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The Unforgettable Dominick Dunne
From their years working together at Vanity Fair, Tina Brown remembers the best-selling novelist and magazine writer who died Wednesday of cancer at the age of 83.
What does it take to be a great social chronicler? Perhaps one of the key attributes is an understanding of what it feels like to fall from grace. Dominick Dunne, the best-selling novelist and defining voice for so many years of Vanity Fair magazine who died of cancer Wednesday at 83, was living proof that the best qualification for a writer’s life is a checkered past.
I met him for the first time in July of 1983 at a dinner party—of course (hosted by the writer Marie Brenner at her Manhattan apartment). Dominick was a keen-eyed leprechaun in owlish glasses whose chief charm was his voice—mellow, humorous, and suggestive of past lives and forgiven sins. It was a writer’s voice for sure as I realized after two hours of listening enthralled at the table to his observations of people he knew and stories he had heard in Hollywood and high society. At the time, he introduced himself as an erstwhile movie producer who "was finished with all that" and now, after some lost years in bad shape and A.A. and shunned by Hollywood, he had begun again as a writer of novels.
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He told me he was off the next day on a tragic mission—to attend the trial of his 22-year-old daughter’s murderer. His beloved Dominique, a rising actress, had been brutally strangled by her boyfriend John Sweeney, the chef at the swanky Ma Maison restaurant in West Hollywood. Not knowing at the time that Dominick was always an avid documentarian of his own life in scrap books and journals, I asked him if he would keep a journal of the trial and show me what he had written at the end. The result was the ironically titled “Justice,” his riveting, impassioned account in Vanity Fair of what he always believed was a judicial outrage, Sweeney’s conviction for manslaughter that led to him getting out of jail in under three years. It was the first of innumerable great pieces as he went on to become one of Vanity Fair’s star writers.
His forte, unsurprisingly, became crime. Nick loved nothing more than to be dispatched to study the foibles of such Dynasty-era divas as Aaron Spelling’s wife Candy in her preposterously large Beverley Hills mansion and turn her into a delicious cartoon of Reagan-era excess. But his real forte was the dark side. He was a naked advocate for the rights of the victim, a scourge of the slick defense lawyer, an excited repository of leaked letters, prosecution leads, and the whispered confidences of bold-faced names who gave him the back story. His gift for synthesizing high gossip with dogged reporting was clear from the moment he covered the trial of the decadent socialite Claus Von Bülow for the attempted murder by insulin injection of his wife, the beautiful, unhappy Sunny Von Auersperg.
Everybody talked to Dominick on that Vanity Fair story—children, servants, mistresses, duchesses, and Von Bülow himself. Add in the immediate intimacy of Dunne’s own voice and from the opening paragraph it was irresistible magazine journalism:
“The problem with Claus,” said one of Claus von Bülow’s closest friends at a Park Avenue dinner party, “is that he does not dwell in the Palace of Truth. You see, he’s a fake. He’s always been a fake. His name is a fake. His life is a fake. He has created a character that he plays. Claus is trompe l’oeil.” Now read on.
Watch a clip from the documentary on Dominick's life.
One of the many things I loved about working with Nick was the joy he took in the process of reporting. He loved the mechanics of a scoop, the scheming to get access, the romancing of sources, the chance encounters that led to a new lead. It was always amazing to me the weird Irish luck that seemed to follow him around on a story. He would be sitting on a plane and the murderer’s ex lover would introduce herself or trying to track a lead and find just the person he wanted in the waiting room of his dermatologist. He knew he had some sticky magic that drew stories to him. Even in his last days at a clinic in Germany, who should be in the next room waiting to be debriefed but the ailing Farrah Fawcett. (“Isn’t that just so typical of me,” he told me wonderingly when I saw him afterwards.)
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
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Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
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Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
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Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
lsquare
"He was a naked advocate for the rights of the victim, a scourge of the slick defense lawyer, an excited repository of leaked letters, prosecution leads, and the whispered confidences of bold-faced names who gave him the back story." That's why I always looked forward to his stories in VF. May he rest in peace with his dear daughter.
