In the pilot episode ofFeud: Capote vs. The Swans, we hear about Ann Woodward before we meet her. Truman Capote tells an animated and gossipy story at a dinner party: “There’s a murderer walking free,” he begins, “and you all know her. And I’m going to tell her story.”
He goes on to paint a portrait of a low-level socialite who killed her wealthy husband when she believed he might divorce her. The guests immediately recognize who he’s talking about and say they had believed that Billy Woodward’s death was an accident. No, Truman explains. It was a murder, he insists, and it was only due to a coverup by her mother-in-law that Ann avoided jail.
Later in the episode Truman is having lunch with Babe Paley, C.Z. Guest, and Slim Keith when Ann Woodward, played by Demi Moore, approaches and accuses him of slandering her with his stories about her husband’s death.
When the November 1975 issue ofEsquirecomes out, we see each of the characters reacting to Truman’s new story. With “La Côte Basque, 1965,” he has skewered all of them, with thinly disguised tales of bad behavior. By the end of the pilot, we learn that Ann died by suicide by after seeing an early copy of the magazine. Truman had accused her of murder in print. Though he called her Ann Hopkins in the story, it was clear to nearly all who he was speaking about.
Here’s what you need to know about the real-life Ann Woodward.
