DOMINICK DUNNE 1925-2009 An Appreciation

I remember reading Dominick Dunne’s first article. It was the story of the trial of his daughter’s murderer. I was in a mechanic’s shop, waiting with my mother for our car to be serviced. The way he recounted this horrible tragedy made you feel like you were right there with him. The trial was painful and heartbreaking — and inevitably for him, unjust. When our car was ready, I hadn’t finished reading, so I stole the magazine.

Last year, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Dominick in Manhattan. When we first talked, he had just returned from getting a stress test. He was much smaller than I thought he would be; all those years of reading his stories made him so big in my mind. But the ravages of illness and age had taken hold. After all, he was now approaching 83. “I’m exhausted,” he said. “Usually I’m hilarious!”

But the exhaustion quickly dissipated as the stories began to flow and that infectious Dominick Dunne animation took hold. We talked about old Hollywood and new, and all those trials he wrote about. The murder of his daughter Dominique, despite the excruci­ating pain, was the launching point of both his career and his popularity in the pages of Vanity Fair. Dunne went on to cover every trial of the rich and famous, from O.J. Simp­son (trials 1 and 2) to Phil Spector.

After that, I never saw him again, but we spoke on the phone periodically. One evening we spoke while he was covering Simpson’s second trial in Vegas last year. His son Griffin didn’t want him to go because of his illness, but nothing was going to keep him away. Unfortunately, he collapsed in the courtroom and didn’t see it to its conclusion. Concerned, I called him in his hotel room. “I heard you caused a sensation in the court­room,” I said. He let out a little chuckle. “The courtroom? I caused a sensation in the COURT HOUSE. It was amazing! And when I got to the hospital, everyone in the hospital knew who I was — the doctors, the nurses!”

That was what was important to Dominick: the recognition. He loved his friends, but he adored the spotlight. Early on, before the Vanity Fair years, he was a man unfulfilled — he was consumed with this need for acceptance, and it caused the destruction of his marriage, and for a while, himself. He left Hollywood for good, and moved to Oregon where he lived in a cabin for about six months. He cleaned up his act, stopped drinking, and started writing. Then, at the age of 59, his literary fortitude took hold, and he began to garner that earned acknowledgement he had so vora­ciously craved.

Dominick had no problem telling it like it was, despite the fact it could get him into terrible trouble. “I always talk too much, and I do regret that,” he said when we dis­cussed his often outspoken ways. He offended many and alienated a few too. But he did it with conviction, and that phenome­nal personality of his always trumped all. These days, everyone is worried about whom they are going to offend and if they’re going to get sued. Dominick Dunne could not have cared less.

Dominick Dunne is the reason I became a writer. When we sat together — that lovely afternoon last July, I told him we were both Scorpios. He asked me if I believed in astrology and I told him sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. He looked at me harshly and then took my hand — his hand was so soft and small, but so kind. “I totally believe in it my dear. It’s what brought you here today.” This conversation was by no means his last, but it was one that until now, has not been heard.

Susan Michals: How are you feeling?

Dominick Dunne: They did the stress test on me today — I’m ill, did you know that? I’m also 82 years old. Hold on a second…

[He pulls out one of the heart monitors that they strap to your chest for a stress test and starts laughing.]

Looks like they missed a couple.

So are you still star struck?

No, not in the way I was as a kid. I mean, my own life has been so dramatic in itself… I’m past being star struck.

Is there someone you’d still really like to meet though, but haven’t?

I’d love to meet Mariska Hargitay. We used to sit near her at the ten o’clock mass at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. There would be Gary Cooper, Rosalind Russell, and Cesar Romero — all the Catholic movie stars — Charles Boyer. And we always sat in the same seats. We sat directly behind Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay. Mariska was the sweetest little girl — she was about this big [gestures about three feet tall with his hands], that’s how long ago this was. And you want to know some­thing? Jayne was a wonderful, wonderful mother. I mean, tits out to here and the blonde hair…and all the Loretta Young’s and the other starlets — they all snubbed her, y’know. It’s mean to say, but they all did. She wasn’t part of the clique. But yet, when it came to her kids, she was the best mother of any of them. She was all about their man­ners, and making sure she read them the right books…I was always so touched by that. It seems so unlikely with her looks and the persona that she had. I just think it would be fun to tell Mariska what she was like as a kid, and what her family was like, and what a good mother Jayne was. I never even knew her that well, but I felt great sor­row when she died that night. But isn’t it wonderful what’s happened to Mariska? She’s so great in “Law and Order.”

Do you think that glamour has disap­peared from Hollywood?

Well, yes. Time’s change, though. Holly­wood can be such cheap news now. Sala­cious. And they’re all photographed drinking vodka and wearing these terrible clothes. The old-time stars, they just wouldn’t have done that. George Clooney though, now he’s a star. He always looks right. He’s put together. Same goes for Nicole Kidman. And Brad Pitt and Angelina…they are a gorgeous couple, don’t you think?

Who would you like to play you in the movie of your life? I like the idea of Steve Carell.

I can see that. And he’s so funny. You’re not getting me on a very funny day, because I’m exhausted. Usually I’m hilarious!

Your career really took off in a strange way, with your writing about the trial of your daughter’s murderer for Vanity Fair.

It was one of the most terrible experiences — well, probably the most terrible experi­ence of my life.

Would you say that trial — and your daughter’s memory — gave you the impe­tus to continue writing?

I do. I think of her as a guardian angel, and she took me by the hand and led me down those corridors of justice — I truly believe that.

In the documentary about your life, After the Party, Tina Brown says you “found a whole new way of covering a trial” and that you became ‘the first star writer, and really the defining voice of the magazine.”

Look, Tina Brown got me. I used to think ‘nobody ever gets me,’ but she did. And she made me. I met her at a dinner party, and then she wanted to have lunch before I left for California, and I didn’t want to. But I did it. And when we met, she said something so interesting for an opener: “You know, you shouldn’t waste all those Hollywood stories of yours at dinner parties.” Because you know, I can keep a table transfixed by some of my Hollywood stories. She said I should be writing them for magazines. And I said, ‘Oh, Tina, I just tried to write a book and that didn’t go over.’ I had been just smeared in the New Yorker for my book, The Winners. But she wanted me to keep a journal at Dominique’s murder trial and she said when it’s over, to come and see her.

How could you do that — write about something so upsetting and so personal?

I don’t know... I wrote it in rage; rage against the judge, rage against the killer, and the defense attorney. I had never given a thought to a trial before, and I was so shocked at what I saw with the costuming, the lying that’s accepted, and I thought, you know, I can do something about this, instead of a living a life of revenge.

When you covered the O.J. Simpson trial, was it hard for you considering some of the similarities with the trial of your daughter’s killer?

Yes. As trials go, his trial was the most compelling of anything I’ve ever covered. And it went on the longest, for ten months, and there were hearings for two months before that, so we were together for a year, those of us who had special seats. And the dramas that went on backstage in that trial, and there grew to be real hatred between the two sides. And, of course, everybody hated O.J. There’s a picture of me that was on television of my mouth hanging open when they announced the verdict. It put me into a real depression, because he just got out of that because of his celebrity.

You talk so much about when you abandoned Hollywood and went to Ore­gon to clean yourself up. That’s a heroic thing to do. How did you face yourself?

I had nothing. No money. I had been snubbed the week before at a party. That was an amazing night for me, because I realized I’d had it. It was never going to happen here for me in Hollywood. And I don’t know what was ahead, but I just knew I had to get out of there immediately. That was a great period of my life though, coming to terms with myself, and my mis­takes, and how — it wasn’t everybody else’s fault — it was my fault. But on the other hand, life is so beguiling… out of my failure, I got my greatest success. It was hard, but I did it. I had grown up as a kid as a disappointment to my father. I was never good, I never made a team, I was always doing puppet shows with the girls on the block, and I was this failure son. And then I was drafted, and it was when I was in the Army as a foot soldier, and I was in three battles in World War II. One night in the retreat at the Battle of the Bulge, I did something…with a buddy of mine. Somebody came up to the lieutenant in the middle of the night and said, ‘There’s two of our men wounded,’ and the lieu­tenant said, ‘I’m sorry, but my orders are to retreat. We have to leave them.’ This guy, my buddy, we were the two preppie kids. We never said a word to each other, but we looked at each other, and we turned around and went back toward the approaching enemy, and we found these wounded soldiers. It was black night, and Dominick with his son, director Griffin Dunne no sense of direction, and you know I’m lit­tle — I carried this dying man. It was when I was carrying this guy — I was covered in his blood — and I thought, ‘My father couldn’t laugh at this.’ This was better than making the baseball team. And it was like, in a way, the first step of my life, where I realized there was something extra inside of me. I didn’t find it again for many years, but I always knew it was there.

So when you went up to Oregon, what did you do?

Well, there was no communication – no telephone, no people to call and talk. And I didn’t know anyone, except the lady I rent­ed the cabin from. She became a dear friend of mine — she’s a good woman. I talk to her all the time. And she knew I was in trouble somehow, but never asked me a question. It was an amazing time, because the whole bullshit of life stops when you’re alone, and you’ve got time to really think. It was one of the most valuable times of my life, [to examine] the part you play in your own self-destruction, which is what I did. I mean, I had everything — and next thing you know, I’m jamming coke up my nose. I ruined a marriage and made major mistakes, but I got through it. That’s the whole point. You gotta keep going.

Have you ever thought about what you would’ve done if you’d stuck around in Oregon?

Sure! I thought I’d support myself by getting a job in a shoe store in Portland. Can you imagine? ▼