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Best-Kept Boy in the World
"Denny, long before he surfaced in my cove, was a legend well-known to me, a myth entitled: Best-Kept Boy in the World.”—Truman Capote
Denham (Denny) Fouts, the twentieth century's most famous male prostitute, was a socialite and literary muse whose extraordinary life started off humbly in Jacksonville, Florida. But in short order he befriended (and bedded) the rich and celebrated and in the process conquered the world.
No less an august figure than the young Gore Vidal was enchanted by Denny's special charms. He twice modeled characters on Denny in his fiction, saying it was a pity that Denny never wrote a memoir. To Vidal he was “un homme fatal.” Truman Capote, who devoted a third of Answered Prayers to Denny's life story, found that “to watch him walk into a room was an experience. He was beyond being good-looking; he was the single most charming-looking person I've ever seen.” Writer Christopher Isherwood was more to the point: he called Denny “the most expensive male prostitute in the world.”
In his short life, Denny achieved a mythic status, and Best-Kept Boy in the World for the first time follows him into his rarefied world of barons and shipping tycoons, lords, princes, heirs of great fortunes, artists, and authors. Here is the story of an American original, a story with an amazing cast of unforgettable characters and extraordinary settings, the book Gore Vidal wished Denny had written.
Arthur Vanderbilt is the author of many books of history, biography, memoirs, and essays. He lives in New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Denham (Denny) Fouts, the twentieth century's most famous male prostitute, was a socialite and literary muse whose extraordinary life started off humbly in Jacksonville, Florida. But in short order he befriended (and bedded) the rich and celebrated and in the process conquered the world.
No less an august figure than the young Gore Vidal was enchanted by Denny's special charms. He twice modeled characters on Denny in his fiction, saying it was a pity that Denny never wrote a memoir. To Vidal he was “un homme fatal.” Truman Capote, who devoted a third of Answered Prayers to Denny's life story, found that “to watch him walk into a room was an experience. He was beyond being good-looking; he was the single most charming-looking person I've ever seen.” Writer Christopher Isherwood was more to the point: he called Denny “the most expensive male prostitute in the world.”
In his short life, Denny achieved a mythic status, and Best-Kept Boy in the World for the first time follows him into his rarefied world of barons and shipping tycoons, lords, princes, heirs of great fortunes, artists, and authors. Here is the story of an American original, a story with an amazing cast of unforgettable characters and extraordinary settings, the book Gore Vidal wished Denny had written.
Arthur Vanderbilt is the author of many books of history, biography, memoirs, and essays. He lives in New Jersey and Massachusetts.
191 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 19, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
March 13, 2021
A bunch of gossip pulled together in a poorly written book.
Also I'm not entirely sure the subject carried out all these wonderful affairs with the rich and famous!
2 stars at a stretch.....
Also I'm not entirely sure the subject carried out all these wonderful affairs with the rich and famous!
2 stars at a stretch.....
December 7, 2025
My problems with this book is that it is wildly unreliable, as was Denny Fouts, and I have grave reservations about everything Truman Capote says about Denny Fouts. I even doubt if Capote met Fouts. The time Capote was in Paris and supposedly knew Fouts corresponds to a time when Fouts had terrible battles with opium and spent time in various rehabs while having a fairly tumultuous affair with the young English artist Michael Wishart who has left one of the few accounts of Fouts that is actually based on protracted association in his memoirs 'High Diver' a book which is not mentioned in this biography. Nor do we hear much about Peter Watson the man who actually supported Fouts financially, not some Balkan royal.
Actually the whole story of Fouts' relationship with King Paul of Greece is easily disproved, he used to tell Michael Wishart about spending time in the royal palace in Athens with King Paul - utterly impossible as Paul didn't become King until 1947 and Fouts never visited him before dying in December 1948. As for before WWII, for the greater part of it Prince Paul, like the rest of the Greek royals was in exile and most importantly had access to very little money. The Greek royal family was notoriously poor. There is no way Prince Paul in the 1930's had the money or time to become the sugar daddy of Fouts. It is possible, but not at all sure, that Fouts may have met Paul, but it is unlikely and aside from Fouts' story there are absolutely no other stories of Prince Paul having any interests in men - and don't imagine they've all been hushed up - the Greek royals didn't have the money or power to stop rumours and other 'gay' royals like crown prince Humbert of Italy were known and talked about if not written about back then.
