THETIMESThursdayFebruary122009 artsscreen times2 615

TIM KNOX

It isn’t over, not when it’s Dunne

Dominick Dunne, scourge of celebrities and subject of a new film, talks to Tim Teeman about O.J., death, love and revenge ominick Dunne has of stem-cell treatment he has received in tragedy: the murder of his daughter is the want to finish. Writing puts me in a good started planning his the Dominican Republic and the next raw bedrock of his court-reporting and his mood.” funeral. He reveals round he hopes to receive in Germany will passionate advocacy for victims of crime Has he thought about dying? “Of this not morbidly prove successful in fighting his bladder and their families. In Hollywood, as a course, but I don’t dwell on it. They were but as just another cancer,diagnosed seven monthsago. young man he entertained Bette Davis going to operate on me. I had this whole dry, wonderful “I went to a party last night and every- and Rock Hudson. This week he is off to thing that I was going to die on the table pearl in almost two body said I looked fabulous, and I said: ‘It’s the Oscars: Barry Diller has the best party, but I don’t want to die under anaesthesia. hours of ranging the stem cells’. I’m breaking with tradition he says. He wants Sean Penn (for Milk)or My whole life denies that should be my conversation that and refusing to take chemo,” Dunne says, Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), a longtime exit.” He laughs. “I think about death but takes us from laughing. “I don’t take care of myself. I friend,to winBestActor. not morbidly. I’m not going to be a tragic cancer to hot dogs with Jane Fonda to hir- mean, I’m incredibly active. If you have to A brilliant new documentary, Dominick thing. I’ve had an extraordinary life. Some Ding hitmen, to wartime heroics and high- havecancer,youhavetohavetherightatti- Dunne: After the Party (it goes out on DVD very heavy things have happened to me. powered feuds. He’s so good on the phone, tude. I’m not going to lie down and die. I’m butdeservesa widerrelease), showshim at It’sjustthenextexperience.” how would you ever extricate yourself going to fight and keep working. I feel so work at Spector’s trial for the murder of Dunne is worried, unnecessarily, that from hiswitty,sharpcompanyin person? well. Why go through ten weeks of vomit- LanaClarkson.Dunneisoutragedthatthe I’ve had an the documentary will make him look like When the 83-year-old Vanity Fair writer ing after chemo? I’m too old for this. I don’t original jury didn’t deliver a guilty verdict “anasshole”,andasksmetobekindtohim; was here attending the inquest into the haveenoughtimeleft.Theysaythey’dgive but is following Spector’s current retrial extraordinary life. but this vulnerability seems at odds with death of Diana, Princess of Wales, he went me anti-nausea pills, but I’m already withinterest. ‘‘ his crusading prose and his prodigious tal- Some heavy things to the memorial service for the Daily Mail takingtoomanypills. Ihatepills.” The documentary was filmed before his ent for making enemies in high places. He diarist Nigel Dempster and was blown Any fan of his juicy, rich journalism cancer diagnosis. At home in rural Con- have happened to says proudly that, among many others, away by the 100-strong choir singing Cole won’t be surprised to discover that stories necticut Dunne is contemplating having me. Death is just Bobby Kennedy Jr hates him. Dunne tan- Porter’s AnythingGoes.Althoughit’sa bor- tumble from him: his stalled Hollywood to have someone “in” to care for him. “I gled with him over the conviction of row, it’s on his funeral playlist. He has cho- career as a producer, his renaissance as a don’t want to turn my life into one about a the next experience Kennedy’s cousin Michael Skakel for the sen the speakers (though hasn’t told them) writer and observer of the trials of the rich man with cancer. I know so many people murder of a woman in the 1970s. “I have and is changing his will. But he is far from andinfamous—OJ(bothtrials),PhilSpec- with it and it’s all they talk about. I’ve got a gottobecareful of whatIsay,” says Dunne. fatalistic: Dunne hopes that the first round tor, Alfred Taubman. He has known great novel and memoir which I desperately ’’ “I’ve alreadybeeninonelawsuit. IhaveW THE TIMESThursdayFebruary122009 THETIMESThursdayFebruary122009 616 times2 arts arts times2 617

