Editing Truman Capote (section)

==== Harold Halma photograph ====
[[File:Truman Capote by Harold Halma.jpg|thumb|Halma's photograph of Capote on the back cover of ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'']]
''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' made ''[[The New York Times]]'' bestseller list and stayed there for nine weeks, selling more than 26,000 copies. The promotion and controversy surrounding this novel catapulted Capote to fame. A 1947 Harold Halma photograph used to promote the book showed a reclining Capote gazing fiercely into the camera. Gerald Clarke, in ''Capote: A Biography'' (1988), wrote, "The famous photograph: Harold Halma's picture on the dustjacket of ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' (1948) caused as much comment and controversy as the prose inside. Truman claimed that the camera had caught him off guard, but in fact he had posed himself and was responsible for both the picture and the publicity." Much of the early attention to Capote centered on different interpretations of this photograph, which was viewed as a suggestive pose by some. According to Clarke, the photo created an "uproar" and gave Capote "not only the literary, but also the public personality he had always wanted". The photo made a huge impression on the twenty-year-old [[Andy Warhol]], who often talked about it and wrote fan letters to Capote.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.warholstars.org/warhol1/2trumancapote.html |title=2. Truman Capote |publisher=Warholstars.org |date=July 3, 1952 |access-date=March 8, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100222125455/http://www.warholstars.org/warhol1/2trumancapote.html |archive-date=February 22, 2010 |url-status=live }}</ref> When Warhol moved to New York in 1949, he made numerous attempts to meet Capote, and Warhol's fascination with the author led to Warhol's first New York one-man show, ''Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote'' at the [[Hugo Gallery]] (June 16 – July 3, 1952).<ref>[http://www.warholfoundation.org/legacy/biography.html Andy Warhol biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110322222323/http://www.warholfoundation.org/legacy/biography.html |date=March 22, 2011 }} The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts</ref>

[[File:Truman Capote 1924 1.jpg|thumb|upright|Capote photographed by [[Carl Van Vechten]], 1948]]
When the photograph was reprinted along with reviews in magazines and newspapers, some readers were amused, but others were outraged and offended. The ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' reported that Capote looked "as if he were dreamily contemplating some outrage against conventional morality". The novelist [[Merle Miller]] issued a complaint about the photograph at a publishing forum, and it was satirized in the third issue of ''[[Mad (magazine)|Mad]]'' (making Capote one of the first four celebrities to be spoofed in ''Mad''). The humorist [[Max Shulman]] struck an identical pose for the dustjacket photo on his collection, ''Max Shulman's Large Economy Size'' (1948). The Broadway stage revue ''[[New Faces]]'' (and the subsequent film version) featured a skit in which [[Ronny Graham]] parodied Capote, deliberately copying his pose in the Halma photograph. Random House featured the Halma photograph in its "This is Truman Capote" ads, and large blowups were displayed in bookstore windows. Walking on Fifth Avenue, Halma overheard two middle-aged women looking at a Capote blowup in the window of a bookstore. When one woman said, "I'm telling you: he's just young", the other woman responded, "And I'm telling you, if he isn't young, he's dangerous!" Capote delighted in retelling this anecdote.