The problem is that Arthur Vanderbilt has taken Fouts' stories as relayed through the fiction of Gore Vidal and Truman Capote as facts which they aren't, particularly Capote's tales. Gore Vidal wrote about Fouts in the story 'Leaves from an abandoned Journal' from his short story collection 'A Thirsty Evil' in 1956. Capote was a social climber and immensely jealous that Vidal came from and was part of the social milieu that he wanted to belong to. So if Vidal had met Fouts in Paris in 1948 then he was determined he was going to have spent hours and days and even been personally invited by Fouts - all terribly unlikely.
The problem with Fouts is that there is, with the exception of Wishart's memoirs, there is no reliable information on Denny Fouts life except what has been transmuted into fiction. Those fictional works are fascinating and even brilliant works of literature but they weren't created as biographies. This book is trying to turn fiction into reality. It is hardly worth it, Fouts was a footnote, as the inspiration for work by authors ranging from Gavin Lambert, Gore Vidal and Christopher Isherwood he has achieved immortality. This second rate shambles does more to tarnish the legend then add lustre.
I'd like to add that I read this book ten years ago and haven't looked at it since and was unable to consult it again before posting this review.
Actually the whole story of Fouts' relationship with King Paul of Greece is easily disproved, he used to tell Michael Wishart about spending time in the royal palace in Athens with King Paul - utterly impossible as Paul didn't become King until 1947 and Fouts never visited him before dying in December 1948. As for before WWII, for the greater part of it Prince Paul, like the rest of the Greek royals was in exile and most importantly had access to very little money. The Greek royal family was notoriously poor. There is no way Prince Paul in the 1930's had the money or time to become the sugar daddy of Fouts. It is possible, but not at all sure, that Fouts may have met Paul, but it is unlikely and aside from Fouts' story there are absolutely no other stories of Prince Paul having any interests in men - and don't imagine they've all been hushed up - the Greek royals didn't have the money or power to stop rumours and other 'gay' royals like crown prince Humbert of Italy were known and talked about if not written about back then.
The problem is that Arthur Vanderbilt has taken Fouts' stories as relayed through the fiction of Gore Vidal and Truman Capote as facts which they aren't, particularly Capote's tales. Gore Vidal wrote about Fouts in the story 'Leaves from an abandoned Journal' from his short story collection 'A Thirsty Evil' in 1956. Capote was a social climber and immensely jealous that Vidal came from and was part of the social milieu that he wanted to belong to. So if Vidal had met Fouts in Paris in 1948 then he was determined he was going to have spent hours and days and even been personally invited by Fouts - all terribly unlikely.
The problem with Fouts is that there is, with the exception of Wishart's memoirs, there is no reliable information on Denny Fouts life except what has been transmuted into fiction. Those fictional works are fascinating and even brilliant works of literature but they weren't created as biographies. This book is trying to turn fiction into reality. It is hardly worth it, Fouts was a footnote, as the inspiration for work by authors ranging from Gavin Lambert, Gore Vidal and Christopher Isherwood he has achieved immortality. This second rate shambles does more to tarnish the legend then add lustre.
I'd like to add that I read this book ten years ago and haven't looked at it since and was unable to consult it again before posting this review.
February 27, 2021
A quick read of a quite fascinating kind. The second half of the chapter on Vidal is infuriatingly repetitive in way that borders on condescension, and the writer has some curious syntax habits, but it certainly makes for a tantalizing read. ****
December 27, 2014
Like a minor celebrity who casually arrives at the head of the line at a nightclub, and gains entry without question, 'Best-Kept Boy in the World' managed to assert itself to the top of my growing "to-read" pile of books.
This slim volume tells about the life of Denny Fouts, a socialite, muse, and Florida-born gay man who became intimate with three of the most famous 20th-century gay writers: Gore Vidal, Truman Capote and Christopher Isherwood. He also was kept by princes and other wealthy eccentrics.
