>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with the most talked about musical in new york. it is at the public theatre and moved to broadway later this summer. we talked to the director thomas kail and also the star and creator lin-manuel miranda. >> the story of our country's sowngd is an extraordinary one and to tell it from the perspective of the guy that wasn't born here was my way in. my parents were born in the caribbean they were born at puerto rico not speaking english. you experience the country when you come here at a different age. that's my story. >> rose: we conclude with michael mewshaw called sympathy for the delve, four decades of

friendship with gore vidal. >> with the image and reality of the man, he was a case that has been said that celebrity is a mask that eats the face or mailer said anybody becomes fames at a young age which vidal did at the age of 21 lives only in the tzar cough gust of his own image. and i think gore felt a prisoner of what he had created in his, this image he created of himself and he never wanted to admit weakness, never wanted to admit fear. >> rose: the story of hamilton and the friendship with gore vida l when we continue. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> rose: additional funding provided by:

>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: alexander hamilton is the unlikely founding father who wrote hi)of early american history. roosevelt called him the most brilliant statesman who ever lived. he is the subject of the musical hamilton at the public theatre in new york. writer and composer lin-manuel miranda takes hamilton's legacy to new hiatal using hip-hop rnb and music. here's a look. ♪ ♪ like my country ♪ and i'm not throwing away my future. ♪ i'm not throwing away my

future ♪ and i'm not throwing away my future. going to die ♪ we're going to rise ♪ we're going to rise uprise up ♪ ♪ ♪ throwing away my future. i'm not throwing away my future. hamilton hamilton ♪ are you not throwing away my socks. >> rose: joining me now is the writer exezer and the director thomas kail. hamilton is moved to broadway this summer. i'm pleased to have both of them at this table. welcome. it could not be better, could it? not being here but the response to this. it is really remark many.

who is coming, everybody wants the hot ticket in town ever wants to come. the critics crave by it. two guests on my show peggy noonen over the weekend, david brooks today wrote wonderful columns about it. i mean what more do you need. >> you sit in a room for six years making something and you have the wildest dream version how you think the show would be received and we're experiencing that so we're just trying to hang on while we can. i started writing this in 2008 while i was still in my show in the height. i was on my first vacation from the show and i picked up the book at random at borders. >> rose: you said i'll take this one. >> it had great reviews on the back. i knew he died in a duel so i knew it would be a bang and fell in love with the story. really the dicksonian nature of his live. >> rose: explain that. there's a point where you say

dickens dickens dickens. what was his life. >> alexander hamilton was born possibly out of wedlock. his father split by the time he was ten years old. his mother died in bed with him a few short years later. his brother was an apprentice to a blacksmith so he was by himself. he went to live with the cousin after his mothering death. the cousin killed himself and he got put in charge of a charter, he was a clerk for a trading company that traded sugar cane and slaves, the key point of the triangle trade down in st. croix. he wrote his way off the island. there was a hurricane that ravage st. croix and wrote a poem about it. describing the carnage saying it would astonish into angels. the poem was used for relief for the island and people took up a fund to get him an education. >> rose: here we have a

character, a great american. we know there's drama that he dies ataä!k÷ the end of the duel. >> yes. >> rose: which he may not have in fact fired his gun. >> yes. lots of differing about that. >> rose: speculation. here we have that story. you have translated it into so much more. tell me about the ideas that you want to pour into this to make it a new look at the founding fathers, the american experience and a different way of presenting, presenting it that would appeal to young people because you're people by young actors diversity. >> you speak to what we were really conscious of when is how do we eliminate the distance between the story and now. we knew the story would be set then and we knew what it would sound like now. we knew fundamentally this was a country founded and created by immigrants. somebody in all on our lines stepped off a boat or some

former transportation put their foot on this soil and went to work. as we started thinking about taking the inspiration from ron's book, we thought okay, here are a lot of events but we have to tell a story. so we had all of the events laid out. we sort of both red the book and made our own time lines and compare hey this really spoke to me, hey this moment feels like it's essential. so then you have those things to build around but it became so apparent early on as we were really designing how the show could function that this idea of doubling characters for instance felt really right on. the character who played lafayette, one of his great friends also plays jefferson. of course they both have this connection to france. they both have this relationship, one antagonistic and one supportive. how can we make the audience feel like who they are and what they understand is actually not so different from what these people were struggling this. >> rose: hip-hop seems like a genius stroke now but that's what you knew. >> that's the first thing i checked.