Zorrotheman
Dominick Dunne was the Enquirere with a slighly bigger vocablulary. He made his living because too many people shared his prurient, voyeuristic appetites and his smarmy on-call weepiness at mauldlin probes of very private lives. As a man, he was an pervert without courage to act out his written dreams and as a journalist he was a bottom-feeder who lived parasitically off the sordid waste of celebrities.
StellaRay
Oh for Pete's Sake. Some of the people who comment here could turn the death of Santa Claus into a protest of his prurient beard and his sneaky, twinkling eyes. And of course, they'd also call him an evil liberal---all that giving with no profit motive. Santa Commie.
Here's a challenge to you Zorro, pick up Dunne's novel, "The Two Mrs Grenvilles" and read it. If you're honest, you'll find it an engrossing novel, a great read, and an insightful comment on human foibles. I'm not saying it's a literary classic, I'm saying it's a damn good book. Good story tellers are always a gift to us.
skibummin1
Zorro
You have exactly right.
shag11
And some of like his stuff. So, too bad for perfect people like you, we are in fact here.
luckyone
I will really miss this wonderful man and the stories he told with such flair.
writerforhire
I appreciate the insight of attributes necessary to be "a great social chronicler." They're the antithesis of the accepted rules of the trade. The "checkered past" is sidelined in contemporary training and passed over for more accelerated means or the coveted Columbia MA.
As we all know no writer of merit has any other ivy degree or training.
To read that an accepted and celebrated writer had baggage, tragedy, perseverance and (gasp!) the nerve to write about it, name names, whisper details and reveal the disparities of our judicial system that go unnoticed if it weren't for the motley crew of angst filled writers, is encouraging.
I read the majority Dominick Dunne's work and fashioned myself to be like him: a champion of the underdog; the pursuer of truth and the watchdog of a judicial system that can be bought and sold and with the baggage, tragedy, perseverance and (gasp!) the nerve to write about it!
Thank you, Tina Brown, for once again penning the truth.
Kind regards,
fra0909
Ms. Brown
We are forever indebted to you for hiring Mr. Dunne and allowing another generation of people to discover this talented man. I fell in love with him long ago. Heavy hearted and sadden fan.
FRA
AmericanPravda
I knew this day, the day that we would lose Dominick Dunne, would eventually arrive. I miss him already.
I loved his style of writing. He could write a paragraph in a manner that would gently pull your eyes along each line of text with a nod and a wink!
Annie57
Oh, my God! A fabulous article about a real original! Sticky magic indeed. The strange thing is, I had been thinking to myself (not knowing that he was sick) that Dominick Dunne would be the perfect chronicler of the Conrad Murray trial. He will be sorely missed!
SimonSaize
Its unfortunate that the genius such as him will be gone with the passing of generations. The lack of the creative to date and traced back 15 years and corporate washing is producing a new breed of media personalities. This outcome is due in part to the exclusive control and separation of social structure, and the negative action of mentor-less parenting, which left the future as an orphan.
Mr.Dunne will be missed in character.
SimonSaize (MikeAlike-recording artist)
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n--Y--untillMO23FF
"Reagan era excess..." Funny, I never hear fair Tina talk about "Kennedy excess", or "Clinton era excess", when fortunes were made in the Dotcom free-for-all. More phony deals were done in the 90's than anythiny conjured up in the "Reagan era". Try a little intellectual integrity, Tina. It's a good thing.
StellaRay
Way to make this about you. Well, it's not about you or your politics. It's about a man with a memorable writer's voice, a gentle way of prodding the vulnerable out of the high and mighty, and the courage to make his life worthwhile after the murder of his daughter. Why don't you try a little "less me" and a little more poking your head out of your Republican bubble---then look around a little. You might learn something.