X no respect for that man.” Does he mind “When I was a kid I never had the picture Dunne still wants the scoop. He knows his targets’ hatred? “No, I hate them too,” of a football player or a baseball player on the players and is proud to: “If somebody he says quietly. Dunne is charming, yes, the wall. I had Michèle Morgan, a French says, ‘Who’s so-and-so’ sitting over there, I butanattackdog.Hisenemiessayherelies actress. I was always starstruck.” He saw can say, ‘X owns that, he’s having an affair on a tissue of conjecture and anonymous, his favourite movie, Now, Voyager, starring withher,used tobewithher . . .’ ” unaccountable sources. In 2005 Gary Bette Davis, five times, five days in a row. Theonly person he everwanted to inter- Condit, a former congressman, won a sum “TheideathatacampmovielikeNow,Voy- view and hasn’t is Jackie Onassis (a class- ofmoneyandanapologyfromDunneover ager became my most important movie mate of Lenny’s), and has clearly relished claimsthathehadbeenimplicatedinaplot was because she became someone differ- his encounters with some of the world’s to murder and dispose of the body of an entfromwhatshewas.Ifounditsofascinat- most famous women — Imelda Marcos, intern,ChandraLevy. ing. She had that awful life — that mother, Queen Noor — though bemoans the Dunne “never gave injustice a thought, she was fat and unattractive. She came parade of samey Hollywood starlets on five seconds of my time” until the trial in back, she was different. I thought about my today’sredcarpet. 1983 of John Thomas Sweeney, Domin- ownlife,‘It doesn’t havetobelike this’.” “In the olden days you knew who Loret- ique’s ex-boyfriend. She was an aspiring Gosh, I say flippantly, are you sure ta Youngand Bette Davis were. When they actress who hadappeared in Poltergeist;he you’re not gay? Now, Voyager is such a made a mini-series of The Two Mrs Gren- strangled her. The night before Sweeney’s camp classic. Dunne pauses. “I didn’t say villes it was utterly fascinating to see all trial Dunne sat at dinner next to Tina thatIwasorwasn’t.That’swhatmyfather’s these old actresses come out of the wood- Brown, in New York to be interviewed for fearwas.AsIsaidinthefilm,I’vebeenaceli- work. Joan Fontaine, Olivia de Havilland, theeditorship of Vanity Fair.She asked him bate fora long time.” Has he been attracted Bette Davis, Loretta Young: they all con- to write aboutthe trial.The resulting piece, to guys? “Yeah, but I don’t want to go into tacted me to say, ‘Dominick, I have to do in one of the first Vanity Fairs under that. I’ve never been successful.” He goes that part’. Claudette Colbert got the part. Brown’s editorship, is a charged piece of quiet and adds that the relationship with There aren’t stars today who live the grand reportageandpersonalconfession. his wife, Lenny, was the most important in life. The murder of Sharon Tate changed Father and daughter were “so close”. his life. “It’s astonishing how often I think everything. Gates went up, alarms, guards The night before her murder, Dunne’s ofher[Lennydied in1997].” withgunscame,Everyonegotprivate.” birthday, they had spoken by phone: she in Despitethepartiesandfriends,isheever LA, excitedly relating all the events on the unne and Lenny lonely? “Yes sometimes I am, but I also Poltergeist set, he in New York in a tiny would host hotdog want it like that.” Does he miss love, want apartment (these were his lean years). parties in Malibu, it? “No. I was never good at it. I always de- “Her last words were to me were ‘I love you Dominick Dunne in the become obsessed with him [Sweeney], I and the glimpse of stroyed it. I couldn’t get over the thing that Daddy’. When I became an activist for vic- 1960s with his children, thoughtI’ddosomethingpositive.” this smouldering anyonecouldloveme.” tims’ rights, I would go to see the parents from left, Griffin, now a Dunne’s desire to reveal all is insatiable. fag end of the He asks how old I am. 36, I say. Married? who had had a child murdered. So many Hollywood actor, He wonders why it still “bothers” him that Golden Age of Hol- he asks. Gay, I say, not that that mitigates timesthey wouldsay,ifonly wehadknown Dominique, his daughter he got beaten as a child by his father with a lywood is caught on against marriage these days. “In my era, The masked Assassin and what appears to be a posse of Victorian bobbies -— just part of the mix brought to the boil in the enigmatic Franklyn . . . IamsohappyItoldherIlovedherevery who was murdered in riding crop. “I was one of six and he didn’t home video in the gay people were expected to get married,” timeItalkedtoher.” 