Gore Vidal in 2008 (Wikimedia Commons)

Writer and cultural icon Gore Vidal died Tuesday in Los Angeles at 86.  He was the author of essays, novels, plays and screenplays, perhaps best known for his satirical play "The Best Man," according to the Los Angeles Times. 

In 1993, Vidal won the National Book Award for his book United States Essays, 1952-1992.  

Known for his sophisticated humor and political acuity, he published his first novel at age 22.  Two years later, he alienated the literary world with The City and the Pillar, one of the first mainstream novels that frankly depicted homosexuality, according to the L.A. Times. 

The iconoclastic Vidal maintained a correspondence with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh for three years, while McVeigh awaited execution.  

In recent years, many of Vidal's admirers came to question his views on the Sept. 11 attacks, which he believed were a conspiracy between George W. Bush's administration and terrorists. 

He was also well known for a television appearance on the Dick Cavett Show where he and Norman Mailer traded witty jabs. 

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