i read two chapters of this book and i go someone's already done a hip-hop version. the quintessential hip-hop narrative, this is someone who grew up in hard times and wrote his way out of his circumstances. wrote his way towards better life. and that is the hip-hop narrative from the south bronx in the 70's to today. and so i googled hamilton hip-hop musical. >> rose: that's not fair. >> i was not there and so thank god now you google it you'll see my show but i really, i just, that was the first thing that jumped out at me was this is a fundamental hip-hop story. >> rose: just for a moment -- >> a hot shot freshman when i was a senior. >> rose: he was creating things way back then. >> he was skewing life from my productions. >> that's true. we found out we shared a plot for production even though we never met. we didn't meet until after i graduated college. >> a couple of my bodies saw

this early proto version in the its in the year 2000. i graduate waited, they said you got to meet this guyh%h and they were right. i immediate lin in may 2002. >> i graduated the week before. >> we basically never stopped talking. it's just been a 13 year conversation that has led us to this table which is slightly mind blowing. >> rose: you been complement each other. >> i say tom your hair looks great. >> and i say -- >> rose: you know what i mean. your skills meshed with his skills. >> one of the things that i credit from enormously with all the time is both in the7c creation of heights and hamilton, he came in and worked. when the heights happened and we were both broke and had day jobs, she would say well bring in a song on friday. bring in a song on troy and we'll talk about it. he created deadlines even though

we had no apparatus or way of knowing whether the show was going to be anything. and it created somewhere for me to go when something for me to do is something to work towards. and we've kind of continued that with every project we've worked on. >> the continuation of that because he read that book and wrote one song. he didn't write 50 songs he wrote a single song thinking maybe i'll make this into an album. that was in 2009. he happened to do it at this little place on pennsylvania avenue. and he did this, the only song that existed from whatever this potential hamilton thing could be. and what i realized in that is that it was no different from the relationship we forged on heights which is what lin is able to do is take very complex ideas and not show you how smartest but make them accessible to all of us. one of the great gifts he's given us with this show is he doesn't stand upexwqa there and say look where i am you're down there. he built a ladder and he says

come up here and be up here with me. so my job was to help try to architect that ladder and get every single person who walks into the public theatre and rodgers on broadway to participate and feel like it's also for them. and i think that's one of the things i've been you know, i've been riding shotgun on for over a decade now and really admired. >> rose: the lyrics i'm just like my country i'm young scrappy and hungry and i'm not throwing awayxa my shot. >> charlie rose is wrapped in this. you performed that. >> actually alexander hamilton the opening number of the show. >> rose: before we see that is that what the president responded to when he said geithner should see this. >> yes. i told them, i told the assembled audience. this is the first time performing the song in public. they had asked me to perform something from in the heights and i said i have 16 bars about

the first ones i could learn and they allowed me to close out the show with that. and his response is we've got to get geithner in here. >> rose: he thought geithner was hamilton. >> he had a quote at that time because of the economic crises had just, everything had just blown up and he said he got the hardest job as treasury secretary alexander hamilton. that was the quote geithner had. this was very important in the obama administration in may 2009. soa+ they were just figuring out how to do this thing. how to get us out of the hole we were in. i think he was trickled by the fact i made the treasury secretary sing. that song was from the perspective. >> he also performed it from

burr's point of view. >> rose: where did that?bjhj come from, aaron burr perspective. >> we have andrew lloyd weber the antagonist narrating the story. judas anywhere eights jesus christ super star. that's immediately where i went. that was a difficult task for me figuring out who aaron burr is. he's known as the villain -- >> rose: you make more of him. >> i do after learning more about his life. i have to learn my way in becauseb biographies. gore wrote a historical fiction novel. his words are a lot craftier than mine. one of the things i learned about burr he's an early feminist. his daughter received an education greater than any man of that error you. he was close with his wife and daughter. he was on the mission for