1982, and Alex. Right, do it to any of the others. I drove him crazy. documentary. Rock he says.Your own life . . . Are you . . .? I fal- Sweeney was convicted of voluntary Liz Taylor in Ash I always had a campy sense of humour, Hudson and Jane Fonda pout and play in ter, awareof the very cracked iceI mightbe manslaughter and given a prison sentence Wednesday, the 1973 film even though it was 20 years before I’d Dthe sun. “There was a very rigid social life. treading on. “I can’t tell you what you can’t Who is this masked man? in November 1983 of six and a half years, produced by Dunne heardtheword‘campy’.Ithinkhewasterri- People like the Gary Coopers, Rosalind write,” Dunne says, and pauses. “I call my- but was released after serving two and a fied I would turn out to be gay. That would RussellandLorettaYoungweregreathost- self a closeted bisexual celibate.” Of course half years. Dunne was dragged from the have been the greatest disgrace. He was a esses. We never understood our social he has to have some super-exotic category, courtroom by guards after the judge brilliant heart surgeon. I was a lousy ath- success in Hollywood. I was successful but I say. He laughs. “That’s just the way I am. WhatdoestheRenaissancetableaumean? thanked the jury and Dunne shouted not lete. I never made it on to any team.” He not at the level of the group we moved in. I At 83 it’s too late to start on a new path.” Even the makers of Franklyn, the “British Blade Who is the janitor?) that make it such a tothankthemonhisbehalf. Dunnesayshe laughs. “We were a rich Irish-Catholic always felt I was there more on a pass than Nonsense,Isay,goforit.“I’vegottoomuch Runner”, struggle to tell Kevin Maher what it’s about perplexing experience — one likely to “f***ing ruined” the judge in print, and family in a Waspy town. This was before reality. I would produce this movie with to do asit is,” hesays and, then,ratherfabu- motivate devotion and derision in equal then after Sweeney was released “I was so Jack married Jackie, before Irish became Elizabeth Taylor [Ash Wednesday] and louslyaddsarchly:“I’mstillfuntobewith.” t’s late at night on the cobbled win- video artist called Emilia (also Green) who measure.“ButIlikefilmslikethat,”McMor- crazythat I wentto hire a private detective, respectable. I remember the maid knock- havea glamoroustime inEurope.ButIwas The place Dunne really wants to be, and ter streets of East London, and the has a penchant for filming her own row says, hinting that Franklyn might re- like some cheap movie, to hire a hitman. ing on the door and saying, ‘The hospital is never a producer in charge. I didn’t have relishes in the retelling, is the courtroom. cast and crew of the ambitious new attempted overdoses on camera. Emilia’s quire a second viewing before it begins to That’s how nuts I was. I would never have calling, Dr Dunne.’ He stopped the whip- the balls to go to the front office and say ‘I He talks about bumping into O. J.at his Las Britflick Franklyn are struggling plans for a final reel blowout, however, are reveal itself. “The first thing I did after see- gone through with it.” The private detec- ping, picked up the phone, gave the hospi- wantthis’. Vegastrial lastyear,wheretheformerfoot- with semantics. “It’s a somewhat interrupted when the man in the flat ing Michael Haneke’s Hidden was go back tivetold Dunnenotto doit. tal the relevant instructions, came back “I loved the glamour but could never ball star was sentenced to nine years for arty philosophical science fiction upstairs turns out to be a part-time comic- and see it all over again. I like films that “He said I would end up with a life sen- andpicked uprightwhereheleftoff.” I’ve never forgotten that: several times in figure out my own place within it. It wasn’t numerous crimes, including conspiracy to romance thriller,” says the film’s book anti-hero called Preest (Ryan Phil- draw you back to them, because life isn’t tence. Of course he was right. Instead, I On one occasion he was due to go with my life I’ve been in scary situations I’ve until the success of my novels — The Two commitrobberyandconspiracytocommit 29-year-old star Sam Riley, hands lippe), who lives mostly in a dark future- perfect andthingsdon’t evertieupneatly.” thought I have the power to write about his parents to a hit Broadway play, Hellzap- looked at my fingers and said to that guy, Mrs Grenvilles launched me — that I kidnapping. “The sentence was too heavy deep in raincoat pockets, tongue world that looks like something from a Riley, who