Gerald Clarke (born June 21, 1937) is an American writer, best known for the biographies Capote (1988) (made into the Oscar-winning 2005 film Capote ) and Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland (2000). He has also written for magazines including Esquire, Architectural Digest, and Time, where he was a senior writer for many years. While an undergraduate at Yale, he wrote for campus humor magazine The Yale Record. A native of Los Angeles, Clarke now lives in Bridgehampton, in eastern Long Island, New York.