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Inside Gore Vidal’s Cliffside Palace of Sex, Scandal, and Celebrity

Susan Sarandon found out she was pregnant by the pool. Princess Margaret visited. Now Kevin Spacey will play Vidal in a biopic set in Rome and Vidal’s Italian home, La Rondinaia.

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Frank Edwards/Fotos International/Getty Images

By Tim Teeman

The painting had once hung above Gore Vidal’s bed at his home, La Rondinaia, in Ravello on Italy’s Amalfi coast. And later, the painting was the last thing Vidal would look at, at night, as he took an electronic chair-lift to the top of his staircase of his Hollywood Hills home.

The picture was of Jimmie Trimble, whom Vidal claimed was his great love. His family and friends were not convinced, but there the picture was of Trimble (who died at the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945), at his most boyish, holding a sailboat.

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Tim Teeman
Tim TeemanSenior Editor and Writer

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