alexander hamilton for the abolition of slaves in new york city, new york state. so there are redeeming characteristics to this guy. i had to find my way into that because every biography either is in defense of him or vilifies him. >> rose: on one hand aaron burr was amazing, cautious, careful, laid back. >> he wrote volumes of written work and burr left behind less than two. that tells you how much burr reserved the right to change his mind about any position he had at any particular point. the tragedy of the show is where burr is reckless and left to go and hamilton is cautious and throws away his shut one kills the other. that's how they are remembered

forever. >> and i think hamilton knew they would be bound forever. and whether that would whether that would ensure his legacy of someone who then had to be spokenqhe becomes slightly obsolete at that point in his life. this is someone who thought about death so often in his life and towards the end not empowered not able to affect change in that way. we talked very early on and i think againw6 it's to the credit of writing to leslie odam who plays burr. we know stories about two enemies who shoot each other. let's make a story about two friends this were complex and one kills the other. >> rose: you thought about playing burr. >> yes. every time i wrote a burr song i was like man, this guy. >> rose: becauseb narrator. >> because he gets all the best songs in the show. >> leslie is now you watch the show you can't imagine me

playing the role because it really fits leslie like a glove. he gets this wonderful moments one of my favorites being the room where it happens, where he is talking about not being in power. and seeing hamilton trade away the capital in exchange for financial plan and being like how am i not in this room. how am i not in the room where it happened. >> rose: take a look at this. this is you at the whitehouse in 2009 performing is first rap song you wrote for hamilton. here it is. >> >> dropped in the middle ♪ grow up to be a hero and scholar ♪ without a farther got a lot farther by working a lot harder by being a lot smarter by being a stealth daughter. by 14 place them in charge of the trade in charter ♪ for being slaughtered and carted away

across the ways hamilton kept ♪ something to be a part of the brother ♪ horrible border set the lane ♪ my lane the future drips, dripping down the drain ♪j connected to the brain ♪ he wrote hisklémp first retrain but the words got around that kid is insane man ♪ education don't forget where you came and the world ♪ what's your name, man ♪ alexander hamilton. [laughter] alexander hamilton there isn't anything he hasn't done but just you wait, you wait ♪ his father split ♪ two years later see alex and his mother half dead ♪ and

alex got better ♪ mother was the cousin the cousin committed suicide there was nothing but ruin ♪ something new inside ♪ alex you got a sense of yourself started retreating and reading ♪ to do for someone less ♪ he wo5u" have been destitute without a sense of restitution started working for his late mother ♪ all the things he can't afford ♪ every book he can get his hands on ♪ on the bow of the ship headed for the new land ♪ in the harbor now ♪ coming up from the bottom ♪ i'm the damn fool that shouted. >> rose: there you go. it's unbelievable. could this have ever been done.

it's almost like if they didn't have hip-hop it had to be invented and created for this. >> wow, thank you. that means a lot. there's a lot i think the score is both a love letter to hip-hop and musical theatre. there's a lot of references in both embedded throughout but you're right it is this tight upped language and we learned early on in the process of making it any time we dipped into oral speeches as prose. it's so high in the opening number that we have to keep it at that level throughout the show. there are times we take musical breaks slow it down and speed it back up again but this heightened language seemed to be the only way to sort of convey hamilton's world view. >> rose: did you once say that hamilton reminds you of tupak. >> yes. i think in that he embodies so many contradictions. he is both thoughtful and boisterous. he is both brilliant and self

destructive in certain ways. you know, he would getc? into fights that in rent -- retrospect why are you hiding with that life. that's what i think of him who embodied so many different things to so many different people and he carries that with him. >> rose: is your family somehow involved in politics in new york. >> yes. he was advisor for the spanish affairs. >> rg79& there was an intrigue of politics within you. >> more than allergy actually. i grew up around politicians my whole life. new york politicians, local politicians. i know what it is to fight for turf. i know what it is to fight for you know, these amount of blocks for a councilmember and i sort of grew up inoculated by it. >> rose: you weren't surprised though that in the end he played hamilton. >> no. another wise casting decision by me.

