Truman Capote was an Emmy award-winning American writer of Breakfast at Tiffany's, In Cold Blood, The Grass Harp, The Dogs Bark, Music for Chameleons, Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel, A Christmas Memory and Other Voices, Other Rooms fame.

He was already an award-winning, respected author by the time In Cold Blood was published in 1966. Capote's detailed, painstakingly researched and chilling account of the 1959 slaying of a Kansas farm family, and the subsequent capture, trial and execution of the two killers, solidified his claim to literary fame. It was about as far removed from the light tone of Breakfast at Tiffany's, as you could get, and demonstrated his great versatility as a writer.

His life story was told in the award-winning 2005 Philip Seymour Hoffman motion picture Capote, and the 2006 Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow film Infamous.

Full or original name at birth: Truman Streckfus Persons

Date, time and place of birth: September 30, 1924, at approximately 3:00 p.m., Touro Infirmary, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.*

Date, time, place and cause of death: August 25, 1984, at 12:21 p.m., at 400 St. Cloud Road, Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.** (Liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication)

Parents
Father: Archulus Persons (known as Arch Persons) (a nonpracticing attorney)
Mother: Lillie Mae "Nina" (Faulk) Persons

Burial site: Westwood Memorial Park (a.k.a. Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery), Westwood, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

* "September 12" is erroneously reported as his date of birth by the Britannica Book of the Year 1967.

"12:05 a.m." is erroneously reported as his time of birth by a few other sources.

** Erroneously reported to have died "August 24" by one published source, "August 26" by another and "August 27" by yet another.


All of the following publications, in some past editions, have offered erroneous birth or death data on Truman Capote.

Britannica Book of the Year 1967

Collier's Encyclopedia

Weird Ways to Die by Richard Doyle


It is not our intent to denigrate these fine publications, but merely to point out the above inaccuracy to prevent further circulation of the erroneous data.

More than three dozen sources were consulted in preparing this profile.
The most in-depth of these include:
The 1988 biography, Capote: A Biography, by Gerald Clarke.
1987's "Dear Genius…" A Memoir of My Life with Truman Capote, by Jack Dunphy.
Truman Capote's The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Places.