Dominick Dunne Dies At Age 83

The brilliant Hollywood true-crime writer and TV personality Dominick Dunne died today at the age of 83 from bladder cancer. Dunne’s son, actor Griffin Dunne, said his father died at home in New York.

Vanity Fair – where Dominick Dunne worked for over twenty years serving as contributing editor then special correspondent – was the first to report the legend’s passing.

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Dominick Dunne started off his career in entertainment in the 1950s as the stage manager for The Howdy Doody Show. He went on to produce a variety of TV shows like Dominick Dunne’s Power, Privilage and Justice, as well as author quite a few novels, including A Season of Purgatory and Another City, Not My Own.

After his 22-year-old actress daughter Dominique was strangled in 1982 by her ex-boyfriend Thomas Sweeney, Dominick Dunne became a passionate victims’ right advocate and true-crime reporter.

Over his career, Dunne reported on all the big scandals of the rich and famous like the murder trials of the Menendez brothers, O.J. Simpson and Phil Spector, as well as the rape trials of William Kennedy Smith and the impeachment of President Clinton.

Dominick Dunne is survived by his two sons, Alexander and Griffin, and a granddaughter.

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Here’s a little bit of something interesting…..

Dunne angered the famed Kennedy family when he wrote a book about Ethel Kennedy’s nephew Michael Skakel. The book, A Season In Purgatory, penned in 1993, built a strong case against Skakel in the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley, his 15-year-old neighbor. Charges were eventually brought against him and he was convicted and sent to prison in 2002.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son the Ethel Kennedy, told Larry King that Dunne’s book was the reason his cousin was convicted of a 25+ year old crime. He indicated that Dunne was not a journalist but rather a gossip columnist. Coincidentally, Dunne and Senator Edward Ted Kennedy died within hours of each other.

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