Fouts' brief rise to social fame, and his tragic demise by addiction, are told with flair. Lengthy summaries of the aforementioned authors' careers, and their relationship to Fouts, may seem to some as 'filler.' But it's important to contextualize the relationship Fouts had to them.
Surprisingly, a barely fictionalized version of Fouts features in works by each author, and in ways that make me question the creativity of the authors. It seems they basically appropriated parts of Fouts' life, picking over the pieces (not unlike the character Sebastian in Tennessee Williams' 'Suddenly Last Summer').
But perhaps that was what Denny wanted; to be remembered for his brief, fabulous, yet ultimately tragic life.
This slim volume tells about the life of Denny Fouts, a socialite, muse, and Florida-born gay man who became intimate with three of the most famous 20th-century gay writers: Gore Vidal, Truman Capote and Christopher Isherwood. He also was kept by princes and other wealthy eccentrics.
Fouts' brief rise to social fame, and his tragic demise by addiction, are told with flair. Lengthy summaries of the aforementioned authors' careers, and their relationship to Fouts, may seem to some as 'filler.' But it's important to contextualize the relationship Fouts had to them.
Surprisingly, a barely fictionalized version of Fouts features in works by each author, and in ways that make me question the creativity of the authors. It seems they basically appropriated parts of Fouts' life, picking over the pieces (not unlike the character Sebastian in Tennessee Williams' 'Suddenly Last Summer').
But perhaps that was what Denny wanted; to be remembered for his brief, fabulous, yet ultimately tragic life.
January 22, 2015
Is there anything better than a dishy biography? Probably not.
This gossipy bio tells about the life of Denham Fouts, a young man from Florida who was "kept" by several men, and palled around Europe with well-to-do society guys and even the future king of Greece as well as with some very famous authors like Christopher Isherwood and Gore Vidal.
Most of the book is about Denny in the lives of the famous authors, Isherwood, Vidal, and Capote. I think it's because the people who wrote about him the most were the authors who hung out with him. It was hard to believe that ALL the men were so infatuated with him for so long, because it seemed to me he was actually really boring and slept all day only to wake up at night to smoke opium and go out to dinner. I never really understood what was so appealing about him. But it was fascinating that the authors were so enamored of him that even though some of them (Capote) found him frustrating, they ALL wrote him into their books at least once.
Denny Fouts was one charming young man, but it seems that his life, although interesting as hell, was quite hollow.
This gossipy bio tells about the life of Denham Fouts, a young man from Florida who was "kept" by several men, and palled around Europe with well-to-do society guys and even the future king of Greece as well as with some very famous authors like Christopher Isherwood and Gore Vidal.
Most of the book is about Denny in the lives of the famous authors, Isherwood, Vidal, and Capote. I think it's because the people who wrote about him the most were the authors who hung out with him. It was hard to believe that ALL the men were so infatuated with him for so long, because it seemed to me he was actually really boring and slept all day only to wake up at night to smoke opium and go out to dinner. I never really understood what was so appealing about him. But it was fascinating that the authors were so enamored of him that even though some of them (Capote) found him frustrating, they ALL wrote him into their books at least once.
Denny Fouts was one charming young man, but it seems that his life, although interesting as hell, was quite hollow.
March 15, 2015
Quite a short biography for someone alleged to have been so legendary. Indeed, it can be read in an afternoon or less. Gossip, however salacious and entertaining, can suffer from poor writing and I finished this book with the feeling that Vanderbilt was in a rush or felt that a string of anecdotes about sexual prowess and exploits would carry the narrative. For example, we are told that articles of his clothing were stolen by some men who found his smell intoxicating. What did he smell like? Sweat? Cologne? A good biographer would give some sense of the details of so many alleged "attributes." We are told that Fouts was irresistible to gay men, from twinks to kings, but I did not feel enlightened enough from the book to fully understand what he had that many other handsome gay gigolos had or have. In fact, my overall sense of the man is that he was a drunk, a drug addict, and a phenomenal financial parasite to his patrons. This was an over-hyped and quite underwhelming biography.
