Born Truman Streckfus Persons in New Orleans, he adopted his stepfather's name by 1935 and became Truman Garcia Capote (1924-1984). His story "Miriam," about an odd little girl who befriends an old widow, was published by Mademoiselle in 1945 and won the O. Henry Award, helping launch his career as a fiction writer and paving the way for his first novel Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948). His 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany's features the unforgettable, flighty Holly Golightly, played inimitably by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film adaptation. Capote's finest work arrived in 1965 with In Cold Blood -- written with assistance from friend and fellow author Harper Lee -- which reinvented the true crime genre through its close study of a 1959 home invasion and quadruple homicide in rural Kansas. Capote's production declined after the mid-'60s, though he maintained a public profile as a celebrity and socialite until his death in 1984.