when lin were working on heights one of the early conversations we had was you should play the main character just until we find somebody else. just because it'sa0-lx too hard to teach. and then we did the show. lin ended up playing the lead character of that show. we said all right for the next show sit next to me we can be out there in the audience watching it together and then he wrote that first song and did it at the whitehouse. and i said okay, for the next show. i knew where it was headed. >> rose: was there a residual sadness for hampton. >> that's something we deal with both implicitly and explicitly in the show. he suffered so much loss at such a young age. profound sense of loss and lack of belonging. and so he's someone who came here so unmoored and looking for something to hold on to. and then all along his path heendeared himself to these men one of them being washington who he refused to see as a father figure. >> rose: why did he refuse to

see him as a father figure. he was the chief of staff to general washington during theq3 war. >> at like 22. and by the way quit because he wanted to command. and he saw battle is the only way for social mobility and he knew he had no family connections and no family past. >> rose: he was thinking of social mobility. >> yes. one of the first letters we have of hamilton he writes to a friend and says we shall conclude by saying i wish there was a war. even at 14 that's the only way he's going to rise. >> rose: which is interesting because the american history is about the president we most admire, commander in chiefs of war, lincoln, roosevelt washington. >> what's interesting i grew up in alexander virginia, basically 15 minutes from mount vernon. one of the questions in light of your question of hamilton, what washington did by stepping down by not running for a third term of course he would have been

elected. if he said i need to teach this country how to move beyond me. as lin says in the lyric teach them how to say good-bye. there's something incredibly poignant watching this moment where hamilton who looked up to so few is literally at the moment looking up to washington who has an idea of something that's grandeur and greater. we often talked when what does it mean to build a cathedral or build something that you know won't be completed for generations. for someone who came from so little and just wanted to have life around him he tried to create life for the generations well beyond when he was going to be gone. >> rose: rebecca mead of the new york said he portrayed the founding fathers not as exalting statesman but reckless sons, revolutionaries and sometimes petty rivals living at a moment of extreme volatility, opportunity and risk. what's interesting about american history and this musical shows it, is that for

all these geniuses coming together, it all falls apart+0feud and accusations. and colliding ambitions. >> the war really holds people together. once that war is over, it's tough to figure out all right so what's the country we all agreed o i think people think of the founding fathers, they think of the proar tuesday of john trumpable those were the days but that was maybe six months that existed. you have hamilton with fundamentally different versions of what this country can be and those are the fights we're still having. >> what the public and theatre believes in so deeply is finding these kinds of voices introducing them tobp audiences and celebrating these moments, you know. the idea of doing something one year we talked about the costume design for instance. we knew this is not a show with wigs and powder. this is about anything that was nothing dusty. this had to feel and move like

now. even though the costumes and clothing is very much then. this idea of introducing these stories that mess, that blood to an audience today again still grappling with things that feel in their history book dead. but now you know for those two and-a-half hours in the theatre alive and vital. watching the show with high school kids as we had a couple matinees who are seeing some of their first shows ever. or you know hearing that refrain from the lobby both from them and people older, why wasn't i taught like this. >> rose: ken burns filmmaker who did the film about lincoln among many others said he could not watch the seen of lincoln being assassinated without crying. it was so hard to come to grips with that scene. was it hard for you to=m come to grips with hamilton and death? >> yeah. well, yes and no.

>> rose: you knew it was your moment. >> and it was the last movement i wrote for the show. hamilton's side of the duel before he gets shot. well frankly, historians for to years -- 250 years wondering why he did that. i'm not saying that's historically what would happen but that's the one i chose to run with. >> rose: there are people who argue that point. >> yes. there are people who will argue -- >> rose: any point. >> -- any point in american history. especially that significant. >> rose: that awe -- appealed to you because it said something about the hamilton you imagined. >> i think hamilton, yes, absolutely. the part where i cried the most the par that was very difficult for me to write was alive with life after hamilton. i cried i burst into sobs with every cuplet i protofor that might poor dog was whimpering

my wife was in the other room, can i get you some water. >> rose: why. >> because she made her life so significant. she went on to have such, she went on to live another 50 years she went on to meet lincoln. >> rose: she charged herself with his reputation. >> yes. he succeeded the next four presidents all hated. you've got presidents jefferson, madison, monroe who almost got into a duel with hamilton, john quincy adam son of the guy who hated her husband and so she was, she made it her mission to make sure he was remembered. >> rose: was it his ideas or his persona that those who hated him hated him? >> i think it was a little of both. i think thisqa5ñ a=qiñvused to being the smartest guy in the room. any room he went into, he just happened to be in the room with ben franklin and john adams and a bunch of other geniuses.