RIP Dominick Dunne. You gave me many pleasurable hours with your words and stories.
klafrance
What a wonderful tribute you've written! It makes me want to re-read every one of his articles and books - the man was a genius and the world shall be worse off for his loss.
HughMunn
His daughter was "brutally strangled"?
Is that as opposed to "therapeutically strangled"?
Good God, Tina, when are you going to learn how to write without creating laughter every place your breathless, over-written verbiage alights?
BullMoose
HughMunn You better watch it!! This Brown person removed the very first post to Patricia William's article on the Black Elite. Even after the date of my second post explaining it was satire the next day she removed it
To top it off, Max Blumenthal writes about the wackos with the Obama picture with a Hitler mustache. That was the exact point of the post, which was number one to the article, i was making.
Evidently there is a click here, as i have flagged numerous filthy cuss words and threats to others, keeping a log of the flags, and Brown never removes them. My post did not contain any cuss words, just satire of the stereotype Patricia Williams was alluding to in her article.
Anyway, this place is turning into the Daily Kos anyway, so i could not care less, my money and support go to anything to stop Obama's plan to steal my money to give to his cronies. old saying is true, youngsters vote Liberal. Grown ups vote Conservative
HughMunn
Are you just taking random words out of the dictionary and putting them together?
StellaRay
Is this post satire?
jbo206
I think BullM is Sarah Palin's speechwriter ;)
StellaRay
You're being a bit tough on Ms. Brown. Her piece here speaks of her great affection for Dominick Dunne and that is what came through to me.
Having said that, there's a reason why books on writing always warn against adverbs. They're a trap that beckons, usually without reward.
HughMunn
"You're being a bit tough on Ms. Brown."
Yeah, I am being tough.
She opened herself to it, though -- not me. And it is possible not to write laughable prose.
I see you're from the tribe of "Having Said That."
It's so tired by now, isn't it?
StellaRay
Wow, Hugh. You're quite the ardent critic. So when is your book, article, essay coming out? I would love to get a gander at your prose.
BullMoose
HughMum seems like a disgruntled wannabe writer, but has emrged as a stalker. You daily Kos people here can have him. Good punishment for such a click run blog.
BullMoose
HughMunn You never took a how to comprehend writing course and it shows. Change you handle to HughMum.
HughMunn
It's as if you're on here showing off your new "invention" -- the loose screw.
JamesMMartin
I, for one, thing he is eminently forgettable. After his daughter's murder, he concentrated his literary efforts almost entirely on his obsessions, primarily high society slayings. He even tried to prejudice juries against some defendants, thereby depriving them of the Constitutional right to a fair and impartial trial by a jury of their peers. I thought his portraits of high society in *Vanity Fair* were spectacularly boring. Besides, he once said a nasty thing about me in an email to a list we belonged to.
BullMoose
JamesMartin Tina Browm's crowd here removed a purely satirical comment on Patricia Brown's article, a day after i posted it was satire of those her article commented on. Not to mention Max Blumenthal writing an article about the same topic i made the satirical post about,
When you write for Vanity fair and call yourself a journalist, i find the credentials lacking in someone who can't recognize satire.
roadhunter
I need to get out more. I never heard of the man until he died. I wonder if it's too late to "fashion myself to be like him". What an arrogant statement.
Maezeppa
I always liked the way Dunn let me, the reader, press my nose up against the window for an eyeful and earful of worlds not in my everyday orbit.
lindana
Didn't he cover the Kennedy murder of the young teen-age girl?
What a coincidence.
StellaRay
Can't put down your hate for a minute. You poor thing.
PTHUMPER
I loved Dominick and will miss him. But I must correct your article which refers to Candy Spelling's mansion and the cartoon of "Reagan era excess." Over the years, Aaron Spelling contributed mostly to Democratic campaigns on the local and national levels, as well as to the Democratic National Committe. Further, that huge 56,000 sq ft mansion was built in 1991, two years after Reagan left office. I suggest you look to the liberal Hollywood elites of today for a more accurate cartoon of 'excess.'
Thank you.
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