February 7, 2020
As a reader who follows breadcrumbs, this book is a wonderful addition to my collection of biographies that all interconnect. From 1900 to 2019, links between the famous and infamous, between the fascinating and the boring, the lives lived and shared by people who left an imprint. I enjoyed this book because I had already read biographies of so many of its denizens and what was particularly interesting about Denny was that he was a nobody, from nowhere, that touched the lives of so many of the rich and famous who folded him into their art. He has been immortalized in print by some of the 20th century's most famous authors and is noted in countless published diaries. In the end, he was pathetic and they never did say what happened to his dog Tolstoy when he died.
January 28, 2024
Before reading this book, I read the biography of Peter Watson called Queer Saint which also describes in great detail the life of the Floridian gigolo, Denham Fouts since PW was his main, but not exclusive lover, benefactor and enabler. In fact, at times it seemed like I was reading the same book. What I found beguiling, however, was the details of the lives of other people that busied around Fouts, notably, Truman Capote, Christopher Isherwood and Gore Vidal who would use him later as an inspiration for various characters in their subsequent literary exploits.
Denham Fouts life truly influenced the writers around him and those details became for me the real interest of the book since DF himself plays second fiddle to the accomplishments of those who dabbled in his life. Half the book is about everybody else which begs the question, how can someone who had been so conspicuous in the lives of notable writers regard himself so little in appreciation of his own worth and talent. When he tried, his attempts were spirited but shallow, noteworthy, but lackluster. A coulda, shoulda, woulda story…
Denham Fouts life truly influenced the writers around him and those details became for me the real interest of the book since DF himself plays second fiddle to the accomplishments of those who dabbled in his life. Half the book is about everybody else which begs the question, how can someone who had been so conspicuous in the lives of notable writers regard himself so little in appreciation of his own worth and talent. When he tried, his attempts were spirited but shallow, noteworthy, but lackluster. A coulda, shoulda, woulda story…
August 20, 2025
If you took out all the information about Denny Fouts, this book would be about six pages long—and I’m only kind of exaggerating. It’s really more about the people who kept him or knew him, often told through near–full life histories where Denny appears only as a passing reference. The chapter on Capote, for instance, reads like an abridged biography of the author: his books, the experience of writing In Cold Blood, his famous society party in New York, and his conflicts with the Swans.
If you’re reading a book about this side character in the lives of these famous writers, chances are you’ve already done research on the writers themselves—so the information feels like repetitive filler. At the very end, the author mentions that Denny’s mother burned all his letters and notes, which may explain why so little information about him exists. Either that, or the author simply didn’t do his research.
If you’re curious about Denny Fouts, you won’t find much here to satisfy that craving. You’d be better off with a Wiki page. But if you’re new to the gay literary worlds of Capote, Isherwood, and Vidal, this could serve as a decent introduction.
If you’re reading a book about this side character in the lives of these famous writers, chances are you’ve already done research on the writers themselves—so the information feels like repetitive filler. At the very end, the author mentions that Denny’s mother burned all his letters and notes, which may explain why so little information about him exists. Either that, or the author simply didn’t do his research.
If you’re curious about Denny Fouts, you won’t find much here to satisfy that craving. You’d be better off with a Wiki page. But if you’re new to the gay literary worlds of Capote, Isherwood, and Vidal, this could serve as a decent introduction.
February 18, 2015
Slim pickings, indeed. Not much can be known, apparently, about Fouts outside of what was written about him by Isherwood, Capote, and Vidal. He's a cipher even with that. Googling him results in most everything that's in this book (i.e., the author doesn't seem to have added much to general knowledge about him). From Fouts' photographs and personality depicted there, it's pretty much impossible to imagine what the attraction was.
The text is repetitive and meanders into detail about Fouts' acquaintances that have little or no bearing on Fouts' life.
What the book does do is raise considerable questions about the creativity of Isherwood, Capote, and Vidal--they cribbed wholesale from Fouts' life.
