Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers and are famous preservers of youthful looks.

Novelist, screenwriter, playwright, essayist, short story writer, actor, politician and atheist                          

Selected Works:

Essays and Non-fiction:

Rocking the Boat - 1963
Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship - 1969
Sex, Death and Money - 1969 - paperback compilation
Homage to Daniel Shays - 1972
Matters of Fact and of Fiction - 1977
The Second American Revolution - 1982
Armageddon? - 1987 - UK only
At Home - 1988
A View From The Diner's Club - 1991 - UK only
Screening History - 1992
Decline and Fall of the American Empire - 1992
United States: essays 1952–1992 - 1993
Palimpsest: a memoir - 1995
Virgin Islands - 1997 - UK only
The American Presidency - 1998
Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings - 1999
The Last Empire: essays 1992–2000 - 2001 there is also a shorter UK edition
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace or How We Came To Be So Hated, - 2002
Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, - 2002
Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson - 2003
Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia - 2004 
Point to Point Navigation : A Memoir - 2006
The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal - 2008

Plays:

Visit to a Small Planet - 1957The Best Man - 1960
On the March to the Sea - 1960–1961, 2004
Romulus - adapted from Friedrich Duerrenmatt's 1950 play Romulus der Große - 1962
Weekend - 1968
Drawing Room Comedy - 1970
An Evening with Richard Nixon - 1970 
On the March to the Sea - 2005

Novels:

Williwaw - 1946
In a Yellow Wood - 1947
The City and the Pillar - 1948
The Season of Comfort - 1949
A Search for the King - 1950
Dark Green, Bright Red - 1950 - prophecy of the Guatemala coup d'état of 1954, see "In the Lair of the Octopus" Dreaming War
The Judgment of Paris - 1952
Messiah - 1954
A Thirsty Evil - 1956 - short stories
Julian - 1964
Washington, D.C. - 1967
Myra Breckinridge - 1968
Two Sisters - 1970
Burr - 1973
Myron - 1974
Kalki - 1978
Creation - 1981
Duluth - 1983
Lincoln - 1984
Empire - 1987
Hollywood - 1990
Live from Golgotha: the Gospel according to Gore Vidal - 1992
The Smithsonian Institution - 1998
The Golden Age - 2000
Clouds and Eclipses : The Collected Short Stories - 2006 - short stories, this is the same collection as A Thirsty Evil - 1956, with one previously unpublished short story - Clouds and Eclipses added

Screenplays:

The Catered Affair - 1956
I Accuse! - 1958
The Scapegoat - 1959
Ben Hur - 1959 - uncredited
Suddenly, Last Summer - 1959
The Best Man - 1964
Is Paris Burning? - 1966
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots - 1970
Caligula - 1979
Dress Gray - 1986
The Sicillian - 1987 - uncredited
Billy the Kid - 1989
Dimenticare Palermo - 1989

Under pseudonyms:

A Star's Progress - aka Cry Shame! - 1950 as Katherine Everard
Thieves Fall Out - 1953 as Cameron Kay
Death Before Bedtime - 1953 as Edgar Box
Death in the Fifth Position - 1952 as Edgar Box
Death Likes It Hot - 1954 as Edgar Box

Film appearances and interviews:

Gore Vidal: The Man Who Said No - 1983 documentary film
Bob Roberts - as Senator Brickley Paiste - 1992 film
With Honors - Plays the pessimistic and right-wing Prof. Pitkannan - 1994 film
Gattaca - Plays Director Josef in science-fiction film - 1997
The Education of Gore Vidal - 2003 Documentary by Deborah Dickson, aired in the US on PBS
Thinking XXX - 2004 documentary
Da Ali G Show - 2004 TV
Why We Fight - 2005 film
Inside Deep Throat - 2005 film
One Bright Shining Moment - 2005 film
Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula - 2005 spoof trailer
Foreign Correspondent - with former NSW premier Bob Carr
The U.S. Versus John Lennon - 2006 film
Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra concert, August 2, 2007 - Narrated Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait - conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas from a wheelchair.
The Henry Rollins Show - 2007 TV
The Simpsons episode: "Moe'N'a Lisa"
Family Guy episode: "Mother Tucker"
Alex Jones radio show - 2006
Terrorstorm: Final Cut Special Edition - 2007
Lateline - ABC Television Australia Interview - May 2, 2008
Democracy Now - interview: on the Bush Presidency, History and the United States of Amnesia - May 14, 2008
The South Bank Show - May 18, 2008
Hardtalk - BBC News - May 22, 2008
The Andrew Marr Show - May 25, 2008
The US is not a republic anymore - June, 2008
Interview on the BBC's US Presidential Election Coverage with David Dimbleby - 04/11/08
"Writer Against the Grain": Gore Vidal in conversation with Jay Parini at the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar - audio, 59:09
Real Time with Bill Maher - April 10, 2009
"Gore Vidal's America  on The Real News Network  - December 24, 2010.
What's My Line? occasional guest panelist (early 1960s)                          

Mother Nina S. Gore, married 1922, divorced 1935.
Father Eugene Luther Vidal Sr. Eugene being the only child.
Partner Howard Austen, 1950-2003, Austen's death.                          

Honorary President of the American Humanist Association.                          

His mother Nina married Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr., who later was stepfather of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Gore Vidal is a fifth cousin of Jimmy Carter, and a distant cousin of Al Gore.