NEW YORK Author Dominick Dunne, who told stories of shocking crimes among the rich and famous through his magazine articles and best-selling novels such as 'The Two Mrs. Grenvilles,' died Wednesday in his home at age 83.
Dunne's son, actor-director Griffin Dunne, said in a statement released by Vanity Fair magazine that his father had been battling bladder cancer. But the cancer had not prevented Dunne from working and socializing, his twin passions.
In September 2008, against the orders of his doctor and the wishes of his family, Dunne flew to Las Vegas to attend the kidnap-robbery trial of O.J. Simpson, a postscript to his coverage of Simpson's 1995 murder trial, which spiked Dunne's considerable fame.
In the past year, Dunne had traveled to Germany and the Dominican Republic for experimental stem cell treatments to fight his cancer. He wrote that he and actress Farrah Fawcett were in the same cancer clinic in Bavaria but didn't see each other. Fawcett, a 1970s sex symbol and TV star of 'Charlie's Angels,' died in June at age 62.
Dunne discontinued his column at Vanity Fair to concentrate on finishing another novel, 'Too Much Money,' which is to come out in December. He also made a number of appearances to promote a documentary film about his life, 'After the Party,' which was being released on DVD.
Dunne, who lived in Manhattan, was beginning to write his memoirs and, until close to the end of his life, he posted messages on his Web site commenting on events in his life and thanking his fans for their support.
Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter praised Dunne as a gifted reporter who proved as fascinating as the people he wrote about.
'Anyone who remembers the sight of O.J. Simpson trying on the famous glove probably remembers a bespectacled Dunne, resplendent in his trademark Turnbull & Asser monogrammed shirt, on the court bench behind him,' Carter wrote in a statement released Wednesday. 'It is fair to say that the halls of Vanity Fair will be lonelier without him and that, indeed, we will not see his like anytime soon, if ever again.'
Earlier this summer, Dunne was well enough to attend a Manhattan party hosted by Tina Brown. Chatting with an Associated Press reporter, he spoke of Michael Jackson, who had recently died, and remembered lunching with the singer and Elizabeth Taylor. Jackson was so excited to see her, Dunne said, he presented her with a diamond necklace just for the occasion.
Dunne was part of a famous family that also included his brother, novelist and screenwriter John Gregory Dunne; his brother's wife, author Joan Didion; and his son.
A one-time movie producer, Dunne carved a new career starting in the 1980s as a chronicler of the problems of the wealthy and powerful.
Tragedy struck his life in 1982 when his actress daughter, Dominique, was slain _ and that experience informed his fiction and his journalistic efforts from then on.
'If you go through what I went through, losing my daughter, you have strong, strong feelings of revenge,' Dunne said in 1990 in discussing his novel 'People Like Us,' in which the protagonist shoots the man convicted of killing his daughter.
'As a novelist, I could create a situation in which I could do in the book what I couldn't do in real life. I intended for Gus (the character in the book) to kill the guy.
But when I got to that part I couldn't write it. He wounds him and goes to prison himself for a couple of years.'
He was as successful as a journalist as he was as a novelist and spent many of his later years in courtrooms covering high profile trials. Writing for Vanity Fair, he covered such cases as the William Kennedy Smith rape trial in 1991 and the trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez, accused of murdering their millionaire parents, in 1993.
'You're talking about kids who had everything _ the cars, the tennis courts, swimming pools, credit cards. And yet this happened,' he said at the time of the Menendez trial.
As much as those trials riveted the nation, they were far overshadowed in 1994 when football great O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. With a trial that stretched out over a year and cable TV outlets providing endless coverage, the bespectacled Dunne became a familiar face to millions.
'I especially like to watch the jurors,' Dunne explained to Fox TV during the trial. 'I always pick out about four jurors who become my favorites. I sort of try to anticipate what they are thinking and how they are reacting.'
He called his book on the Simpson trial, 'Another City, Not My Own,' 'a novel in the form of a memoir.' It, too, reached the best-seller lists.
'Every word is true, but it's written in the style of a novel,' he said.
From the gritty world of the courtroom during the day, he would move into the glamorous realm of high society at night, dining with the rich and famous, charming them with his inside stories of the Simpson trial. — AP
