US writing great Gore Vidal dies at 86

NOVELIST Gore Vidal died yesterday at the age of 86.

The writer, whose works included Lincoln and Myra Breckenridge, suffered complications from pneumonia, his nephew said.

Vidal was one of the giants of American literature, well known for his flamboyant social and sexual life and controversial political views.

He wrote 25 novels, essays, Broadway hits, screenplays and television dramas.

The son of a US army officer, Vidal was born October 3, 1925 at West Point, the US military academy, to a family rich in political and social connections.

His dad Eugene, an army aviator, was reportedly the love of aviator Amelia Earhart’s life.

His mum, who divorced his father, was later married to socialite Hugh Auchincloss, who later became Jacqueline Kennedy’s stepfather.

He was introduced to politics growing up in Washington where his grandad, Oklahoma senator Thomas Gore, sometimes allowed him to accompany him on the Senate floor.

Vidal lived for 53 years with Howard Austen, an advertising executive.

Even as he turned out novels, plays and other literary works, politics was never far from the picture.

He ran for Congress in 1960 from a district in New York as a Democrat, but lost.

In 1982, he campaigned unsuccessfully against Governor Jerry Brown in a Democratic gubernatorial primary in California.

In later years, his political views tended toward the conspiratorial, and he was particularly scathing about the administration of President George W Bush, whom he once dismissed as “the stupidest man in the United States”.

Vidal died at his home in the Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California.