Keats is buried in the same cemetery in Rome. The author notes that Keats had asked that "Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water" be inscribed on his headstone. It might have been more appropriate on Fouts' headstone.
The text is repetitive and meanders into detail about Fouts' acquaintances that have little or no bearing on Fouts' life.
What the book does do is raise considerable questions about the creativity of Isherwood, Capote, and Vidal--they cribbed wholesale from Fouts' life.
Keats is buried in the same cemetery in Rome. The author notes that Keats had asked that "Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water" be inscribed on his headstone. It might have been more appropriate on Fouts' headstone.
May 14, 2021
A gorgeous insight into the poisoned promise of beauty’s reverie, into a character that inspired so many prominently gay writers in the twentieth century, as well as a king, diplomats and aristocrats, artists and everything in between. Before reading I’d always imagined Fouts to have been something like an Alexis de Redé, but this tale really shows the precarious nature to such a “kept” life, how quickly it can all slip away with amidst lovers moans and wisps of opium smoke. In spite of all the self destructive languor on his part, Louis Denham Fouts must have truly been someone to remember amidst the variety of Café Society’s fresco.
January 9, 2016
Short book, easy read, with not that much about Denny Fouts. But his story reminded me of Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel - he was the inspiration for a number of different writers, including Chistopher Isherwood, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote. But I wanted pictures, as I did not know who all of the different boyfriends were.
June 2, 2015
OK--so he knew and/or slept with Isherwood, Capote, and Vidal, but the reader learns little about them and less about the author. Best Kept Boy might have been more aptly title Best Kept Secret Nobody Wants to Read About.
February 9, 2018
Biblio was slightly useful.
January 9, 2023
Insubstantial.
January 15, 2024
A fairly interesting book although given the subject wrote virtually nothing that survived (no diaries, no letters etc) it is for obvious reasons made up of quotes from other published works by other people and a few letters from archives. A very sad tale really. It's hard to see what the physical attraction of Fouts was from photographs (he was a fairly pleasant looking skinny kid, with jug ears and a cheeky smile, but there is no obvious sex appeal to him on a purely physical level). Clearly he had the skill of making others feel attractive which meant they projected all their desires onto him, much like the more skilful modern content creators/adult performers. With almost cliched predictability he descended into heroin abuse and essentially shared the same fate as so many young men in the adult entertainment industry today.
August 24, 2017
"Like everyone else who had lived with him discovered, Denny made life a continuing adventure."
There are many stories in this book. Fouts's life as constructed by Vanderbilt from very few facts; Fouts’s life taken from the characters he inspired in the works of Isherwood, Vidal, and Capote; the lives of these authors as they intersected with Fouts; and the lives of other luminaries whose patronage Fouts enjoyed.
In total, we get a nearly complete image of Fouts as the companion to a veritable who's who of pre-1950 homosexuals, a professional bon vivant, a serious opium addict, and trophy boy that both men and women kept around as long as they could afford to (and not necessarily in the monetary sense).
There are many stories in this book. Fouts's life as constructed by Vanderbilt from very few facts; Fouts’s life taken from the characters he inspired in the works of Isherwood, Vidal, and Capote; the lives of these authors as they intersected with Fouts; and the lives of other luminaries whose patronage Fouts enjoyed.
In total, we get a nearly complete image of Fouts as the companion to a veritable who's who of pre-1950 homosexuals, a professional bon vivant, a serious opium addict, and trophy boy that both men and women kept around as long as they could afford to (and not necessarily in the monetary sense).
August 17, 2025
Okay. Here is the deal. If you happened upon the kind of gentleman one might in a bar late at night and found yourself taking with him, you just might discover one who had tread through a time and space of enormous sensual celebrity. Of a person holding a knowing because they had been there and saw what was once. And in telling you this weave of characters - real people, known throughout the world - and the times they lived through, their proximity one to another, and in this all circularly connected, then you would be wound by this spell of stories no matter how patched and pieced together as a story of multiple characters in as many places would and could only be. You would be entranced and extremely forgiving of your interlocutor and thrilled and enchanted. This book is that.
