Capote’s Friends Gather in ‘Tru’ Spirit

The last time Joanne Carson held a party in her Bel-Air home, it was Halloween, 1988, and someone played a particularly nasty trick by absconding with one of her most valued possessions--the ashes of her dear friend, writer Truman Capote, who had died in the house four years earlier.

The ashes were eventually returned under circumstances Carson does not discuss.

Tuesday night marked the first time since that night that Carson opened her home for a party. The occasion was the L.A. return of “Tru,” the one-man portrait of the author that garnered a Tony for Robert Morse and accolades for writer-director Jay Presson Allen.

Carson’s Bel-Air home was Capote’s West Coast residence, and it remains filled with photographs of and by the author. His bedroom is as he left it--complete with computer, canopy bed and a six-foot teddy bear in a red T-shirt.

“The morning Truman died, one of the last things he said was don’t let them forget him,” Carson said. “And the pain I felt from his plea I still feel seven years later. After I saw ‘Tru’ for the first time, it took me six months to get over his death all over again.”

Esther Williams and Jon Voight were co-hosts for the cozy black-tie affair, which featured white balloons on the ceilings and dozens of white candles in every room. Guests snacked and chatted in the back yard (which features a terrific view of the Westwood area) and the living room, where guests seemed drawn to the corner where Phyllis Diller, Valerie Harper and Bob and Dolores Hope were eating.

Also on hand were Lorenzo Lamas, Michael Feinstein, Rosemary Clooney, Mel Torme, Lynn Redgrave, Betty White, restaurateur Mario Tamayo, talk show host Michael Jackson, artist Don Bachardy with Joan Quinn, Bruce Davison and wife Lisa Pelikan, Susan Anton, Joyce DeWitt, Joanne Worley, and Cesar Romero.

The talk of the party was Morse’s characterization of Capote. “I knew Truman and, if anything, he was a little smaller, a little more ghoulish,” Pia Zadora said. “But Bobby Morse had the voice and the physicality down perfectly.”

When Morse arrived, he got an ovation, but he took compliments in stride. “Yeah, tonight felt fresh,” he said.

Standing in Capote’s study, surrounded by photographs, Carson excused herself for a moment before returning with one of her most precious mementos--a fragile hand-tinted photograph of Capote as a toddler. She had hidden it away before the party. “I don’t want anyone going out with this under their coat,” she said with a grim laugh.

And what would Capote think of the one-man show? Would he be flattered or flabbergasted by the soul-stripping script?

Carson, who says she has seen “Tru” seven times, was definite. “Truman would have loved it. He loved Robert Morse because he always wanted to be a tap-dancer himself. He’d be standing on stage, applauding, tickled to his toes.”