Truman Capote and the Garden of Words
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
May 21, 1955
On this day, Truman Capote’s first musical, House of Flowers, closed at the Alvin Theater in NYC after 165 performances.
House of Flowers has nothing to do with flowers.
The plot centers on Madame Fleur, an evil brothel owner, and her attempts to murder the fiancé of her star performer, Ottilie. Madam Fleur has her men kidnap the young man, seal him in a barrel, and toss him into the ocean.
Truman’s House of Flowers was the first theatrical production outside of Trinidad and Tobago to use the instrument known as the steelpan.
Today, most of us remember that Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
However, he also wrote the introduction to his friend CZ Guest’s garden book, titled First Garden: An Illustrated Garden Primer.
CZ Guest, born Lucy Douglas Cochrane, was an American fashion icon and garden columnist. She authored three garden books and three garden planners.
In 1990, she launched her own line of organic fertilizers, insect repellents, tools, scented candles, and soap, all of which were sold at Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus.
Writing about CZ, Truman affectionately wrote,
"There, with her baskets and spades and clippers, and wearing her funny boyish shoes, and with her sunborne sweat soaking her eyes, she is a part of the sky and the earth, possibly a not too significant part, but a part."
Truman Capote is remembered for this famous garden saying:
"In my garden, after a rainfall, you can faintly, yes, hear the breaking of new blooms."
In 1957, for the Spring-Summer edition of the Paris Review,
"I will not tolerate the presence of yellow roses--which is sad because they’re my favorite flower."
Finally, in the Jay Presson Allen play "Tru," Truman throws away a Christmas gift of a poinsettia, dismissing it by saying something Truman actually said,
“Poinsettias are the Robert Goulet of botany.”
