Released posthumously after actor Treat Williams' death.
The Swans:
- Babe Paley (Naomi Watts) - wife of William Paley, head of CBS Broadcast network. Daughter of renowned brain surgeon Harvey Cushing, and part of Cushing sister trio that came to be known as The Fabulous Cushing Sisters, they entered into unions with affluent families: Mary Cushing became the second wife of Vincent Astor, while Betsey Cushing (Betsey Maria Cushing Roosevelt) married James Roosevelt, the son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later John Hay Whitney. Babe was quite accomplished in her own right, namely, as a fashion editor at Vogue. Barbara (Babe) Cushing was first married to Standard Oil heir Stanley Mortimer, Jr (John D. Rockefeller company), before divorcing him and marrying CBS founder William S. Paley It was Paley union to Babe that allowed him entrée to the Old Guard or Eastern establishment, since he was Jewish.
- Slim Keith (Diane Lane) - former wife of film producer Howard Hawks and theater producer Leland Hayward. Her third husband was Kenneth Keith, Baron Keith of Castleacre.
- C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny) - wife of Winston Frederick Churchill Guest ( an international polo star, grandson of Henry Phipps, philanthropist and early partner of Andrew Carnegie's Steel Company and a second cousin of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, major shareholder of Mexican Airlines, till it was nationalized by the host government) CZ's side of the family was no less illustrious. Her mother, Vivian had her hand in the performing arts in the early part of her life. Her father Alexander, an investment banker, belonged to a family of the so called "Boston Brahmins", the WASP, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, elite of Boston and is also descended from Scottish Aristocracy, namely the Fifth Earl of Douglas . CZ pursued a career in acting, to get herself thrown out of the Social Register, a publication in the United States that indexes the members of American high society. Despite being a showgirl and spending six months in Hollywood attending 20th Century Fox's studio school, she never appeared in a film. Moreover, Guest's interest in horticulture began when she was a child following the family gardener around her parents' estate on the North Shore of Boston.
- Lee Radziwill née Bouvier (Calista Flockhart) - sister of Jacqueline Kennedy (wife of President John F. Kennedy)
- Ann Woodward (Demi Moore) - wife of heir of Hanover National Bank (later Manufacturers Hanover, followed by Chase) fortune William Woodward Junior. Two points of Interest, Elsie Woodward, William' mother, was distressed that the property sat next to that of Winthrop Aldrich, a relative of the Rockefellers and a member of the board of directors of Chase National Bank. Also Hanover, was eventually acquired by Chase, in which the Rockefellers were a major shareholder.
- Joanne Carson (Molly Ringwald) - wife of late-night talk show host, Johnny Carson
- Katharine Graham (Marin Ireland) - Publisher of the Washington Post
Lee Radziwill, played by Calista Flockhart, was the sister of Jackie Kennedy.
Capote said of the Swans: "...Beautiful and unruffled above the waters, stunning, singular, gliding through the ponds of society.
But God gave them too much baggage, you see. Underneath the crisp surface of the water, they have to... paddle twice as fast and vigorously as an ordinary duck just to stay afloat."
To Capote, a swan was the personification of upscale glamour in a postwar world. She was lovely, yes, but it was not just her beauty that created the attention - she was clever too, cunning, even, and her wit intrigued even such a merciless critic as Capote.The swans were all on the international best-dressed lists, they were each celebrated in the fashion press and beyond, and they all knew one another.
To Capote, a swan was the personification of upscale glamour in a postwar world. She was lovely, yes, but it was not just her beauty that created the attention - she was clever too, cunning, even, and her wit intrigued even such a merciless critic as Capote.The swans were all on the international best-dressed lists, they were each celebrated in the fashion press and beyond, and they all knew one another.
Interesting facts about Barbara Paley's sister's , Betsey Cushing (Betsey Maria Cushing Roosevelt), husband John Hay Whitney:
- He was a descendant of John Whitney, a Puritan who settled in Massachusetts in 1635, as well as of William Bradford, who came over on the Mayflower
- A hairstyle was named in his honor while on the Yale rowing team known as the "crew cut"
- His sister Joan married into Harriman family, of railroad fame, and she founded the baseball team, New York Mets or Metropolitans
- The money came from his paternal grandfather, William Collins Whitney who consolidated New York City's street and railway lines, and his uncle, Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne, a business partner of John D. Rockefeller, Sr
- Building on his several million dollars worth of inherited real estate assets, Payne Whitney soon became a leading player in New York's financial community. He eventually was appointed director or executive officer of many large corporations, including the First National Bank of New York, the Great Northern Paper Co., the Northern Finance Corp., and the Whitney Realty Co.
- Pioneered the concept of venture capitalism, that is investing in emerging businesses and was an early investor in Technicolor, which added color to the motion picture
- Invested in several Broadway shows, and helped buy out the rights to the "Gone with the Wind (1939)" novel by Margaret Mitchell, which was adopted into a film and was a major backer of its production
- Like his family before, had been a benefactor of educational and charitable institutions, through his foundation, he provided fellowships to the racially and culturally deprived and had a large impact on the evolution of higher education in post-war America; A contemporary said of him "...in a time when the rich knew in their souls that they owed an obligation to society at large, and to the disadvantaged in particular, and tried to fulfill that obligation for the betterment of the society that had given them so much"