American author and commentator Gore Vidal dies at the age of 86

Zeenews Bureau

Delhi: Gore Vidal, renowned American author, playwright and commentator has died in Los Angeles, his nephew Burr Steers has informed.

Steers says Vidal died at his home in the Hollywood Hills at about 6:45 pm on Tuesday of complications from pneumonia. Steers said Vidal had been living alone in the home and had been sick for “quite a while.”

The acerbic Vidal was known for such best-selling novels as “Burr” and “Myra Breckenridge,” the play “The Best Man,” and for essays on everything from politics and literature to sex and religion.

In the 1960s and ’70s, he was a fixture on talk shows and other television programs and feuded openly with Norman Mailer, William F Buckley Jr. and others.

He also worked on screenplays and appeared in several movies, including ‘Bob Roberts’ and ‘With Honors’.