so there was certainly arrogance. he was younger than all those guys. so there's the arrogance that comes with being the young guy who thinks he news everything. john adam was obsessed with his perceived sexual life. i never insulted an enemy the way john adams talks about hamilton. we used to have we had a whole list. >> rose: that line about the son of a whore. >> yes, the bastard brat of a scotch peddler. his am combination stems from an abundance of secretions that he cannot find enough whores to draw off. everything is bad on cross fires. >> a love letter to abigail. >> rose: but you're moving it to broadway. >> the official opening is august 6th but starting july -- >> rose: that'sl) on broadway. >> that's right. >> we're going back to the

richard rodgers where we had the good fortune of doing our last show. one of the things that is so remarkable about this story and something that really resonated i think with the two of us, is this idea that new york city, that off broadway, the broadway has streets wide enough for all of us. this show can exist across the street from, you know phantom of the opera. and all of these things that were you know so much of the, you know, the foreground that we stood upon to i true to gaze -- try to gaze a little bit into the future. we talked about evita and super star and gypsy and les mis. those were the things we were carrying around like hamilton was carrying around the battles of 1066 and william the

conqueror and that's what informed all of his decisions. i think we're just in our own very very small way trying to both the production to the public and everything going forward to honor that. that legacy from a group of people who came before and tried to in some way evolved an idea. >> rose: is this celebratory. >> absolutely. yes, i think so. it's the story of our country's founding is an extraordinary one and to tell it from the perspective from the guy who wasn't born here i think was my way in, you know. my parent were both born in the caribbean, both born in puerto rico and came here speaking not a word of english. you experience a country differently when you come here at a certain age and that's our way of the story. >> rose: thank you for coming.no a pleasure. >> thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> rose: i should say this. the public theatre hampton at the public theatre through may 4th broadway previews in july

and august. it is a remarkable experience as so many of my colleagues who write have written. back in a moment stay with us. >> gore vidal was an icon of american literature and a political debate. he died at age 86 in 2012. he was known for his raiser sharp wit and observations as well as his elegant writing. he can -- equally fames and he was a regular guest on this program. how would your life be different. >> i can't think of anything. i've done pretty much what i wanted to do. i'll give a little advice out there for those who worry about their place in the world, always remember that it is of no consequence to you what other people think of you. what matters is what you think of them. that is how you live your life. >> rose: michael mewshaw was a young right at the beginning

of his career when he met gore vidal and has written a book about his relationship called sympathy for the delve four decades of a friendship with gore vidal. it was the focus of gore vidal himself never would have had the modestior patience to write. i'm pleased to have michael mewshaw at this table. welcome. >> thank you. >> rose: how did you meet? >> mutual friend gave me his phone number in rome and this was 1975. i was going there to spend a year at the american academy with my wife and my then infant son. and i called him and i thought it was the sort of roll of the dice but i said i was there and he was there. he just said come down and have a drink. which i think certainly is thought like the character one thinks of as being stand offish and patrician remote. he just said come have a drink. linda and i went down to have a drink, we hit it off. >> rose: you became instant

friends. >> yes. you know, i don't want to suggest that he was an easy guy because he was, he could be a8rysr[gv prickly person. loved to talk. he was capable of listening. he was also capable of enormous generosity and hospitality. and i've often pointed out to people i don't like my chances if i had wound up in london calling i don't know are kingsly aim es or someone like that. i don't think they would have said come right over and have a drink or if i called norman mailer i'm in brooklyn i would like to see you. >> rose: how did this friendship with gore vidal evolve. >> rome was a small city, especially the expat communities. there were a number of artists and film makers who lived there

and frequently they got together at some place and it wasn't days after i first met him i bumped into him at some other function, some other restaurant. and our&cross. and the,d)q he found out that i was reviewing tennessee williams memoirs and he asked me to pass along the galleys when i finished because he wanted to review it too. in those days it was before instant communication and internet and the mail service was dreadful in rome. so i had a galley and reviewed it and passed it on to him and he reviewed it. >> rose: did he have someone wanting to review it or did he simply want to do it himself and found obviously an able publisher. >> i think he could have sort of picked his spot. but he reviewed it for the new yorker books. >> rose: great pick for that. >> great spot. i remember thinking gee this is

