 Wyler himself says that he does not remember any conversation about this part of the script or Boyd's acting with Gore Vidal, and that he discarded Vidal's draft in favor of Fry's.Film critic Gary Giddins also dismisses Vidal's claims, concluding that 80 percent of the script had been written "years before" Vidal came aboard the production.However, Jan Herman, one of Wyler's biographers, asserts "there is no reason to doubt" Vidal's claim, and that Wyler's inability to remember the conversation was just part of the director's notorious caginess.