Dominick John Dunne (October 29, 1925 - August 26, 2009) was an American
writerA writer is anyone who creates a written work, though the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms.-Profession:...
and investigative journalist whose subjects frequently hinged on the ways high society interacts with the judicial system. He was a producer in Hollywood and was also known for his frequent appearances on television. He was the brother of author
John Gregory DunneJohn Gregory Dunne was an American novelist, screenwriter and literary critic.He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and was a younger brother of author Dominick Dunne. He suffered from a severe stutter and took up writing to express himself. Eventually he learned to speak normally by observing...
; the writer
Joan DidionJoan Didion is an American author best known as a novelist and writer of personalized, journalistic essays. The disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos upon which her essays comment are explored more fully in her novels, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation...
was his sister-in-law. He was the father of Alexander Dunne, and of the actors
Griffin Dunne-Personal life:Dunne was born in New York City, New York, the son of Ellen Beatriz Dunne and Dominick Dunne. His mother founded the victims' rights organization Justice for Homicide Victims and his father was a producer, writer, and actor...
and
Dominique DunneDominique Ellen Dunne was an American actress.Dunne made appearances in several made for television movies, television series, and films, and played a prominent role as the oldest daughter, Dana, in the 1982 film Poltergeist...
as well as two daughters who died in infancy.
Dunne, the second of six children, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Dorothy Frances (née Burns) and Richard Edwin Dunne, a hospital chief of staff and prominent heart surgeon.
Dominick John Dunne (October 29, 1925 - August 26, 2009) was an American
writerA writer is anyone who creates a written work, though the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms.-Profession:...
and investigative journalist whose subjects frequently hinged on the ways high society interacts with the judicial system. He was a producer in Hollywood and was also known for his frequent appearances on television. He was the brother of author
John Gregory DunneJohn Gregory Dunne was an American novelist, screenwriter and literary critic.He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and was a younger brother of author Dominick Dunne. He suffered from a severe stutter and took up writing to express himself. Eventually he learned to speak normally by observing...
; the writer
Joan DidionJoan Didion is an American author best known as a novelist and writer of personalized, journalistic essays. The disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos upon which her essays comment are explored more fully in her novels, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation...
was his sister-in-law. He was the father of Alexander Dunne, and of the actors
Griffin Dunne-Personal life:Dunne was born in New York City, New York, the son of Ellen Beatriz Dunne and Dominick Dunne. His mother founded the victims' rights organization Justice for Homicide Victims and his father was a producer, writer, and actor...
and
Dominique DunneDominique Ellen Dunne was an American actress.Dunne made appearances in several made for television movies, television series, and films, and played a prominent role as the oldest daughter, Dana, in the 1982 film Poltergeist...
as well as two daughters who died in infancy.
Biography
Dunne, the second of six children, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Dorothy Frances (née Burns) and Richard Edwin Dunne, a hospital chief of staff and prominent heart surgeon. His
Irish CatholicIrish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Catholic and Irish .The term is of note due to Irish immigration to many countries of the English speaking world, particularly as a result of the Great Irish Famine in the late 1840s, following which the population declined by over half...
family was wealthy (his maternal grandfather, Dominick F. Burns, founded the Park Street Trust Company); but, from his earliest days, Dunne recalled feeling like an outsider in the predominantly
WASPishWhite Anglo-Saxon Protestant, commonly abbreviated to the acronym WASP, is a sociological and cultural ethnonym that originated in the United States and Canada ....
West HartfordWest Hartford is a town located in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The town was incorporated in 1854. Prior to that date, the town was a parish of Hartford....
.
After Dunne's studies at the
Kingswood SchoolKingswood-Oxford School is a private day school located in West Hartford, Connecticut. Originally two separate schools—Kingswood for the boys and Oxford for the girls—it is now a co-ed school for grades 6 through 12. K-O refers to its grades as Upper Prep for grade 6 and then Forms 1 through 6 for...
and Canterbury School in
New Milford, ConnecticutNew Milford is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States north of Danbury, on the Housatonic River. It is the largest town in the state in terms of land area at nearly . The population was 28,671 according to the Census Bureau's 2006 estimates....
, 'Nicky' Dunne – as he was known during his boyhood – attended
Williams CollegeWilliams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts.Williams was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams as a men's college, located in the Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts, at the foot of Mount Greylock. In 1834, the first...
and then served in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, including the battle of
MetzMetz is a city in the northeast of France, capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. It is located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers....
. Afterward, he moved to New York, then to Hollywood, where he directed
Playhouse 90Playhouse 90 is a 90-minute dramatic television anthology series, telecast on CBS from 1956 to 1961 for a total of 133 episodes. Since live anthology drama series of the mid-1950s were hour-long shows, the title highlighted the network's intention to present something unusual, a weekly series of...
and became vice-president of
Four Star TelevisionFour Star Television, also called Four Star Films, Four Star Productions, and Four Star International, was an American television production company which operated from 1952 to 1989. It was formed by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Ida Lupino, and Charles Boyer...
