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Howard Austen
Longtime companion of Gore Vidal From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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.
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Early life and career
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 had 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]
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Relationship with Gore Vidal
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]
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Illness and death
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
References
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