Norman Mailer versus Gore Vidal
When it comes to notorious hotheads, few rival Norman Mailer’s erratic temperament. Although he was known for attacking everyone from singer Jerry Leiber to screenwriter Bruce Jay Friedman to actor Rip Torn (part of whose ear was an unfortunate casualty of the scuffle), Mailer’s favorite victim appears to have been Gore Vidal. Mailer first headbutted Vidal in 1971 after the latter compared Prisoner of Sex to “three-days of menstrual flow,” and then, six years later, knocked him onto the floor at a party in New York.
And the winner is: Vidal! He wittily responded to the second incident with: “Words fail Norman Mailer yet again.”
Comments (3)
[...] For those of you who persist in thinking of writers as the placid, bookish, reasonable type: A History of Fist-Fueled Author Feuds [...]
Different genres certainly, but Garrison Keillor vs. Maureen Dowd comes to mind ]; >
[...] his strong opinions and volatile disposition — not to mention a notorious bite — Norman Mailer bears a temperamental resemblance to the badger. Both are feisty and unafraid to [...]
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