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Author Gore Vidal Dies, Will Be Buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Petworth

Gore Vidal, the elegant, acerbic all-around man of letters who presided with a certain relish over what he declared to be the end of American civilization, died on Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, where he moved in 2003, after years of living in Ravello, Italy. He was 86.

In 2003 Mr. Vidal and his companion, Mr. Austen, who was ill, left their cliffside Italian villa La Rondinaia (the Swallow’s Nest) on the Gulf of Salerno and moved to the Hollywood Hills to be closer to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Mr. Austen died that year, and in “Point to Point Navigation,” his second volume of memoirs, Mr. Vidal recalled that Mr. Austen asked from his deathbed, “Didn’t it go by awfully fast?”

“Of course it had,” Mr. Vidal wrote. “We had been too happy and the gods cannot bear the happiness of mortals.” Mr. Austen was buried in Washington in a plot Mr. Vidal had purchased in Rock Creek Cemetery. The gravestone was already inscribed with their names side by side.

Back in 2007 we stumbled upon his future headstone in Rock Creek Cemetery.

Category: Petworth

By: Prince Of Petworth | 01 August 2012 1:30 PM | 14 Comments

orderedchaos

Brilliant wordsmith, and entertainingly cantankerous. A few of his best quotes, via The Guardian:

“A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.”

“The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.”

“Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.”

“Fifty percent of people won’t vote, and fifty percent don’t read newspapers. I hope it’s the same fifty percent.”

August 1, 2012 at 1:37 pm
- anonymous
  
  The Post obit ends with this quote of his—at a baptism: “Always a godfather, never a god.”
  
  August 1, 2012 at 1:39 pm
anonymous

Gore had a great comment in his memoir Palimpsest about being buried between Clover Adam’s grave marker (the St. Gauden’s sculpture commonly called “Grief”) and the grave of his first (only?) love, Jimmie Trimble. —something being buried between agony and bliss, or something like that. Does anybody have the quote? I’ve looked around, but can’t find Jimmie;s grave, which it would seem would be across the road/down the hill from the graves of Gore and his long-time partner, Howard Austen.

August 1, 2012 at 1:38 pm
frankie-james

Wow… sad day for the witty.

Anyone know why he choose Washington DC?

August 1, 2012 at 2:24 pm
- orderedchaos
  
  Vidal and Auster chose their future gravesite the day after the funeral for Vidal’s half-sister, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Mr. Vidal noted that he wanted his final resting place to be near the graves of his first lover from boarding school days, Jimmy Trimble, who died at Iwo Jima, and and the graves of historian, Henry Adams, and his wife, Clover Adams.
  
  The Clover Adams memorial with the bronze sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens is one of the most visited sites in Rock Creek Cemetery. When she lived in the White House, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the Clover Adams memorial regularly.
  
  August 1, 2012 at 2:32 pm
- Mike
  
  He was raised here and attended Sidwell Friends and St. Alban’s. It was at St. Alban’s that he met the young man he called the only true love of his life, Jimmy Trimble. Trimble, a gifted athlete, died on Iwo Jima.
  
  August 1, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Anonymous

his novels are the best books I’ve ever read.

August 1, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Jenkins

I believe he grew up on Upshur Street and went to Sidwell.

August 1, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Corcoran

Let’s hope those Kansas funeral protestors don’t show up.

August 1, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Anonymous

From the NY Times Obit

“Gore Vidal, the elegant, acerbic all-around man of letters who presided with a certain relish over what he declared to be the end of American civilization, died on Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, where he moved in 2003, after years of living in Ravello, Italy. He was 86.” [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/books/gore-vidal-elegant-writer-dies-at-86.html?_r=2&hp

Odd that one who relished watching over the end of American civilization chose to be buried in our nation’s capital city.

August 1, 2012 at 8:07 pm
Harold Stassen

Gore Vidal-now also, like Ronald Reagan, a triumph of the embalmer’s art.

August 17, 2012 at 6:18 pm
Anonymous

In addition to being a renowned historian and author, he also hosted the late night horror movie features on Channel 20 here in DC, for many years. I remember watching him back in the mid-80s. He will be missed

August 1, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Count Gore DeVol

Ha ha! Careful – people might think you are serious.

August 1, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Anonymous

He was Captain 20?! No way!

August 1, 2012 at 8:50 pm