“Feud” re-visits an elegant society mismatch

At the core of New York society, an unusual bond formed.
There were the social divas – mostly tall, slender and well-bred. They were related by marriage to a president, a prime minister, movie stars and the head of CBS. They “were like the original influencers,” said producer Ryan Murphy.
And there was Truman Capote – 5-foot-3, eccentric, partly molded by his early years in a tiny town in Alabama.
They begame warm friends and then fierce enemies. That’s depicted in “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans” (shown here), an eight-parter with opening episodes at 10 and 11:20 p.m. Wednesday (Jan. 31) on FX and then on Hulu.
These were women who seemed to have it all; now they were adding a clever celebrity friend. “He was the greatest writer of his generation …. He was a dazzling accoutrement on their dinner table,” Tom Hollander said.
Hollander plays Capote, a man who was constantly filmed and recorded. That gave him refereshers: “Truman himself was on my phone in my ear before every take.”
By comparison, Naomi Watts had no film or recordings of Babe Paley – but a huge collection of photos. “It was clear to me that there was never a hair out of place, never a wrong word spoken,” she said. “So much effort was put into her appearance (and) how she designed a dinner table, who were the guests, what would the conversations be.”
Paley fit the proper images of a society diva. She was the daughter of a famed brain surgeon and the sister-in-law of, at times, a Roosevelt, an Astor and a Whitney. She went to elite schools and was a Vogue editor. She married and divorced a millionaire, then married William Paley, who propelled CBS.
The other “swans” – as Capote called them — had varied backgrounds:
— C.Z. Guest (played by Chloe Sevigny) grew up in Boston society and married money. She also had her own adventures, including dancing in the “Ziegfeld Follies” and being painted nude by Diego Rivera.
— Lee Radziwell (Calista Flockhart) was a debutante and designer who married a Polish prince. By then, her older sister Jacqueline had married John Kennedy.
— Ann Woodward (Demi Moore) was a showgirl and socialite who married a rich banker and shot him to death. It was ruled an accident, but she was ousted from high society.
— Slim Keith (Diane Lanem shown here with Holland) grew up in Salinas, Cal. (2,600 miles from high society) and dropped out of school at 16. She was romanced by Hollywood leaders and married two of them (director Howard Hawks, producer Leland Hayward), before marrying a baron.
“I think that she saw from afar that Truman needed support,” Lane said, “and she was there for him.” When he wanted to make a movie deal for “In Cold Blood,” she was able to “help get a million-dollar deal, which at that time was pretty huge.”
They were close and “traveled the world together.” But then Capote – after years of writers’ block – finished a portion of “Answered Prayers,” which was published in Esquire in 1975. A character patterned after Keith was spewing gossip and accusations about the others. She never spoke to him again.
Others were just as dismayed. “It was such a betrayal,” Molly Ringwald said, “because they adored him so much.”
Ringwald plays Joanne Carson, whose ex-husband Johnny often had Capote as a TV guest. “She was really like his (Capote’s) last friend.”
He died at 59 in 1984 at her home in Bel Air, far from the New York world that had banished him almost a decade earlier.