Howard Austen
Howard R. Austen | |
---|---|
Born | Howard R. Auster January 28, 1929 New York City, New York, U.S. |
Died | September 22, 2003 Los Angeles, California, U.S. | (aged 74)
Resting place | Rock Creek Cemetery Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Alma mater | New York University |
Partner | Gore Vidal (1950–2003; his death) |
Howard Austen (born Howard Auster;[1] January 28, 1929 – September 22, 2003) was an American copywriter and stage manager.
Best known as the longtime companion of writer Gore Vidal, Austen worked at an advertising agency before becoming a stage manager for Broadway productions. He also ventured into films, helping to cast To Kill a Mockingbird.
Early life and career
[edit]Howard Auster was born into a working-class Jewish family and grew up in The Bronx, New York.[2]
According to Austen, he was having sex with the super's son, who was about twenty years old, by the age of ten.[2] "I really did the seducing," he recalled to biographer Fred Kaplan.[2] "I was really very aggressive about it."[2]
Austen has aspirations to become a singer.[3] His sister Arlyne Reingold remembers him singing "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" and "New York, New York."[2]
Austen had recently graduated from New York University and was struggling to find work writing advertising copy when he met writer Gore Vidal in 1950.[4] At Vidal's suggestion, he changed his surname from "Auster" to "Austen" "after advertising firms refused to hire him because he was Jewish".[5] Immediately after he changed his name, Austen was hired at Doyle, Dane & Bernbach, which is today known as DDB.[6]
Austen would go on to become the stage manager for the Broadway theater play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? in 1955.[7] He also worked in film, assisting with the casting of the classic 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird.[3]
Relationship with Gore Vidal
[edit]On Labor Day in 1950, Austen met Gore Vidal at New York's Everard Baths.[3] Austen moved in with Vidal, but the two "always had separate bedrooms and 'separate interests' sexually."[8] Vidal described their relationship as "two men who decided to spend their lives together."[9] "It's easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part, and impossible, I have observed, when it does," Vidal said.[10] Austen recalled to biographer Fred Kaplan:
I guess I ended up being a permanent playmate, Greek chorus, and Jewish mother. Who could ask for anything more? I got the company of Gore. Beyond anything I ever dreamed of. ... I know people are puzzled by how it works between me and Gore. What do you say? "Hi, I'm Howard Austen, I'm associated with Gore Vidal, but we don't sleep together?" You assume when two men are living together that [they do]. It was a corner that they put me into that I just had to accept.[11]
Austen managed their complicated financial affairs, travel arrangements, and housing needs.[3] In 1972, Vidal purchased a villa called La Rondinaia in Ravello, Italy on the Amalfi coast.[8] They entertained many famous guests at the villa through the years.[8]
Illness and death
[edit]In 1999, Austen, a life-long chain smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer.[8][3] Vidal spoke about the cancer that reoccurred in Austen's brain in his autobiography Point to Point Navigation.[8] Austen was flown back to the United States for treatment from Rome by Vidal, who chartered a private plane.[8]
Austen died from a brain tumor at the age of 74 in Los Angeles, California on September 22, 2003.[3] He is buried at Rock Creek Cemetery, in Washington, D.C., in a joint grave with Vidal.[12]
External links
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Jay Parini (November 13, 2006). "The lion in winter: an evening with Gore Vidal". The Guardian. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
- ^ a b c d e Tim Teeman (November 12, 2013). "Huffpost – Gay Voices – Howard Austen: Gore Vidal's Partner in All but Name". HuffPost. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
- ^ a b c d e f Wasserman, Steve (September 30, 2003). "A life written between words". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
- ^ "Gore Vidal terrified paedophilia claims would be make public, family says". The Telegraph. November 11, 2013.
- ^ Robert Chalmers (May 25, 2008). "Gore Vidal: Feuds, 'vicious' mother and rumours of a secret love child". The Independent. Independent Print Limited. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
- ^ Ivry, Benjamin (August 2, 2012). "Gore Vidal and the Jew He Loved". Forward. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
- ^ "Howard Austen – Broadway Cast & Staff | IBDB". www.ibdb.com. Retrieved February 9, 2025.
- ^ a b c d e f "Gore Vidal's Cliffside Palace of Sex, Scandal, and Celebrity". The Daily Beast. July 22, 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2025.
- ^ Barrie-Anthony, Steven (April 2, 2006). "The last mystery of Vidal". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on July 15, 2014. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
- ^ Holland, Gale; Times, Los Angeles (August 14, 2012). "Raising a last glass to Gore Vidal". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 9, 2025.
- ^ Kaplan, Fred (1999). Gore Vidal: A Biography. New York: Doubleday. p. 342. ISBN 978-0-385-47703-1.
- ^ Kelley, Kitty (August 24, 2020). "Can Gore Vidal Find Rest in His Final Resting Place?". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved February 9, 2025.
- American advertising people
- American theatre people
- American casting directors
- Stage managers
- 1929 births
- 2003 deaths
- American LGBTQ businesspeople
- LGBTQ Jews
- 20th-century American Jews
- Businesspeople from Los Angeles
- Businesspeople from New York City
- LGBTQ people from California
- LGBTQ people from New York (state)
- New York University alumni
- People from the Bronx
- People from Hollywood, Los Angeles
- People from Ravello
- Deaths from brain cancer in California
- Burials at Rock Creek Cemetery
- 20th-century American businesspeople
- Gore Vidal
- 21st-century American Jews