. He hobnobbed with the rich and the famous of those days. In 1979, beset with addictions, Dunne left Hollywood and moved to rural
OregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, where he says he overcame his personal demons and wrote his first book,
The Winners.
In November 1982, his daughter,
Dominique DunneDominique Ellen Dunne was an American actress.Dunne made appearances in several made for television movies, television series, and films, and played a prominent role as the oldest daughter, Dana, in the 1982 film Poltergeist...
, best known for her part in the film
Poltergeist, or recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis denotes an ostensibly paranormal phenomenon attributed to an an invisible spirit or ghost that manifests itself by moving and influencing objects, generally in a particular location such as a house or room or place within a...
, was murdered. Dunne attended the trial of her murderer (
John Thomas SweeneyJohn Thomas Sweeney is a chef who dated American actress Dominique Dunne in 1982 and strangled her after a domestic dispute in October 1982. Dunne went into a coma and died a few days later. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for her death and received a prison sentence in November 1983 of...
) and wrote the article "Justice: A Father's Account of the Trial of his Daughter's Killer" for
Vanity FairVanity Fair is an American Hollywood magazine of pop culture, fashion, and politics published by Condé Nast Publications. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1981 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition...
.
Dunne went on to write for
Vanity Fair regularly and
fictionFiction is a branch of literature which deals, in part or in whole, with temporally contrafactual events...
alized several real-life events, such as the murders of Alfred Bloomingdale's mistress
Vicki MorganVicki Morgan was a model and a high-profile murder victim.-Background:Born Victoria Lynn Morgan in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Morgan was a stunningly beautiful girl who went to Hollywood in search of fame. She found work as an usher at Grauman's Chinese Theater and it was there that the teenager...
and banking heir
William Woodward, Jr.William "Billy" Woodward, Jr. was the heir to the Hanover National Bank fortune , the Belair Estate and stud farm and legacy,...
, in several best-selling books. He eventually hosted the TV series
Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and JusticeDominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice is an American crime TV series that examines real-life cases of crime, passion, and greed involving privileged or famous people. The episodes are shown on truTV and on Star TV in Canada as well as Zone Reality in Europe. The host of the show was...
on CourtTV (later truTV), in which he discussed justice and injustice and their intersection with celebrities. Famous trials he covered included those of O.J. Simpson,
Claus von BulowClaus von Bülow is a British socialite of German and Danish ancestry. He was accused of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von Bülow by administering an insulin overdose in 1980 but his conviction in the first trial was reversed and he was found not guilty in his...
,
Michael SkakelMichael C. Skakel was convicted in 2002 of the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley, his fifteen-year-old neighbor in Greenwich, Connecticut. He was sentenced to 20 years to life and remains incarcerated. Skakel is the nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, the widow of the late Senator Robert F...
,
William Kennedy SmithWilliam Kennedy Smith is an American physician whose work focuses on landmines and the rehabilitation of people disabled by them....
, and the Menendez brothers.
In 2005,
Gary ConditGary Adrian Condit is a former American politician, a Democrat who served in the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2003...
won an undisclosed amount of
moneyMoney is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value, and occasionally, a standard of deferred payment...
and an
apologyApology may refer to:* An expression of regret, roughly a dislike of one's own actions in the past* Apologetics, the systematic defense of a position* Christian apologetics, the defense of Christianity* Apologize , a song by OneRepublic...
from Dunne, who had earlier implicated him in the disappearance of
Chandra LevyChandra Ann Levy was an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in May 2001 and is presumed murdered after her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002. The investigation into her disappearance uncovered an extramarital affair with then-U.S...
, an intern from his U.S. House of Representative district with whom he had been carrying on an affair. In November 2006, he was sued again by Condit for comments made about the former politician on
Larry King LiveLarry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN. The show debuted in 1985, and is CNN's most watched program, with over one million viewers nightly.The show broadcasts from CNN's Los Angeles studios...
on
CNNCable News Network, almost always referred to by its initialism CNN, is an U.S. cable news network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first network to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television network in the United States...
, but the suit was eventually tossed out of court.
While rumored in early 2006 that he intended to cease writing for
Vanity Fair, Dunne stated the opposite in a February 4, 2006 interview with
talk showA talk show or chat show is a television or radio program where one person or group of people come together to discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host...
host
Larry KingLawrence Harvey Zeiger , better known by his stage name Larry King, is an American television and radio host.He is recognized in the United States as one of the premier broadcast interviewers. King has conducted some 40,000 interviews with politicians, athletes, entertainers, and other newsmakers...
. "Oh, I am at
Vanity Fair. I'll be in the next issue and the issue after that. We went through, you know, a difficult period. That happens in long relationships and, you know, you either work your way through them or you get a divorce. And I didn't want a divorce and we've worked our way through and Graydon and I are close and he's a great editor and I'm thrilled to be there."