a little dicey. gore knew tennessee very well. i thought you were supposed to absent yourself when you knew the author or had some association with him that might give you a conflict of interest. and i thought well this is going to be a sort of valentine to but it wasn't. it was a very frank and forthright and extremely interesting and intelligently written essay about tennessee's career, what he did and did so well but also why he failed to deal with alcoholism and success. crucially at that point gore had just turned 50, he was still going to the gym. he was still a very fit guy. and he, the very first night i met him talked about how alcoholism being the plague of american literature. and he named any number of writers whose work he felt was affected negatively by alcohol. and he felt it was a terrible

deleterious effect on tennessee but on a lot of other people too. john horneburns. >> rose: how aboutkl hemingway. >> hemingway, faulkner. he talked forever about their alcoholism. james jones, irwin shaw. i mean he had a whole litany of writers he felt had been ruined by alcohol. and at that time, he didn't drink hard liquor. as i say, he was 50. but we made a couple years to my surprise. he began drinking scotch and vodka. and by the time he was in his mid 50's, i remember not just lost his fitness but also he suffered what i think was a very significant experience. he went into a period of depression which effectively lasted the rest of his life. at the age of 57 he told my wife that he wanted to commit suicide. and i think this is a whole part of the doll and people are

familiar with the fact late in his live he was wobbly and drinking too much and apt to say things that were inappropriate. this had been coming on for a long time. it put me in mind of a quote that mailer made when hemingway committed suicide. people felt that hemingway had betrayed his entire body of work and he was somebody who in so many years and decades been seen as a man of great courage and determination. you would have thought he gutted through this. hemingway said rather than joining the sort of alcohol -- >> rose: who -- >> mailer said this about hemingway. it revealed the level of anxiety and suicidal ideation that he must have been living with for years and years that it's a tragedy that it happened but in retrospect it's heroic that he was able to overcome it long enough that his nights mustc have

been nightmarish and any smaller man probably would not have held up as well. i think of vidal in the same way continued to be productive and continued to write and write well. was a tribute to his will and his incredible inner strength. i don't see the fact i write about this is in any way revealing something unflattering about gore. i feel that it's important -- there has been some criticism. there has been people who said well we all get old and we all deteriorate. but i would like to make it clear i'm talking about gore when he was in his 50's and 60's and still -- >> rose: why do you think he changed? >> i think he was a very conflicted and ultimately unhappy man. >> rose: about? >> well, i think you knew him. you dealt with him on air.

there's never been a more self possessed performer than gore vidal. >> rose: turned out to be a really good actor too. >> that's exactly what i was going to say. people forget that he not only wrote for the movies he acted in movies. he not only wrote for the stage but he was a wonderful actor himself. and he was the narrator of so many documentaries and so many, the subject of the wonderful interview. and he actually jokingly said that his memoir was going to be call an actor prepares. and said he called it -- a word that no one will know about a life no one9d will know after they read it. he was a great performer. i think the conflict was in that kind of parallel between his image and the reality of the man, i think he was a case like has been said the celebrity is a

mask that eats the face. or mailer said that anybody becomes famous at a young age which vidal did at the age of 21 and lives in the sarcophagous, the image he created of himself and he never wanted to admit weakness, never wanted to add admit fear or emotions or feelings. in the book i cite instance after instance in which he expresses emotion, expressions feeling and then takes it back by making a wise crack. i mean he had a dog who he loved dearly whom he called rap. i mean that's the sort of thing. i remember he was very kind to guests that we had invited to meet at our house for dinner. and he talked to these people

most patiently put up with all their questions about lincoln. they were a business couple. then we sat down to dinner he said i'd like to ask you a question now. and they perked up and said yes, gore. he said what do women think about anal intercourse. as if he had the under cut this image of himself as a cooperative and conconnival something shocking. >> rose: here is something. you say this is a memoir and not a biography because. >> because it's the way the memory works. if you break your leg>#ó let's say when you're ten years old and you're now 60 years old and you start to remember the trauma of breaking your leg, this is from the brain people, neurologists, that youihd1 don't remember the

actual trauma. you remember the time you remembered it and that time you remember the previous and then the previous. each time it gets a bit altered. one thing is being written over another. so your memory is what you're left with, a series of layers. as you investigate it you see some things are true and some thing can't be true. then i checked myself against these, i don't know anyone whose had a dozen biographies written about him. i've read about myself in these books and that certainly spurs memory i have to give my side of the case. >> rose: jimmy trumpable. he always said he had this great love affair with this young man when they were both in school. >> right. >> rose: then jimmy trimmable as i understand was killed at iwo jima. some people say there was never a relationship, it was not true.