has since starred opposite this and I’m very good on television. I don’t oppin’. “For me this was the most exciting hisspirit,‘Helpme’.” thought‘I’mintherightplace’.”Butthereis for the crime but that sentence was for the only half in cheek, as he describes medieval Blade Runner, is called Mean- MickeyRourkeand50Cent(“OrTwoBob, mean that in a braggy way. Rather than thing ever. I told every kid I was going. The Dunne returned from the war on a a qualifying barb. “My brother [John Greg- othercrime,”Dunnesays:thekillingsofhis his first film since playing Ian Curtis of Joy while City and is populated by religious as I like to call him”) in the forthcoming night before we left my father had one of Thursday, cook’s night off, the night when ory Dunne] and sister-in-law [Joan wifeNicoleBrownSimpson,andherfriend IDivision in the award-winning Control. zealots. Russian roulette drama 13, is similarly con- his rages. I couldn’t go. It hurt me so much the family went out to eat. “None of my Didion] were literary celebrities, and they Ron Goldman ofwhich hewasacquitted in ButFranklyn,whosefilmingisduetoculmi- “When you’re writing and putting vinced that we shouldembracethe enigma when they left without me. When they family mentioned what had happened. My were not giving me much applause when I 1995; a judgment against Simpson for their nate this very night in a side street shoot- togethersomethinglikethisyouknowthat inFranklyn,nothidefromit.“Youcomeout returned I wasn’t distant. I was filled with olderbrotherwastheglamorousone.They saidthatwasIwasgoingtobewriter.” wrongful deaths was awarded in civil court out and rain-soaked reconciliation, is it’s not going to be easy for the marketing ofitgoing,‘I’mnotreallysurewhatI’vejust smiles. It was fake. I was determined never were used to me as the guy who put on the He says his marriage to Lenny crumbled in1997. proving impossibly difficult to explain, to department,” explains McMurrow, 38, seen’,” he says. “It’s the alternative to the to let him see me cry.” Only later in life, puppet show in the basement for the girls becauseoftheirhigh-voltagesociallife:nei- “Isawwhathe[O. J.]didtoNicoleBrown distilortoquantify. whocuthisteethonpoppromosforCatato- alternative.” when he was married, did he ask his in the neighbourhood. In the lobby of the ther of them entertained again (apart from Simpson, her head was held on by three The movie, which follows four separate niaandcommercialsforAOLbeforedirect- Thomas, who won a Best Picture Oscar mother why his father had treated him like club the mother of a friend of mine put her “friends for dinner”)after that elysian Hol- inches of skin. The very back of her head yet intertwined narrative journeys that ing the award-winning short Thespian X (a for The Last Emperor, says that he has no that. “She said that it hadn’t happened. arms around me and said: ‘Do you have lywood spell: “I have a big terrace in my was totally open. It’s like Al Capone. He weave through both contemporary futuristic sci-fi parable). “But you have to illusions about how Franklyn will fare Totaldenial.Ilet itpass.” any idea how proud we are of you?’ I New York apartment and could have 100 killed a lot of people, but they could never London andafuturisticdystopia,is,saysits retain a certain naivety, not worry about when dropped into the marketplace Dunne went to war and returned, at 18, a started to cry. Isn’t it funny it had to come peopleoverfordrinksbutIdon’t.” gethim sogothimon incometaxevasion.” producer Jeremy Thomas (Sexy Beast), that,andjustkeepgoing.” against “traditional” comic-book extrava- hero, or as he puts it, “Of all the things the from an outsider and that I felt like an out- Lenny, he says, grew not to like him. He pauses. “I always get to the court- “Genre-busting, genre-bending and gen- This, he adds, mostly involved using the ganzas such as Watchmen (“It had 20 times cissy kid got saluted by a general”. His pic- sider in my own family? But I knew the “The problem with that marriage was me. room early. I found that O. J. was an early re-breaking.It’sa genreofno genre.” movie’s £7 million budget to transform our budget”), but that he still hopes to find ture was in the papers, “but to this day I ability to do what I did meant I was much She had really loved me. She was great . . . I bird too. I wrote really tough about him. I Over in the corner, the 28-year-old Londonlocationsintocrediblefuturespac- an audience. “I never intended this film to don’t know how the f*** I did