Biography of Dominick Dunne

The line between the personal and professional life of Dominick Dunne has always been blurred. Erudite and wealthy himself, the writer has chronicled the misfortunes and criminal acts of his peers within privileged America. His fiction has dissected the rich, the famous, and the corrupt while his nonfiction has dealt with the trials of such figures as Claus Von Bulow, William Kennedy Smith, and the Menendez brothers. Dunne even reported on the trial of John Sweeney, the man who murdered Dunne's daughter, Dominique. But few assignments have brought him so much personal disgust, and so much national attention, as the O.J. Simpson trial.

Reporting for Vanity Fair, Dunne sat in the now legendary courtroom day in and day out, observing and reporting on what was dubbed "The Trial of the Century." Dunne himself described it as "the biggest news story that's ever been" and a "morality tale for America." Considered a prized correspondent (Simpson trial courtroom seats were rare and coveted) Dunne was himself in front of TV cameras almost daily--on CNN, CNBC, The CBS Evening News, Geraldo, Day and Date, and many other shows.
However, Dunne was credited with bringing more than a mere court-side regurgitation of the day's events to the American public--he brought years of hard-won wisdom as well as a celebrity insider's perspective which few reporters possessed.

Dunne penned his first novel in 1982. Titled The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, the novel was loosely based on the true story of a controversial society killing in which a former showgirl shoots her wealthy husband. The book became a best-seller and a TV movie.

Success also attended Dunne's second novel, People Like Us, in which he again zeroed in on the lives of rich individuals with dark secrets. Clearly, he had finally found his niche in writing.

On Halloween of 1982, Dunne was informed that his actress daughter Dominique (best known for her portrayal of the teenage daughter in Poltergeist) had been found strangled; her killer was her ex-boyfriend, John Sweeney, a chef in Los Angeles. Ironically, out of this father's nightmare grew Dunne's career as a journalist. His fixation on the injustice of the murderer's trial (Sweeney only received a conviction of voluntary manslaughter and was eligible for parole within two-and-a-half years), combined with the support of Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown, led him to write a story for Vanity Fair called "Justice: A Father's Account of the Trial of His Daughter's Killer." Dunne subsequently covered many major trials for Vanity Fair.

Dunne has continued writing both magazine articles and novels that draw upon real-life events. The protagonist of his best selling novel An Inconvenient Woman bears a striking resemblance to Vicki Morgan, purportedly the mistress of a close friend of Ronald Reagan who was murdered.

A Season in Purgatory, another best-seller that also became a TV movie, is based on the murder of Martha Moxley. Echoing Dunne's childhood and his experiences in Hollywood, the book features an outsider protagonist who is enough of an "insider" to the wealthy to observe their crimes.

Perhaps it is this gut-level empathy with the real life people he writes about and the characters he creates that accounts for Dunne's stunning success. In 1997 Dunne's "Simpsonography" was released under the title Another City, Not My Own. Dunne followed up with a collection of essays, Fatal Charms and Other Tales of Today and the Mansions of Limbo, and a memoir titled The Way We Lived Then: Recollection of a Well-Known Name Dropper, both in 1999. Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments, published in 2001, is a collection of his essays on high-profile crimes.