Diksha Sundriyal
In Hulu’s ‘Feud: Capote vs the Swans,’ a terrible side of friendship comes to light when Capote betrays his friends by revealing their secrets to the world in his thinly veiled stories. To the world, he appears to be a spoiled writer who doesn’t value his relationships and is ruining everything for himself via drinking and drugs. All this makes it hard for Capote to appear as a redeemable character, but then Kerry O’Shea walks into his life, and with her, he appears to be the best of himself.
Truman Capote Turned Kerry O’Shea into Kate Harrington
Truman met Kerry when she was just a child, at her home when her father had invited Capote for dinner with his family. Unbeknownst to Kerry and the rest of the family, her father and Capote were in a relationship. Eventually, her father left them for Capote, but that didn’t mean that they hated Capote for taking him away from them. A few years later, when Kerry knocked at Capote’s door, it wasn’t to lash out at him or to get her father back. In fact, she wanted Capote to help her get a job. To his credit, Capote took this responsibility very seriously. He brought Kerry under his wing and declared her his protege.
The first thing Capote did was change Kerry O’Shea’s name to Kate Harrington. Determined to turn Kate into a success, he got Dick Avedon to photograph her. He got her in touch with a modeling agency in Manhattan and fostered her career as a model. He took things to another level when he brought Kate with him to California, believing she would “be a smash in films.” Kate would accompany him to high-end parties where she met the elite and formed contacts of her own. He even tried to get Sue Mengers to represent Kate, but while she invited them to a dinner party, the agent didn’t take things any forward.
While he may not have been able to turn her into an actress, Capote did introduce Kate to a whole wide world where she had endless opportunities to be whoever she wanted to be, and this changed her life completely.
Kate Harrington is Now a Producer and a Stylist
Kate Harrigton lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is involved in different departments of filmmaking. She is a TV and film producer, a stylist, and a writer, also involved in script coverage. She worked as a fashion stylist and a fashion editor in the likes of Interview Magazine, LA Style Magazine, and Vanity Fair Magazine. She has designed costumes for films like ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ and ‘The 13th Warrior.’ She is currently a part-time producer at Stephen Jimenez Productions.
In the early 2000s, she was married to John McTiernan, whom she later divorced. She has a daughter, whom she named Truman, after her mentor and father figure. She appeared in Ebs Burnough’s 2019 documentary called ‘The Capote Tapes,’ in which she shed light on her close relationship with Capote, which presented the writer in an entirely different perspective than he is usually known for. She revealed that one of the reasons why she and Capote worked so well was because he treated her like an adult. He recognized her potential and got her into the best of literature, music, fashion, and all things art.
Whatever Capote may have been for the world, for “all his enfant terrible behavior” with others, he was not the same with her. He always protected her and took care of her, and Harrington states that he treated her like his own and believes that he was more of a father figure to her than her own father had been.
Calling him “nurturing,” Harrington revealed that the early part of her life with Capote was “incredibly calm and pleasant.” She still follows a lot of things he taught her back then. For example, he told her always to be attentive to a conversation and ask many questions. When she once told him she was bored during lunch, he told her to pay attention to the conversations happening around them. This habit stuck with her, and she confessed that she sometimes finds herself listening to the people at the nearby tables and finding out what they are talking about. Small things like these have made a huge impact on her life, and Capote remains one of the most important people to her.
