Is Breakfast At Tiffany'S Based On A True Story?

'Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ is largely fictional but the author, Truman Capote, was fascinated by high society in the 1950s. In writing the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, he drew on certain women from that world that he knew – including the flaws in their make-up. While the film may have portrayed Holly Golightly more favorably than the book, her façade is well and truly intact in both versions. For many years Capote refused to say who had inspired Holly, although many have suggested that she may have been a composite of Gloria Vanderbilt and others. But what is so great about the book and the film is that they capture a moment in New York, of a time and a place in which reinventing oneself was the currency of the era. How much of ‘real’ life is equally constructed to entertain?

The back story to ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ is really great and actually completely false but with such style and gossip-like tone that it’s likely to be believed. There are many theories as to who Truman Capote based his masterpiece of a character, in the novel and short story of same name as the film, Holly Golightly on. Some believe she was entirely imaginary but more believe she was a composite of all of Truman’s glamorous female friends and of course there are those who believe she was based on one special woman in his life. For me the most interesting thing about ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ is the original short story written by Truman Capote not the later film that created even more myth and made a legend of Audrey Hepburn in the title role. How can stories become so believable and start to take on a life of their own?

No, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is not real, and I wish it were. The film stars Audrey Hepburn as the lovable Holly Golightly, Truman Capote’s creation of postwar alienation draped in glamour. But be prepared to be disillusioned – the short story is far more gritty than the beloved film. Capote managed to make fiction read like gossip – I could have sworn I saw Holly at that cocktail party down the street. That is the mark of exceptionally great writing – it’s so real it could be true.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of those rare novels that you read as true. And it’s not. It’s a completely made-up story by Truman Capote, the famous author of novel Breakfast at Tiffany’s, published in 1958 as a novella. The fictional story revolves around the life of Holly Golightly, an unknown woman, an unknown entity of a woman. Although Capote is supposed to have drawn the main characters in his story from real-life high-society hosts and guests to one of his many New York parties, and even his own life in New York, the single main character, Holly Golightly, was entirely a product of his imagination. The film version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, much loved by many, was also a fictionalized novella, with the beautiful Audrey Hepburn as the main fictional character. The movie made the originally very real character of a high social character more sweet and gentle, and less grotesquely, and often Pathetically complex. The story of a single girl, an outsider, in the US Establishment remains fascinating and true to life.

I guess some people think it is autobiographical, though, because Capote did move in high society and was hugely observant. Yet, ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ is more a story about loneliness and identity than a novel about the author’s life. As Holly is a fiction that everyone can recognize because she is just like people we know who are trying to escape their past. The story is timeless as it is fiction that reveals truth about human beings.