What
Did
Truman
Capote
Write
About
the
Swans
in “La
Côte
Basque,
1965”?

Slim
Keith,
then
Lady
Keith
of
Castleacre,
inspired
the
character
of “Lady
Ina
Coolbirth,”
a “big
breezy
peppy
broad”
who,
meeting
Capote’s
stand-in “P.B.
Jones”
for
lunch
at
La
Côte
Basque
(a
real
Manhattan
establishment),
orders
a
meal
that
will
take
awhile
to
prepare,
the
better
to
get
drunk
on
Cristal
champagne
while
they’re
waiting.

Ina
tells
P.B.
she’s
on
her
way
to
Mexico
to
get
a
divorce
and,
while
she
admittedly
must
have
a
man
in
her
life,
she
can
also
see
why “a
woman
my
age”
would
settle
down
with
another
woman
for
the “comfort
and
admiration.”

Ann
Woodward,
as “Ann
Hopkins,”
got
the
brunt
of
the
nastiness:
Lady
Ina
calls
her
a “tramp”
and
a “murderess,”
being

positive,
despite
his
death
having
been
ruled
an
accident,
that
she
had
killed
her
husband “with
malice
aforethought.”
And
she
goes on about
it.

Meanwhile,
P.B.
describes
Lee
Radziwill
(using
her
real
name)
as
a “perfect”
specimen,
and
Lady
Ina
compares
her
favorably
to
her
enigmatic
older
sister.