Gore Vidal dead at 86 of pneumonia complications

The author/celebrity had been ill for some time.
      In 2006, because he "could no longer walk to the piazza,"  he sold his spectacular Italian villa in Ravello, La Rondinaia (the swallow's nest), to Vincenzo Palumbo
     Vidal, whose essays were usually more vivid than his novels, had been a dedicated antagonist of conservative William F. Buckley, with whom he famously fought on ABC's air during the tumultuous Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968. Vidal called Buckley (who was sounding unusually effete at the time) a "crypto-Nazi." Buckley called Vidal a "queer" and threatened to sock him in the jaw "and you'll stay plastered."
     (It was on the floor of this same convention that Dan Rather was punched in the stomach, causing Walter Cronkite to call the "security" personnel a "bunch of thugs.")
     Some years later, Vidal, appearing on NBC's Tonight Show when Johnny Carson had the franchise, followed Joan Embery of the San Diego Zoo and took a memorable swipe at Buckley: "I was going to bring my lizard, but he's taping Firing Line."