Editing Gore Vidal (section)

==Personal life==
[[File:Vidal, Gore (1925-viv.) - foto di Charles Van Vechten.jpg|thumb|upright|Vidal as a young man]]
In the multi-volume memoir ''[[The Diary of Anaïs Nin]]'' (1931–74), [[Anaïs Nin]] said she had a love affair with Vidal, who denied her claim in his memoir ''Palimpsest'' (1995). In the online article "Gore Vidal's Secret, Unpublished Love Letter to Anaïs Nin" (2013), author [[Kim Krizan]] said she found an unpublished love letter from Vidal to Nin, which contradicts his denial of a love affair with Nin. Krizan said she found the love letter while researching ''Mirages'', the latest volume of Nin's uncensored diary, to which Krizan wrote the foreword.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-krizan/gore-vidals-secret-unpubl_b_4004916.html|title=Gore Vidal's Secret, Unpublished Love Letter to Anaïs Nin|date=September 27, 2013|work=HuffPost|access-date=September 20, 2013|first=Kim|last=Krizan|archive-date=September 27, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927200327/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-krizan/gore-vidals-secret-unpubl_b_4004916.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Vidal would cruise the streets and bars of New York City and other locales and wrote in his memoir that by age twenty-five, he had had more than a thousand sexual encounters.<ref>{{cite book |last=Vidal |first=Gore |author-link=Gore Vidal |date=1995 |title=Palimpsest: A Memoir}}, p. 121.</ref> Vidal also said that he had an intermittent romance with actress [[Diana Lynn]], and alluded to possibly having fathered a daughter.<ref name="Palimpsest-1995" />{{RP|290}}<ref>Joy Do Lico and Andrew Johnson, [https://web.archive.org/web/20080526082405/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-rumours-about-my-love-child-may-be-true-says-gore-vidal-834022.html "The Rumours About My Love Child May Be True, says Gore Vidal"], ''The Independent'', May 25, 2008.</ref> He was briefly engaged to actress [[Joanne Woodward]] before she married actor [[Paul Newman]]; after marrying, they briefly shared a house with Vidal in Los Angeles.<ref name="balaban">{{cite magazine|last1=Balaban|first1=Judy|title=The Gore They Loved|url=http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/02/gore-vidal-beloved-women-susan-sarandon|magazine=Vanity Fair|date=January 22, 2013|access-date=December 28, 2016|archive-date=April 25, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170425005931/http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/02/gore-vidal-beloved-women-susan-sarandon|url-status=live}}</ref>

Vidal enjoyed telling his sexual exploits to friends. Vidal claimed to have slept with [[Fred Astaire]] when he first moved to Hollywood and also with a young [[Dennis Hopper]].<ref name="gay"/>

In 1950, Vidal met [[Howard Austen]], who became his romantic partner for the next 53 years, until Austen's death.<ref>"What I've Learned", ''Esquire'' magazine, June 2008, p. 132.</ref> He said that the secret to his long relationship with Austen was that they did not have sex with each other: "It's easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part, and impossible, I have observed, when it does."<ref name=Outtake>{{cite web|last=Robinson|first=Charlotte|title=Outtake Blog Author & Gay Icon Gore Vidal Dies|url=http://blog.outtakeonline.com/2012/08/author-gay-icon-gore-vidal-dies.html|publisher=Outtake Blog|access-date=August 1, 2012|archive-date=August 4, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120804001232/http://blog.outtakeonline.com/2012/08/author-gay-icon-gore-vidal-dies.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In ''[[Celebrity: The Advocate Interviews]]'' (1995), by Judy Wiedner, Vidal said that he refused to call himself "gay" because he was not an adjective, adding that, "to be categorized is, simply, to be enslaved. Watch out. I have never thought of myself as a victim&nbsp;... I've said—a thousand times?—in print and on TV, that everyone is bisexual."<ref name="Wieder">{{cite book |title=Celebrity: The Advocate Interviews|last=Wieder|first=Judy|editor-last=Wieder|editor-first=Judy|year=2001|publisher=Advocate Books|location=New York City|isbn=1-55583-722-0|page=127}}</ref>

In the course of his life, Vidal lived at various times in Italy and in the United States. In 2003, as his health began to fail with age, he sold his Italian villa ''[[La Rondinaia]]'' (The Swallow's Nest) on the [[Ravello|Amalfi Coast]] in the [[province of Salerno]] and he and Austen returned to live in their 1929<ref>[https://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/hot-property/la-fi-hotprop-gore-vidal-20151118-story.html Longtime Hollywood Hills estate of late writer Gore Vidal is for sale] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190727030917/https://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/hot-property/la-fi-hotprop-gore-vidal-20151118-story.html |date=July 27, 2019 }} in ''LA Times'' on November 18, 2015.</ref> villa in [[Outpost Estates, Los Angeles]].<ref>''Time International'' (September 28, 1992) described the 5000 ft.<sup>2</sup> (460&nbsp;m<sup>2</sup>) property as "a massive villa—in every detail of location and layout, designed to enhance concentration." p. 44.</ref> Howard Austen died in November 2003 and in February 2005 his remains were re-buried at Rock Creek Cemetery, in Washington, D.C., in a joint grave plot that Vidal had purchased for himself and Austen.<ref>Wilson, Scott. ''Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons'', 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 48809-48810). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.</ref>