what's true? >> of course, it would be difficult to say. >> rose: the love of his life he talked about. >> i find it difficult to give complete credence to this story. perhaps when he recollected it later in that layering it seemed to have more significance than it did at the time. we're talking about a man who by the time he was 25, that is gore, claimed to have had sex with over a thousand men. this event that happened supposedly when he was in earlier adolescence that it was the most significant thing that happened to him. it's verybelieve. also gore was extremely open in conversation with friends, with guests and that sort of thing about his sexuality that he would not mention this to his partner howard or to other friends until decades later

strikes me as unusual. the other thing is let's stipulate for a moment that they did have kind of adolescent sex. i think to be saying then when you're in your late 60's this was the most significant event of your life the hinge of your life would be like philip roth now saying that his life hinges on an affair that he had with a girl when he was in junior high school a cheerleader. >> rose: everything he's written about since then on sex goes right back to that. >> right. i don't think that's the case and i think the indication of this is that later on gore himself casts out in this and said in the london sunday times, well i might have exaggerated a bit. >> rose: roll tape. here's a conversation about jimmy trimmable. >> i don't know if i can make anyone immortal but i can bring him back to life, which i did. i had researchers out there, i was getting reports from marines

who served in the pacific. talked to his mother, talked the girlfriend. suddenly i had to go back and things were rather nice. do we call it exorcism, i don't know. it was unexpected. so that's what it led me to and rather surprised. >> rose: you had never met anyone who made you feel the same way that madeys you reach this whole thinks. >> no. because i don't think i like so many people was always a youth the i was into lust i was not into real entanglement. >> rose: you say that's the best part. >> less than the idle encounter what i like jack kennedy marlon brando. i say that because we were promiss cuss to a degree that was not possible in the age of

aids. we certainly were. maybe the tension of the war, i don't know what. so neither one of us was looking for completeness, we were looking for the excitement and the adventure. >> rose: then there was the whole thing about running for congress. he wanted to be a politician. >> he not only ran for congress in the early 60's when kennedy was running for president but he in the 80's ran for the senate in california. >> rose: against jerry brown. >> yes, against jerry brown and he did a credible job in both cases. when he was in his 60's, i can remember it was very notable night because again it was the night when he said that he wished he were dead but i said why would you wish you were dead he said because i never realized the dream of my life which was to become president. and i said gore, would you really want to be president would you really want to be living in washington in the kind of gold fish bowl that that is. and he said well i would simply

had a marriage of convenience and a couple of kids like a lot of senators do and lead their own lives. as i pointed out in the book there were other reasons why ultimately he was completely unelectable as a polifigure. >> rose: kennedy -- >> he didn't want to kiss babies much less people's behind. >> rose: he didn't want to suffer fools. >> i saw him at a fund raiser where he was in the pacific palisades by saying it's a please to be here again at the people's republic of the palisades. he got a laugh but i don't know how many contributions it got him. >> rose: this is a famous interview mike wallace did in which he followed gore around. here it is for "60 minutes" mike wallace and gore vidal. >> mike and i were so in touch with reality and you are so far off base that i cannot begin to save your soul in the remaining seconds that are left to us.

i am absolutely right in the general line i have taken on what is wrong. this country has cheap labor and cheap energy.oc)ij we're never going to have that again. we have tocwe don't know how to adjust. we'll have less growth national product not more. and we're headed for complete economic crack up. there's no doubt about that and i think any number of the bankers. >> are you planning to spend your last days here or are you going to abandon us. >> you know, i never had this idea i was some sort of expatriot. it's good for those who would like to undermine my views but i never have been an expatriate, i've been involved in elections and the life of this country. now i think as the times get bad and i see darkness all around me and i see the integrating cities

and i watch the people getting scared i would be very inkleined then to return because if there is a disaster then you have a part to play. i think if the world were to end or society as we've known it is cracking up and it's best to end your days as it were on native ground. >> i think(pyn he did have his finger on the pulse of a number of situations and he certainly was somebody who predicted the downfall of the soviet union in saying we were fighting an enemy that really wasn't worth the attention we were paying to it. i think he had wonderful ideas. he was an intellectual on the european scale. you mentioned bernard levy earlier when we were speaking. in a i different country or a different society, he would be the kind of go-to guy you would feel obliged -- >> rose: -- social democrat.

