Read Gloria Steinem’s Original Story for Vogue on Attending Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball
On November 28, 1966, Truman Capote hosted a masked Black and White Ball—and the world has yet to recover. It’s gone down as one of the—if not the—greatest party in history. At least in recorded history.
As intended, everyone who was anyone was there—including then 32-year-old Gloria Steinem, who was on assignment for Vogue, capturing every last, delicious detail—from Lauren Bacall and Jerome Robbins’ reign of the dance floor, to Capote’s 39-cent mask from F.A.O. Scharwz to Frank Sinatra using his “old friends, the Secret Service men,” to help him and his new bride Mia Farrow find their way out the Plaza Hotel’s back entrance to avoid paparazzi.
This essay was published in Vogue’s January 15, 1967 issue, and due to renewed interest in all things Capote thanks to Ryan Murphy’s latest series, Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, we have unearthed this party-report-gem from the archives. It runs alongside images selected by our editors today for added color.
So much beauty, power, talent, and celebrity hasn’t been collected in one room since a great Inaugural Ball. And for luxury of dress and surrounding, this party made most Inaugural Balls seem Spartan. Yet, as Diana Trilling commented the morning after, the evening was a success because it was personal and “basically a very nice dance for friends.”
Why? Well, as everyone knew for months before it happened—since last summer, in fact, when guests first began conferring with other guests about what to wear—Truman Capote was giving a party.
And not just any party, but a great masked ball that would bring guests from Europe and Asia, not to mention Kansas, California, and Harlem. No one with an acquaintance one inch less broad than Truman’s could announce it as he did: “Just a party for the people I like.”
The guest list of 540—inscribed painstakingly and by hand, like all his writing, in a 10-cent lined notebook—reflected the full range of 20 years’ writing and travel: one Maharajah, a Kansas detective, half a dozen Presidential advisors, businessmen, editors, a lot of writers and performers, some artists, four composers, several heiresses, one country doctor, and a sprinkling of royalties, with defunct titles attached to very undefunct people. Thunderous publicity which leaned heavily on the Maharajah-heiress side of things, soon made it the Party of the Year—possibly of Several Years—leaving the host and everyone involved some combination of pleased and stunned.
As the day approached, there was a growing conviction—false but intriguing— that the invitation list was not just friends but a new Four Hundred of the World. Pressure from would-be guests became enormous, especially from those who were strangers to the host but felt their social status alone entitled them to go. Truman resisted, but the requests, even threats, finally forced him to cut off his phone and retire to the country.
The week before the party, international guests began arriving in New York like family-of-the-groom for a wedding, and caused the same string of accommodation problems and pre-party parties. A whimsical rumor that we were all being called together for some purpose—probably the announcement of the End of the World—spread by magic or telephone. Jerry Robbins wondered if we weren’t on the list of those to be shot first by the Red Guard. Kenneth Galbraith said no, not as long as he was on it.
Torrential rains made the End of the World seem possible, but at eight o’clock the Capote master plan began: hostesses, chosen by Truman, received ballgoers in groups, pre-arranged by him, for dinners at home. By nine, his thoughtful combinations of old and new friends were launched on a thorough and unjaded good time. Before the party began, it had already gotten off the ground. Marion Javits, forgetting her painted-on mask and sequinned eyebrows, discussed politics earnestly with her dinner partner Walter Lippmann. At Mr. and Mrs. Leland Haywards, Mia Sinatra leaned against her husband’s shoulder and explained that she was the brains in the family. Alvin Dewey answered questions about problems of the Clutter case, just as dignified and direct in the Paley dining room as he had been in Kansas during the murder investigation in In Cold Blood. Cecil Beaton performed the warm and gentlemanly feat of remembering everyone, even slight acquaintances, and putting them instantly at ease. Mrs. George Backer gave her dinner party as calmly as if she hadn’t spent a hectic afternoon at The Plaza, supervising the ballroom decoration which she had designed.
Arriving at the ball, guests were already in high-spirited groups; no solitary couples searching desperately for someone they knew. The host and his guest-of-honor, Kay Graham, greeted each one before plunging them into the great black-and-white spectacle of the ball, a color scheme inspired by Cecil Beaton’s Ascot scene for My Fair Lady. Feathers, ball gowns, masks, and jewels, all whirled round what Truman chose as “the only truly beautiful ballroom left in New York”: The effect was like some blend of Hollywood, the court of Louis XIV, a medieval durbar, and pure Manhattan.