See How 'Capote vs. The Swans’ Cast Compares to Real-Life Socialites

Calista Flockhart as Lee Radziwill in 'Feud' and the real-life Lee Radziwill

Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans is an adaptation of Laurence Leamer’s 2021 non-fiction book Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era, which chronicles the details and relationships surrounding author Truman Capote’s unfinished final novel, Answered Prayers.

During the period of the latter book's writing, Capote was friends with a number of glamorous real-life socialites, whom he referred to as his “swans.” They included Lee Radziwill, who was the younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy, and Barbara “Babe” Paley, who was married to the founder of CBS.

After Capote published an excerpt of the still-in-progress Answered Prayers, “La Côte Basque 1965,” in the November 1975 issue of Esquire, his friends soon realized that the “fiction” wasn’t all that fictional. Capote’s piece included thinly veiled references to the swans’ crumbling marriages and darkest secrets, and most of them iced him out as a result.

Capote died before completing Answered Prayers, but the unfinished manuscript was published not long after his passing. The drama depicted in its pages, meanwhile, remains a subject of deep fascination for scholars of mid-century fashion and culture, and it's brought to life in the second installment of Feud.

The show features a stacked cast including Calista Flockhart (Radziwill), Naomi Watts (Paley) and more. Keep reading to learn about the real-life characters and to see how the cast compares to their true-story counterparts.

Related: Ryan Murphy's Massive Net Worth in 2024 Proves He's an American Success Story

Calista Flockhart plays Lee Radziwill, who was the younger sister of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. A New York City socialite who rose to prominence after her 1959 marriage to Polish aristocrat Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwill, Lee tried her hand at various careers over the years, but her real strength was in the world of fashion. She helped her older sister smuggle Givenchy dresses into the White House when JFK asked her to wear only American designers, and like some of her fellow swans, she eventually landed a spot in the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame.

Capote encouraged her to try acting again in the 1960s (she’d landed a few minor roles in the ’40s), but when that didn’t pan out, she pursued interior design. In the 1980s, she worked as a PR executive at Armani, where she helped raise the brand’s profile among the elite circles in which she was used to traveling.

While Lee and her sister are mentioned by name in “La Côte Basque 1965,” Lee seemingly wasn’t as upset by the story as her peers were, and she defended Capote. She died of natural causes in 2019 at age 85.

Feud is Flockhart’s first collaboration with creator Ryan Murphy and her first TV appearance since she played Cat Grant on Supergirl.

Related: All About Calista Flockhart's Marriage to Harrison Ford

Tom Hollander as Truman Capote

Known for his work on The White Lotus and The Night Manager, Tom Hollander plays Truman Capote, an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who is best known for the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s (adapted into the 1961 Audrey Hepburn film of the same name) and the true-crime book In Cold Blood. As a child, he became friends with neighbor Harper Lee, who went on to write To Kill a Mockingbird. Capote began writing professionally in the 1940s, publishing short stories in Harper’s Bazaar, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and more. His first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms arrived in 1948.

Capote became a full-fledged celebrity following the success of 1966’s In Cold Blood, which he described as a “nonfiction novel.” The book details the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Kansas and included interviews with the murderers, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, who were both executed in 1965.

After In Cold Blood, Capote suffered from a bout of writer's block, but his social life flourished as he befriended a group of New York City socialites that he began calling the swans. He decided their lives would make excellent fodder for his next book, Answered Prayers, but as excerpts began debuting in Esquire, Capote’s friends weren’t too pleased to have their personal lives aired out in public, and most of them abandoned him.

Capote died in 1984 at age 51 from liver disease, which according to the coroner’s report was “complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication.” The unfinished Answered Prayers was ultimately published in the U.S. in 1987.

Chloë Sevigny as C.Z. Guest

Chloë Sevigny will appear as Lucy Douglas “C. Z.” Guest, a New York City socialite who was married to Winston Frederick Churchill Guest, who was a cousin of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. (Ernest Hemingway was the best man at their wedding.) While C.Z. dabbled in acting in her 20s, she later became a gardening columnist and published the book First Garden in 1976. Like the other swans, C.Z. was known for impeccable style, which earned a spot in the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame. She was painted by artists including Diego Rivera, Andy Warhol and Salvador Dalí, and her friends included Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor, who were her children’s godparents. C.Z., who was one of the few swans who didn’t shun Capote after “La Côte Basque 1965,” died in 2003 at age 83 after battling ovarian cancer.

Sevigny is a Murphy alum, having starred in American Horror Story: Asylum and American Horror Story: Hotel.

