Read Gloria Steinem’s Original Story for Vogue on Attending Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball

As the day approached, there was a growing conviction—false but intriguing— that the invitation list was not just friends but a new Four Hundred of the World. Pressure from would-be guests became enormous, especially from those who were strangers to the host but felt their social status alone entitled them to go. Truman resisted, but the requests, even threats, finally forced him to cut off his phone and retire to the country.

The week before the party, international guests began arriving in New York like family-of-the-groom for a wedding, and caused the same string of accommodation problems and pre-party parties. A whimsical rumor that we were all being called together for some purpose—probably the announcement of the End of the World—spread by magic or telephone. Jerry Robbins wondered if we weren’t on the list of those to be shot first by the Red Guard. Kenneth Galbraith said no, not as long as he was on it.

Torrential rains made the End of the World seem possible, but at eight o’clock the Capote master plan began: hostesses, chosen by Truman, received ballgoers in groups, pre-arranged by him, for dinners at home. By nine, his thoughtful combinations of old and new friends were launched on a thorough and unjaded good time. Before the party began, it had already gotten off the ground. Marion Javits, forgetting her painted-on mask and sequinned eyebrows, discussed politics earnestly with her dinner partner Walter Lippmann. At Mr. and Mrs. Leland Haywards, Mia Sinatra leaned against her husband’s shoulder and explained that she was the brains in the family. Alvin Dewey answered questions about problems of the Clutter case, just as dignified and direct in the Paley dining room as he had been in Kansas during the murder investigation in In Cold Blood. Cecil Beaton performed the warm and gentlemanly feat of remembering everyone, even slight acquaintances, and putting them instantly at ease. Mrs. George Backer gave her dinner party as calmly as if she hadn’t spent a hectic afternoon at The Plaza, supervising the ballroom decoration which she had designed.

Arriving at the ball, guests were already in high-spirited groups; no solitary couples searching desperately for someone they knew. The host and his guest-of-honor, Kay Graham, greeted each one before plunging them into the great black-and-white spectacle of the ball, a color scheme inspired by Cecil Beaton’s Ascot scene for My Fair Lady. Feathers, ball gowns, masks, and jewels, all whirled round what Truman chose as “the only truly beautiful ballroom left in New York”: The effect was like some blend of Hollywood, the court of Louis XIV, a medieval durbar, and pure Manhattan.

Most people danced and exclaimed over costumes and discovered friends as they watched. The masks were an enormous icebreaker: even men rarely caught on a dance floor seemed happy. Clifton Daniel, for instance, jitterbugged with an expertise that increased one’s respect for The New York Times. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. smiled beatifically as he performed a spirited foxtrot. Kenneth Galbraith turned out to be one of the few men who dances well and talks well at the same time. David Merrick held his partner well away, and appeared to be counting the house. Wyatt Cooper bounced on the balls of his feet, and Philip Roth managed everything but rock ‘n’ roll. If Ralph Ellison’s musicianship wasn’t obvious in his novels, it was on the dance floor, and Billy Baldwin, in a unicorn headdress, danced everything.

Most guests recorded bits and snatches of mental film as the evening flowed on, scenes that will flash back for some time to come. Sampling my own, I find. . .

. . .The path to the ballroom lined solid with television cameras, newsmen shouting at each arrival, “Who are you?”

. . .A sidewalk spectator, awed by Amanda Burden, saying, “She must be European. Our girls don’t look that good.”

. . .Marianne Moore, without her tricorne hat, surveying an elevator full of ladies in silks and feathers; eyes shining for the party; astonished that everyone knows who she is.

. . . Adolph Green, who has just clicked his heels together from sheer high spirits, being told, “You dance just like Fred Astaire,” by a pretty passerby who turns out to be Adele Astaire Douglass.

. . . The detective, hired to guard the ladies’ jewelry, who falls in love with the ladies, especially Lee Radziwill, and ends by asking to dance.

. . . Beverly and Norman Mailer making a dance of balancing on an imaginary tightrope.

. . . Lynda Bird Johnson’s Secret Service men who, in black tie and black mask, look more like Secret Service men than ever.

. . . The sixty-carat diamond dangling over the bridge of Princess Pignatelli’s nose, and the grab-the-stone-and-run look that comes over everyone who sees it.

. . .A young actress saying, “That’s Lynda Bird? But she’s beautiful!”

. . .Kenneth Galbraith, dancing through the crowd holding a silver candelabrum.

. . . George Plimpton, taking the candelabrum on the move, like a one-hand pass, and carrying it on to .. . whom?

. . . Lauren Bacall Robards and Jerry Robbins dancing so well that no one could resist stopping to watch.

. . .A circle of people dancing around a chair with Norman Podhoretz in it.

. . . Pamela Hayward looking regal and smashing in the only real ball gown in the place.

. . . Harry Kurnitz, totally recognizable with his eyeglasses on over his mask.

. . . Truman Capote in a thirty-nine-cent mask from F. A. O. Schwarz, introducing everybody, looking after everybody, having a very good time.

. . .A member of the Soul Brothers rock’ n’ roll group asks Barbara Paley: “Wow!”

. . . Kay Graham dancing with Truman’s apartment-house doorman—who served as official invitation-checker in a dinner suit rented by Truman—and being thanked by him for “the happiest evening in my life.”

. . .Glenway Wescott surveying the scene from a balcony, remarking with surprise that “there are so many intellectuals.”

. . . Frank Sinatra with Mia, the Cerfs, and the Haywards, using his old friends, the Secret Service men, to get his group out the back entrance at 3 a.m.

When the music stopped at 3:30 a.m., the many remaining guests looked surprised and stayed to talk. Reluctant to leave each other and let the spirit go, some went off to all-night restaurants. Truman thanked each one as if he or she alone had made the party, and wandered off down the hall, looking much too boyish and serene to be a major writer, much less the perpetrator of a ball selected by the Museum of the City of New York—along with a party for General Lafayette, a dance given by the City for the Prince of Wales in 1860, and George Washington’s Inaugural Ball— to live on in its archives.

A first-rate mind rarely devotes itself to the creation of a social event. But when it does, Watch Out.