--- description: Holly Golightly, the charming corn-pone geisha who sheds everything but her dark glasses in Manhattan, suggests early in Truman Capote's bestselling Breakfast at Tiffany's (TIME, Nov. 3) that... title: Books: Golightly at Law image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Books: Golightly at Law by [TIME](/author/time/) Feb 9, 1959 5:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Feb 9, 1959 5:00 AM CUT Holly Golightly, the charming corn-pone geisha who sheds everything but her dark glasses in Manhattan, suggests early in Truman Capote’s bestselling Breakfast at Tiffany’s (TIME, Nov. 3) that a man who gives his date less than $50 for a powder-room tip is a cheapskate. Holly herself was made to look like a piker last week when one Bonnie Golightly. who insists that she is the real-life original of Holly, filed suits totaling $800,000 against Capote, Esquire (which first published the long story) and Random House. The grounds: 1) libel. 2) invasion of privacy. A twice-married, twice-divorced blonde built along dinner-at-Schrafft’s lines, Bonnie Golightly, 39, is a practicing novelist (The Wild One) and ex-Greenwich Village bookstore owner. Far from being “a figment of Truman Capote’s so-called imagination,” Bonnie claims. Capote’s colorful heroine was constructed from details about Bonnie gleaned by Capote (“a creative reporter”) from “mutual friends.” Besides a broad Southern accent acquired from her Tennessee upbringing. Bonnie Golightly points to some other evidence. Like Capote’s Holly, she lived in a brownstone on Manhattan’s fashionable East Side, with a bar around the corner on Lexington. Like Holly, she is an avid amateur folk singer with many theatrical and offbeat friends. Like Holly, Bonnie says: “I just love cats. The cat thing corresponds, and all the hair-washing and a lot of little things hither and yon.” One bit of Hollyana to which Bonnie makes no claim: “I’ve never, absolutely never, had a Lesbian roommate.” Capote claims that his Holly had three “counterparts in reality,” none of them Bonnie: “One of them is dead—she died in Africa; the other two are very much alive and have no intention of suing me.” Properly Hollyfied at Claimant Golightly’s “presumption.” Capote tongue-lashed back: “I have never met nor seen this lady . . . It’s ridiculous for her to claim she is my Holly. I understand she’s a large girl nearly 40 years old. Why. it’s sort of like Joan Crawford saying she’s Lolita.’ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6827242/books-golightly-at-law/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6827242/books-golightly-at-law/"},"headline":"Books: Golightly at Law","datePublished":"1959-02-09T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-13T06:46:08.349Z","description":"Holly Golightly, the charming corn-pone geisha who sheds everything but her dark glasses in Manhattan, suggests early in Truman Capote's bestselling Breakfast at Tiffany's (TIME, Nov. 3) that...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6827242/books-golightly-at-law/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6827242/books-golightly-at-law/","name":"Books: Golightly at Law"}}]}] ```