Dominick Dunne: Passes away at eighty three

Dominick Dunne: Passes away at eighty three

Dominick Dunne , who covered the courtroom trials of O.J. Simpson in 1995 and told stories of shocking crimes among the rich and famous through his novels and mag. articles, passed away on Wednesday at his Manhattan home. He was eighty three.

The author had been battling bladder cancer for a while, his son Actor-director Griffin Dunne has said in a statement. But the cancer could not stop Dunne from from working and socializing.
 
Violating the doctor's instruction, in September '08, he had flown to Las Vegas to attend the kidnap-robbery trial of O.J. Simpson, a postscript to his coverage of Simpson’s 1995 murder trial that spiked Dunne’s considerable fame.

Last year, Dunne had been to Germany and The Dominican Republic for experimental stem cell treatments to fight his cancer. He has written that at one point he and actress Farrah Fawcett were in the same cancer clinic in Bavaria but hadn't seen each other.

He discontinued his column at Vanity Fair to concentrate on finishing another novel, “Too Much Money,” which is to come out in December.

Dunne was from a famous family that includes his son, Griffin, his brother- novelist and screenwriter John Gregory Dunne and  his wife- author Joan Didion .

Dunne, a one-time movie producer, carved a new career starting in the 1980s as a chronicler of the problems of the wealthy and powerful.
 
Tragedy struck his own life in 1982 when his actress daughter, Dominique, was slain.

"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," Dunne added.

He was equally successful as a journalist and spent many of his later years in courtrooms to cover 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.

He wrote memorable profiles on numerous personalities, among them Imelda Marcos, Robert Mapplethorpe, Elizabeth Taylor , Claus von Bulow, Adnan Khashoggi, and Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.

He was a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, interviewing members of royalty and movie stars.

His assignments took him to London to cover the inquest into Princess Diana ’s death and to Monaco to look into the mysterious death of billionaire Edmond Safra.

He continued appearing regularly on television, and in 2002 debuted a weekly program on Court TV.

“A Season in Purgatory,” “An Inconvenient Woman” and “The Mansions of Limbo” are among his other books.