Demi Moore as Ann Woodward

Demi Moore, a Murphy first-timer, will star as Ann Woodward. Born in Kansas, Ann moved to New York City in her early 20s to pursue a career as a model and actress. While working as a showgirl, she met William Woodward Sr., who was a wealthy banker from an old money family. She later sparked a romance with his son William Woodward Jr., whom she married in 1943. While their marriage was initially frowned upon by NYC society, they eventually made their way into the city’s most prominent social circles.

In 1955, Ann shot and killed William Jr. at their country home in Long Island, allegedly believing him to be a burglar. She faced no charges for the shooting—which Life magazine dubbed “The Shooting of the Century”—but was shunned by her former society friends after the incident.

Ann and Capote crossed paths in 1956 and didn’t hit it off, but Capote remained fascinated by her story. In “La Côte Basque 1965,” Capote fictionalized her as Ann Hopkins, a gold digger and bigamist who intentionally murders her husband. Ann died by suicide in October 1975 shortly before “La Côte Basque” appeared in Esquire. She was 59.

Diane Lane as Slim Keith

Diane Lane joins the Murphyverse as Nancy “Slim” Keith, who was a Hollywood socialite before she moved east, hanging out at parties with luminaries like Cary Grant and Gary Cooper. By age 22, she had appeared on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, and she soon began appearing on best-dressed lists. From 1941 to 1949, she was married to film director Howard Hawks, who based Lauren Bacall’s character in 1944’s To Have and Have Not on his wife. After Hawks was unfaithful, Keith moved to Havana, Cuba, to stay with Ernest Hemingway. While there, she met her second husband, Leland Hayward, to whom she was married from 1949 to 1960. After their divorce, she married British aristocrat Kenneth Keith. They separated in 1972.

Slim got her nickname while staying in Death Valley, where she met the actor William Powell. As the story goes, Powell saw her diving into the pool and dubbed her “Slim.” (Powell also introduced her to William Randolph Hearst and his then-mistress Marion Davies, who in turn introduced to other Hollywood types.)

While the Paleys were infuriated by “La Côte Basque 1965,” the character inspired by Slim, Lady Ina Coolbirth, was the story’s main character—and Capote wrote her as a gossip who loved her booze. Slim, like her friend Babe, ostracized Capote after the story’s publication. She died of lung cancer in 1990 at age 72.

Molly Ringwald as Joanne Carson

Fresh off her turn as Jeffrey Dahmer's stepmom in Murphy's DAHMER - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Molly Ringwald will star as Joanne Carson, the second wife of late-night host Johnny Carson. In the early 1960s, she hosted a game show called Video Village and later had her own syndicated health-and-fitness talk show. After divorcing Johnny in 1972, Joanne became close with Capote, who kept a room at her house. Capote included the Carsons in “La Côte Basque 1965,” fictionalizing them as Jane and Bobby Baxter, the latter of whom he described as a “midnight-TV clown” who cheated on his wife.

Unlike many of the swans, however, Joanne forgave Capote for his unflattering depiction of her marriage, and they remained close friends until his death. He was staying at her Los Angeles home when he died in 1984. After Joanne died in 2015 at age 83, some of Capote’s ashes were interred alongside hers at a cemetery in L.A.

Naomi Watts as Babe Paley

Naomi Watts stars as Barbara “Babe” Paley. Born in Boston, Babe was raised in a wealthy family and groomed as a debutante before she moved to New York City in 1938 to pursue a career as a fashion editor at Vogue. She became known as one of the best-dressed women in the world and was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1958.

Babe left her job at Vogue in 1947 after marrying William “Bill” Paley, but her status as a tastemaker didn’t waver. She single-handedly launched the trend of women tying scarves to their handbags and inspired others to let their hair go gray as they aged. Her closet was full of designer fashion by her favorite European labels, including Givenchy, Valentino and Dior.

Babe met Capote in the mid-1950s and soon became one of the writer’s closest confidantes. Their relationship fell apart after the 1975 publication of “La Côte Basque 1965,” which fictionalized her marriage to Bill and implied that he’d cheated on her. The former friends never spoke again, and Babe died of lung cancer in 1978 at age 63.

Feud marks Watts’ second collaboration with Ryan Murphy after her turn in the 2022 series The Watcher.

Treat Williams as Bill Paley

The late Treat Williams, who died June 12, 2023, in a motorcycle accident, was cast as CBS founder William S."Bill" Paley last year. His turn in Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans will mark his final television appearance.

Paley was a broadcasting pioneer who transformed CBS from a small radio network into the massive media company we know it as today. Bill married Babe in 1947 after divorcing his first wife, Dorothy Hart Hearst, earlier that year. He was known as a philanderer throughout his life, but he and Babe didn’t take kindly to Capote airing out their dirty laundry in the pages of Esquire. Bill died of kidney failure in 1990 at age 89.

Next, All About The Watcher Season 2