by encounters and romances with stormy personalities. The first of them was the actor William Powell, who fell in love with her at the age of 16. Director Howard Hawks left his wife, Norma Shearer's sister, to marry her and adapted Lauren Bacall to Slim's bubbly, sassy personality in To Have or Not to Have.
Leland Hayward and his wife Slim with publisher Gardner Cowles Jr. at a party in 1952. Slim Aarons (Getty Images)
After separating from Hawks, she ended up in Cuba with Hemingway and fell in love with the agent Leland Hayward, who was married to Margaret Sullavan, the ex-wife of Henry Fonda and William Wyler. Slim and Hayward had a happy marriage until he left her for socialite Pamela Churchill. Enter Kenneth Keith and a quiet life in England that bored Slim to death until they divorced in 1972. There is another, much more sinister name, which she never confirmed, but which appears in Capote's text: in it a character named Ina Coolbirth, a copy of Slim, gets drunk and says that Joe Kennedy raped her when she was 18. This question has not been addressed in the episodes that have aired so far. But there are still many left. And Murphy, like Capote, usually doesn't hold anything back.
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