Truman Capote was born on September 30, 1924. For the first twenty years of his adult life, Capote was one of America's finest writers; later in life, his writing became infrequent and he was principally known as a charming, witty celebrity and talk-show guest.

Capote said that he began writing "seriously" at the age of eleven, devoting several hours after school each day to writing short stories and developing his skill. From the age of nineteen, he was publishing stories in literary journals and popular magazines. Those stories attracted the attention of editors at Random House, who offered him a contract to write a novel.

That first novel was Other Voices, Other Rooms (e-book | e-audio | print), published in 1948. It was a semi-autobiographical story—Capote later said that it was more strongly autobiographical than he had realized while writing it—about a young boy coming of age in the South. One of the novel's supporting characters was an openly gay man, unusual for the era; even more unusual, that character did not die, commit suicide, or go mad, as was standard for such characters at the time.

Capote spent much of the 1950s working in film and theater. He co-wrote the screenplays for The Innocents (with William Archibald), an adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw; and Beat the Devil (with John Huston). He adapted his novella The Grass Harp (e-book | e-audio | print) into a stage play. The Grass Harp proved to be a particularly popular story; it was adapted as a musical in 1971, and as a film in 1995.

And in 1954, he teamed with composer Harold Arlen for a stage musical version of his short story House of Flowers, about rival bordellos in Haiti. The fact that most of the characters were prostitutes and their customers may have been too much for audiences, and the show ran for only about five months. But some of its songs—"A Sleepin' Bee," "I Never Has Seen Snow," "Don't Like Goodbyes"—have remained popular with cabaret singers.

When Capote returned to prose fiction, it was with one of his most enduring stories. The novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (e-book | print) was published in 1958. Its central character, Holly Golightly, is a small-town girl who supports herself in New York by socializing with wealthy men who take her to dinner and buy her expensive gifts; Capote insisted that Holly was not a prostitute, but "an American geisha." The 1961 film Adaptation starring Audrey Hepburn was a huge success, and introduced the song "Moon River."

Capote's next project began with a brief 1959 report in the New York Times about the murder of a family in a small Kansas town. Capote went to Kansas and, with the help of his childhood friend Harper Lee, interviewed local residents, police investigators, and the men convicted of committing the murders. He spent six years interviewing and researching the case, and in 1965, published the results. In Cold Blood  (e-book | e-audio | print) was originally published as a four-part serial in The New Yorker before being published in book form, and it was a sensational success.

Three different films have been inspired by In Cold Blood. The book was directly adapted in 1967, and two different films, released about a year apart, told the story of Capote's and Lee's experiences writing the book. Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Academy Award for his portrayal of Capote in 2005's Capote; Toby Jones played the role in Infamous the following year.

Capote wrote relatively little after In Cold Blood. His celebrity had gotten him entry into New York's social elite, and in the 1970s, he did a lot of club-hopping, socializing, and partying. He became a popular guest on television talk shows, always ready with a gossipy story or a witty one-liner.

He was occasionally working on a tell-all novel about the jet set, which he'd been planning since the late 1950s. He published a few excerpts from that book, Answered Prayers (e-book | print), in Esquire in 1975 and 1976; they were harshly received by his friends, and his ostracism only worsened his drug and alcohol problems. Capote spent most of the late 1970s in and out of various rehab programs, and his slow decline was very visible. In 1978, he told a talk show host that he thought it likely that "eventually, I'll kill myself...without meaning to."

Sadly, that is what happened. By 1980, Capote was mostly living in seclusion. He died on August 25, 1984, of liver disease complicated by the use of multiple drugs.

Answered Prayers was published as an unfinished novel in 1987. Capote's shorter writing has been gathered in several collections—mature short stories in The Complete Stories (e-book | print), a dozen stories written as a teenager in Early Stories (e-book | e-audio | print), essays in Portraits and Observations (e-book | print), and letters in Too Brief a Treat (e-book | print). His first novel, Summer Crossing (e-book | e-audio | print), had long been thought lost, but was found twenty years after his death.

Gerald Clarke's biography, Capote (e-book | print), is based on many interviews with Capote; the A&E Biography series features an installment on Capote.

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September 29, 1903

Diana Vreeland was born. Vreeland was a fashion columnist and editor, first at Harper's Bazaar and later at Vogue, from 1936 to 1973. She was a popular hostess among New York's social elite, and occasionally offered fashion advice to Jacqueline Kennedy during John Kennedy's presidency. After leaving Vogue, Vreeland worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, organizing exhibitions of historical fashion. The 2012 documentary Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (streaming | DVD) covers the life and career of the "Empress of Fashion."

September 27, 1936

Don Cornelius was born. Cornelius was the creator and producer of Soul Train, a syndicated music and dance program which featured performances by mostly black musicians, performing the latest R&B and soul hits. The show aired nationally from 1971 to 2006; Cornelius hosted the show for the first 22 years of its run. Cornelius died of suicide in 2012; he had been suffering from increasing pain and other complications from 1982 brain surgery. Nelson George looks at the history and cultural importance of Soul Train in The Hippest Trip in America (e-book | print).

September 28, 1941

Ted Williams, of the Boston Red Sox, ended the season with a .406 batting average, the last time a player broke .400. As the Red Sox headed into the day's doubleheader with the Philadelphia Athletics, Williams' average was .3995, which would have officially rounded up to .400. The Red Sox manager offered to let Williams sit out the day's games, but he declined. "If I'm going to be a .400 hitter," Williams said, "I want more than my toenails on the line." Williams' life and unusually long career—1939 to 1960—are the subject of Ben Bradlee, Jr.'s The Kid (e-book | e-audio | print | audio).

September 24 is National Punctuation Day

Periods. Question marks? Exclamation points! (And don't forget parentheses—or dashes.) National Punctuation Day celebrates the symbols we use to make our written thoughts easier to follow. Noah Lukeman's A Dash of Style (e-book | print) offers guidance on when to use which bits of punctuation; Keith Houston's Shady Characters (e-book | print) explores the history of punctuation marks, from the ampersand to the interrobang.