Producers of the Broadway show Breakfast at Tiffany’s invited the cremated remains of Truman Capote – the writer of the 1958 novella on which the famed film and this production is based – to attend opening night. The offer included a first-class return ticket from Bel Air, California to New York for the urn and its owner, Joanne Carson (ex-wife of former TV host Johnny Carson) and attendance at an after-party at the Edison Ballroom hosted by Deborah Harry and Interview magazine.
Carson may have been spooked by previous theft attempts involving Capote’s remains. When she hosted a party for the play Tru, about Truman’s life, a guest tried to walk out with the urn. Luckily the thief was apprehended before leaving the premises. Earlier, in 1988, at a Halloween party at Carson’s residence, a thief successfully stole the urn and $200,000 worth of her jewels. The urn was mysteriously returned, showing up undamaged one night.