April 19, 2020
Had to decide between two and three stars but I gave the benfit of the doubt at the end. If a book is supposed to be a biography of a certain person in this case Denny Fouks you don't go rambling on for pages about other people. You want certain background information but if I wanted to read the life of Truman Capote or Christopher Isherwood I'd read a biography about them. Found this extremely irritating and in many cases I lost track of the main focus. On the positive side it was interesting read of hidden homosexuality pre and post ww2 and the completely different lifestyles the rich and famous or infamous lived. I still would have liked to know more about the main character though.
November 26, 2024
Captivating
Somewhat pedestrian style and structure, and I didn't really "like" Denham Fouts, but just fascinating. Especially that he fascinated so many rich and articulate people for so long, and then, predictably for even a successful whore, he died broke (but in his case not alone). Lots of name dropping and glamour, exciting even though you know how it's going to end.
Somewhat pedestrian style and structure, and I didn't really "like" Denham Fouts, but just fascinating. Especially that he fascinated so many rich and articulate people for so long, and then, predictably for even a successful whore, he died broke (but in his case not alone). Lots of name dropping and glamour, exciting even though you know how it's going to end.
November 2, 2016
Really fascinating book about a man who was loved and immortalised by so many authors (Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Somerset Maughan). A captivating, self-destructive muse who mesmerised all who met him. A great biography.
July 17, 2023
Inspiring call boy
Story of a promiscuous gay man, who became the muse for many of our greatest gay male authors...Capote, Vidal, and Isherwood to name a few. Very captivating story, of the impact of a young man who only lived to 34!
Story of a promiscuous gay man, who became the muse for many of our greatest gay male authors...Capote, Vidal, and Isherwood to name a few. Very captivating story, of the impact of a young man who only lived to 34!
July 9, 2021
Sometimes gossipy poorly sourced biographies are better than the most meticulously sourced ones.
I surely don’t believe everything in this book but I throughly enjoyed reading it.
I surely don’t believe everything in this book but I throughly enjoyed reading it.
September 3, 2015
This book is a fascinating read for anyone who has an interest in the personal lives of some of the great writers and artists of the early to mid 20th century. Ostensibly a biography of Denham Fouts (who, as it happens, did not actually write much of anything himself), the narrative veers into the intersecting lives of the artists and others who somehow found themselves in thrall to Fouts's beauty and magnetism. They include Peter Watson, Michael Wishart, Christopher Isherwood, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote and King Paul of Greece, among others. One gets the impression that Vanderbilt has included so much detail on these men to make up for a relative scarcity of data on Fouts himself. In the end, the book's subject remains a shadowy enigma, and it's hard to understand the hold that he had over so many in the course of his short life. The author quotes at length from letters written by others as well as books and stories in which Fouts became a character. In the end, this is the prose equivalent of a documentary film that features lots of talking heads but precious little footage of the subject himself. Still, it is well worth reading for insights into the lives of Isherwood, Vidal and Capote.
June 17, 2015
Denny Fouts (1914–1948), was the 20th-century's most famous male prostitute. The future King of Greece took him around the world on his yacht; Somerset Maugham based a character on him, Gore Vidal wrote a short story about him, Truman Capote devoted a third of his last book to Fouts, Christopher Isherwood wrote a novella about him, Gavin Lambert wrote a novel about him ... and then there's the Shah of Iran. And Lena Horne. For his role in 20th-century literature alone, Fouts deserves a serious biography. This is not it, but it is fun, gossipy, salacious, and brief.
April 19, 2016
This is a great story of one of those people that moves on the edge of society, achieving being kept by the most notable people of it's time. From royalty to the most prominent literally names of the time. Very interesting, but the author drifts into the lives of people ,like Gore Vidal and Truman Capote for too long instead of sticking to the influences this character had on this people. It seemed at time he forgot he was writing about Denham Fouts.
December 11, 2014
Interesting but not very meaty. Seemed to be more about those who revolved around him rather than about him... probably because there was more material.
April 13, 2017
This book has piqued my interest in a number of people from the early 20th century and I am now doing lots of research...and further reading.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews