24 Facts About Dominick Dunne

Dominick John Dunne was an American writer, investigative journalist, and producer.

Dominick Dunne began his career in film and television as a producer of the pioneering gay film The Boys in the Band and as the producer of the drama film The Panic in Needle Park.

Dominick Dunne was born in 1925 in Hartford, Connecticut, the second of six children of Richard Edwin Dominick Dunne, a hospital chief of staff and a heart surgeon, and Dorothy Frances.

Dominick Dunne's maternal grandfather, Dominick Francis Burns, was a successful grocer, who, in 1919, co-founded the Park Street Trust Company, a neighborhood savings bank.

Dominick Dunne attended the Kingswood School and the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, but was drafted into the Army during his senior year of high school.

Dominick Dunne served in World War II and received the Bronze Star for heroism during the Battle of Metz.

Dominick Dunne was the older brother of writer John Gregory Dominick Dunne, a screenwriter and a critic who married the writer Joan Didion.

Didion and John Gregory Dunne wrote the screenplay, while Dominick Dunne produced the film.

Dominick Dunne worked on Playhouse 90 and became vice president of Four Star Television.

Dominick Dunne frequently socialized with members of Hollywood's elite, including Elizabeth Montgomery and Elizabeth Taylor, but in 1979, beset with addictions, he left Hollywood and moved to rural Oregon.

In November 1982, his daughter, Dominique Dominick Dunne, best known for her part in the film Poltergeist, was murdered by strangulation.

Dominick Dunne attended the trial of John Thomas Sweeney, Dominique's ex-boyfriend.

Dominick Dunne based several bestselling novels on real events, including the murders of Alfred Bloomingdale's mistress, Vicki Morgan, and banking heir William Woodward, Jr.

Dominick Dunne eventually hosted the TV series Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice on Court TV, in which he discussed the justice and injustice of the intersection of celebrity and the judicial system.

Dominick Dunne covered the famous trials of O J Simpson, Claus von Bulow, Michael Skakel, William Kennedy Smith, and the Menendez brothers.

In 2005, former California Congressman Gary Condit won an undisclosed financial settlement and an apology from Dominick Dunne, who had earlier implicated him in the disappearance of Condit's intern Chandra Levy in Washington, DC Levy was from Condit's Congressional district, and Condit had previously admitted to an extramarital affair with her.

In 2008, at age 82, Dunne traveled from New York to Las Vegas to cover O J Simpson's trial on charges of kidnapping and armed robbery for Vanity Fair.

Dominick Dunne said it would be his last such assignment.

In September 2008, Dominick Dunne disclosed that he was being treated for bladder cancer.

On September 22,2008, Dominick Dunne complained of intense pain, and was taken by ambulance to Valley Hospital.

Dominick Dunne died on August 26,2009, at his home in Manhattan and was buried at Cove Cemetery, in the shadow of Gillette Castle in Hadlyme, Connecticut.

Dominick Dunne was married to Ellen Beatriz Griffin from 1954 to 1965.

Dominick Dunne was the father of Alexander Dunne and the actors Griffin Dunne and Dominique Dunne, as well as two daughters who died in infancy.

Dominick Dunne donated these papers to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, and Robert Hofler detailed them in his 2017 biography Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne: A Life in Several Acts.