what I did. morethanwhatmyfathermademefeel.” f***ed that up. After Dominique’s murder, was sort of nervous about meeting him. He Casino Royale Bond girl Eva Green has a es. The rooftops of the Victoria & Albert challenge Watchmen or Batman,” he says. Myonegoodbuddy,Hank,wasalsoaprep- His first job in Hollywood, alongside she was very ill with multiple sclerosis, she wanted me to know how well the children go. “It’s a metaphysical movie about fate,” Museum played a part in a key nightscape “It’slike the corner shop trying to deal with pie kid, but he was much tougher than me. Sean Penn’s father, was as a stage manager was in such enormous pain but showed weredoing.HesaidthatSydney,hisdaugh- the pale-eyed beauty says. “People who scene, while Greenwich Naval College Tesco. But that doesn’t mean that the We were in retreat in the Battle of the for a 1950s TV show. Then he became a TV such bravery. We attended the trial ter, was at Boston University and No 1 in only know me as Vesper from Bond are becameMeanwhileCity’smainstreet. cornershopcan’tbeverysuccessful.” Bulge.Itwasablacknight:rain,mud,every- andfilm producerbutnota prolificone. He together and we became closer than ever her class. He was so proud of her. I’m goingtobequiteshocked.” Both hot up-and-comers, Riley and McMorrow, in the meantime, shows no thing. Somebody said: ‘Lieutenant, there still loves “the stardust”, as he puts it. because our talk wasn’t about parties and always touched by father-daughter stories Her writer-director, the promo and Green leapt at the chance to steer away signs of restraining his wilder impulses, are two men shot back there,’ but our lieu- who was sitting next to whom. We were in for obvious reasons. But then I thought commercials veteran Gerald McMorrow, from themainstream.Greensays: “Ihadn’t and is working on three new projects, tenantsaidhisordersweretoretreat.Hank themiddle oflifeat itsworst.” about what he did. It wasn’t just killing strolls by and offers: “It’san urban fairytale donemuchandhada lottoprove,so some- including a full-length animation and a and I just looked at each other, then we ran His son Alex was close to Dominique somebody.It wasmadness.” fantasydrama, with a parallel world aspect thing like this was far more challenging thriller about Native Americans, but set in back towards the approaching Germans I loved the glamour and has only recently come back into their Hejustlovesbeinginonitall,Isay.“Ifeel toit.” and better for your soul than the big movie You come out of Manhattan. He says that he hopes Frank- without any sense of direction and we lives.“Hewasthe shyone. Hevanished. He sharp,” Dunne says. “Does that sound Cut to 14 months later and the prospect machines.” lyn will show other aspiring British film- found these guys in a field. I carried this but could never became bipolar and wouldn’t take his conceitedtosay?Ijustwanttoknowevery- of pigeonholing Franklyn remains elusive. Surprisingly, the finished Franklyn actu- it going: ‘I’m not makers that they can do more besides man,Iwascoveredwithhisblood,covered. ‘‘ medication. We didn’t see him for eight thing.” Don’t expect him to slip quietly into The movie’s narrative ostensibly follows a ally makes a lot of sense. The seemingly ‘‘ “Richard Curtis comedies and mockney figure out my own really sure what Wefinally found a doctor in the Red Cross, years. People would say, ‘Oh we’ve seen thenightanytime soon. gloomy lover called Milo (Riley) who has disparate narrative strands mostly come gangster movies. Youcan getout there and andweputthemonstretchers. place within it Alex in Cairo or the Philippines’. He’s Dominick Dunne: After the Party is been jilted at the altar, but who catches together in a satisfying closing act. And yet I’ve just seen start experimenting, tell stranger, weirder “The last thing I saw was this guy reach- happy and married now.” And he speaks released on February 16 in association glimpses of an old childhood sweetheart, it’s the thematic hints, the narrative frac- stories.Andifitdoesn’tworkit’snotadisas- ing out, and squeezing the first two fingers lovingly of his granddaughter too, study- with joiningthedots.tv, the online docu- Sally (Green), drifting through his London tures and the curious visual diversions ter.It’sjust important tobeabletotry.” of my hand — his way of saying thank you. ’’ ing inFlorence. mentaryinitiativefromMercuryMedia haunts. Sally is the double of a suicidal (what were those tattoos on his back? ’’ Franklynis releasedonFeb27