Dunne frequently socialized with, wrote about, and was photographed with celebrities. A
Salon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online magazine, with content updated each weekday. American liberal politics is its major focus, but it covers a range of issues. Reviews and articles about music, books and films are also a prominent feature of the site....
review of his memoir,
The Way We Lived Then, recounted how Dunne appeared at a wedding reception for
Dennis HopperDennis Lee Hopper is an American actor, filmmaker and artist, with a career that spanned half of the 20th century. Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1955, and appeared in two films also featuring...
. Sean Elder, the author of the review, wrote: "But in the midst of it all there was one man who was getting what ceramic artist Ron Nagle would call 'the full cheese,' one guy everyone gravitated toward and paid obeisance to." That individual was Dunne, who mixed easily with artists, actors and writers present at the function. The final line of the review about Dunne quoted Dennis Hopper wishing he "had a picture of myself with
Allen GinsbergIrwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet. Ginsberg is best known for the poem "Howl" , in which he celebrates fellow members of the Beat Generation and critiques what he saw as the destructive forces of materialism and conformity in the United States.-Early life and family:Ginsberg was born into...
and
Norman MailerNorman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
."
In 2008, at age 82, Dunne traveled from
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to
Las VegasLas Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada, the seat of Clark County, and an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, fine dining, and entertainment. Las Vegas, which bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, is famous for the number of...
to cover O.J. Simpson's trial on charges of kidnapping and armed robbery for
Vanity Fair magazine, claiming it would be his last. During the trial, an unidentified woman approached and kissed him, causing her to be ejected from the courtroom. Later, when he collapsed from the sudden onset of severe pain and had to be rushed to the hospital, he expressed amazement
http://www.lvrj.com/news/29582739.html at how fast the word spread at his fan site, DominicksDiary.com.
http://www.dominicksdiary.com
Dunne's adventures in Hollywood as an outcast, top-selling author and reporter, were catalogued in the release of
Dominick Dunne: After the PartyDominick Dunne: After the PartyDocumentaryHollywood outcast, top-selling author and reporter, Dominick Dunne is a prominent columnist and society correspondent. This biographical documentary film reflects on his successes and tribulations as a big name in the entertainment industry...
. This film documents his successes and tribulations as a big name in the entertainment industry. In the film, Dunne reflects on his past as a
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
veteran, falling in love and raising a family, his climb and fall as a Hollywood producer, and his epic comeback as a writer.
In September 2008, Dunne disclosed his treatment for
bladder cancerBladder cancer refers to any of several types of malignant growths of the urinary bladder. It is a disease in which abnormal cells multiply without control in the bladder. The bladder is a hollow, muscular organ that stores urine; it is located in the pelvis...
. He was working on
Too Much Money, his final book, at the time of his death. On September 22, 2008, Dunne complained of intense pain and taken by ambulance to Valley Hospital. Dunne died on August 26, 2009 at his home in
ManhattanManhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.New York County, which has the same boundaries as the Borough of Manhattan , is the most densely populated county in the United States, with a 2008 population of 1,634,795...
from
bladder cancerBladder cancer refers to any of several types of malignant growths of the urinary bladder. It is a disease in which abnormal cells multiply without control in the bladder. The bladder is a hollow, muscular organ that stores urine; it is located in the pelvis...
. However news coverage of his death was overshadowed by that of
Ted KennedyEdward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. First elected in November 1962, he was elected nine times and served for 46 years in the U.S. Senate. At the time of his death, he was the second most senior member of the Senate, and...
, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, who had died the day before.
Filmography
- The Boys in the Band
The Boys in the Band is a 1970 American drama film directed by William Friedkin. The screenplay by Mart Crowley is based on his off-Broadway play of the same title...
- The Panic in Needle Park
The Panic in Needle Park is a 1971 American film directed by Jerry Schatzberg and starring Al Pacino in his second film appearance. The screenplay was written by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, adapted from the book by James Mills....
- Play It as It Lays
Play It as It Lays is a 1970 novel by the American writer Joan Didion.Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.-Plot summary:...
- Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday is a 1973 American drama film directed by Larry Peerce. The screenplay by Jean-Claude Tramont focuses on the effect extensive cosmetic surgery has on the life of a middle-aged married woman.-Plot:...
- Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice
Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice is an American crime TV series that examines real-life cases of crime, passion, and greed involving privileged or famous people. The episodes are shown on truTV and on Star TV in Canada as well as Zone Reality in Europe. The host of the show was...
External links
- Dominick Dunne, Chronicler of Crime, Dies at 83, The New York Times, August 26, 2009
- Dominick Dunne on death, love, revenge and sexuality, The Times of London, Feb 19, 2009
- Celebrity Author And Hartford Native Dominick Dunne Dies At Age 83". The Hartford Courant
- Obituary - Star-Gazette
The Star-Gazette is the major newspaper for Elmira, New York. Based in Elmira, the publication is owned by the Gannett Corporation.-History:...
- Dominick Dunne - Daily Telegraph obituary
- Official fan site
- Official movie site
- Dominick Dunne Authorized Biography Movie (DVD)
- Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice
- The Final O.J. Story for Dominick Dunne, The New York Times, Sept. 19, 2008
- Condit settlement
- What a Swell Party He Wrote
Video Links