DOMINICK DUNNE who died on this date (b: 1925) was an American writer, investigative journalist, and producer. He began his career in film and television as a producer of the pioneering gay film The Boys in the Band (1970) and as the producer of the award-winning drug film The Panic in Needle Park (1971). He turned to writing in the early 1970s. After the 1982 murder of his daughter Dominique, an actress, he began to write about the interaction of wealth and high society with the judicial system. Dunne was a frequent contributor to Vanity Fair, and, beginning in the 1980s, often appeared on television discussing crime.

Dunne was the older brother of writer John Gregory Dunne (1932–2003), a screenwriter and a critic who married the writer Joan Didion. The brothers wrote a column for The Saturday Evening Post and they also collaborated on the production of The Panic in Needle Park. Didion and John Gregory Dunne wrote the screenplay, while Dominick Dunne produced the film (which featured Al Pacino in his first leading role).

Throughout his life, Dunne frequently socialized with, wrote about, and was photographed with celebrities. Sean Elder’s review of Dunne’s memoir, The Way We Lived Then, recounted how Dunne appeared at a wedding reception for Dennis Hopper, writing, “But in the midst of it all, there was one man who was getting what ceramic artist Ron Nagle would call ‘the full cheese,’ one guy everyone gravitated toward and paid obeisance to.” That man was Dunne, who mixed easily with artists, actors, and writers present at the function. Dunne was quoted as saying that Hopper wished he “had a picture of myself with Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer.”

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. He said it would be his last such assignment. Having reported on Simpson’s first trial and having thought the judicial system failed the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman—as well as his own family after his daughter’s murder—he was personally vested in Simpson’s fate.

Dunne’s adventures in Hollywood were described in the documentary film Dominick Dunne: After the Party, directed by Kirsty de Garis and Timothy Jolley. The film documents his hardships and successes in the entertainment industry. In the film, Dunne reflects on his past as a World War II veteran, falling in love and raising a family, his climb and fall as a Hollywood producer, and his comeback as a writer. In 2002, director Barry Avrich released an unauthorized documentary about Dunne, Guilty Pleasure. It provides a more candid look at Dunne’s life and includes those who took issue with his journalistic style. It was released globally and featured Johnnie Cochran, Griffin Dunne, and producer David Brown.

Dominick Dunne’s son, Griffin Dunne, reveals that his father was a closeted gay man. He was in love with the actor Frederick Combs, one of the cast members of the original The Boys in The Band, of which Dunne was one of the producers. The character Mart Crowley based on Dominick–Alan, is the one who’s fighting with his wife and you’re not sure of his sexuality. There were a number of lines that were based on Dominick Dunne lines. Dominick even wrote, “I had a very blurred image of myself in those days. I’m the only one alive who produced two movies with characters based on me that I didn’t realize.” The other was Play it As it Lays, with Tony Perkins as a bisexual or gay movie producer who kills himself. He has a wife and invites hustlers to their beach house. At one point, Dominick confronted [author] Joan Didion and she said, “No, it’s based on someone else,” and Dominick said, “No, that person had no relation to that character.”