>> the "new york times" would want him to comment on the elections or wanted him to comment on the situation in africa or egypt or whatever. but i think one of his great regrets was that he didn't become that kind of guy. of course no writer in america became that kind of person. >> rose: he had lots of feuds. >> yes, many, >> rose: mailer buckley. >> he was not crazy about philip roth. he was a competitor person. he was the mike tyson of literature. he wanted to be the baddest man on the planet and many ways he was. he was not afraid to create enemies if it meant expressing his views as he saw them. and he wasn't somebody who log rolled and you know, he wasn'tinvite

me to your literary festival and i'll invite you to mine. he was an independent feisty person. he could be generous and hospital actual at the same time but he did what he wanted to do. the thing is gore never sort of expected somebody to push back. or he seemed to be surprised when people pushed back as hard as they did. when various personal enemies or institutional enemies responded. he was complicated too in this way, that he disdained supposedly authority figures. he disdained fame and so forth. and yet he was, he gloried in it. at the end of his life to my great shock i saw him in los angeles and asked him what his

life was. he said my god it's dreadful i would like to leave the revolution. linda said what do you do. he said the big thing i do, i'm invited to all the best dinner parties and i'm always paired with nancy reagan. you think what is it, does he want to lead a revolution or does he want to have dinner with nancy reagan. he never seemed to see any kind of conflict in those two things. >> rose: he described her as interesting and smart and a great dinner partner. >> later in his life he described her as that. if you go back to a review he did in a new york revew of books of nancy and ronnie a love story he reviewed that and said talked about her having cosmetic surgery, talked about her relationship with jack warner. talked about her mysterious disappearances into jack warner's trailer. she forgave him because he was good company at dinner and he forgave her because she gave him

i think the kind ofr2 attention that he liked. >> rose: one last clip from the conversation here about his legacy. here it is. >> i don't know that i'm really proud of anything. >> rose: you aren't proud of anything. >> well no, you never do it as well as you ought to do it. i think that in my lifetime, i've made people look at sex and at the american republic in new ways that they would not have looked at these two great subjects had i not been around. i've changed every now and then i have changed the discourse. i said just one silly example, 1968. you get the conversations of william buckley on the television convention. very first debate we had 1968 is a republic convention in miami beach. i said there's no difference between the two parties. each is paid by the same people,

paid for. explosion. how can you say such a thing. hysteria on every side. >> rose: every side you mean by -- >> hysteria is that always there. but it's more of what goes on. >> rose: it resonated -- saying that america is for sale and owned by corporate america. >> and they said the party of labor the democrats, the party of the rich republicans. there's not one single major politician today who does not repeat what i said in 68. there's fundamentally no difference between the two parties. >> rose: gore vidal. >> i think he was prophetic in that way and i think what he says about his changing the discourse about sex is certainly the case. and that much of what he had to say about his own sexuality has permeated through the culture. i thinkmç there's much greater acceptance of people and the differences and so forth. >> rose: what's his best

book? >> i think his best book is contained in his essays. but palen. it's less a memoir then it is a creation of his life. >> rose: the book called sympathy of the devil, four decades of friendship with gore vidal. >> thank you for having me. >> rose: thank you for joining me. for more episodes visit us on-line at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

this is "nighlty business repo with tyler mathisen and sue herera. going hostile. teva pharmacy launches an unsolicited bit for mylan and it could shake up the drug industry. bird flu fears in iowa consuming one in nearly five eggs consumed in the country. the simple savings tactic that could increase your nest egg. that and more on "nighlty business report" for tuesday, april 21st. good evening, everybody and welcome i'm bill griffith in for tyler mathisen. >> and i'm sue herera. the red hot market for teva pharmacy