It Isn't Over, Not When It's Dunne
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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.