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Author Dominick Dunne Dies at 83

Author Dominick Dunne, who told stories of shocking crimes among the rich and famous through his magazine articles and best-selling novels such as "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," died Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 83.

Actor-director Griffin Dunne said in a statement released by Vanity Fair that his father had been battling bladder cancer for some time. But the cancer did not prevent Dunne from working and socializing, his twin passions.

In September 2008, against the orders of his doctor and the wishes of his family, he flew 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.

Dominick Dunne 1925-2009

"He was a legal analyst before the phrase was invented, the larger-than-life precursor to those of us who came much later and who walked much more softly upon the terrain he covered," said CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen. "He was a loud and very polished voice for those consumers of trial news who wanted more than just the Xs and Os of the courtroom and he had a style all his own."

"He delighted in the blend of law and celebrity; his stunning incisive work on the first and most famous OJ Simpson trial inspired a new generation of lawyers and journalists to try to become tribunes of the law," Cohen added. "But few who came after him had the access to celebrities and the powerful as he did and he never let you forget it."

In the past year, Dunne had traveled to Germany and The Dominican Republic for experimental stem cell treatments to fight his cancer. At one point, he wrote that he and Farrah Fawcett were in the same cancer clinic in Bavaria but did not see 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. He also made a number of appearances to promote a documentary film about his life, "After the Party," which was being released on DVD.

Dunne was beginning to write his memoirs and, until close to the end of his life, he posted online messages on his own Web site commenting on events in his life and thanking his fans for their constant support.

"He essentially created a new form of legal journalism, the diary form, in which he would string together snippets of news and information about cases and trials in a way made you feel as a reader that he was writing only to you. No one had done that before and no one has since," Cohen said.

Earlier this summer, he was well enough to attend a Manhattan party hosted by Tina Brown. Chatting with an Associated Press reporter, Dunne recalled being treated for cancer at a hospital in Germany where Fawcett was also a patient. He also spoke of Michael Jackson, who had recently died, and remembered lunching with the singer and Elizabeth Taylor. Jackson was so excited to see her, Dunne said, he presented her with a diamond necklace just for the occasion.

Dunne was part of a famous family that also included his brother, novelist and screenwriter John Gregory Dunne; his brother's wife, author Joan Didion; and his son, Griffin.

A one-time movie producer, Dunne 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 - and that experience informed his fiction and his journalistic efforts from then on.

"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. I intended for Gus (the character in the book) to kill the guy. But when I got to that part I couldn't write it. He wounds him and goes to prison himself for a couple of years."

He was as successful as a journalist as he was as a novelist and spent many of his later years in courtrooms covering 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.

"You're talking about kids who had everything - the cars, the tennis courts, swimming pools, credit cards. And yet this happened," he said at the time of the Menendez trial.

As much as those trials riveted the nation, they were far overshadowed in 1994 when football great O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. With a trial that stretched out over a year and cable TV outlets providing endless coverage, the bespectacled Dunne became a familiar face to millions.

"I especially like to watch the jurors," Dunne explained to Fox TV during the trial. "I always pick out about four jurors who become my favorites. I sort of try to anticipate what they are thinking and how they are reacting."

He called his book on the Simpson trial, "Another City, Not My Own," "a novel in the form of a memoir." It, too, reached the best-seller lists.

"Every word is true, but it's written in the style of a novel," he said.

From the gritty world of the courtroom during the day, he would move into the glamorous realm of high society at night, dining with the rich and famous, charming them with his inside stories of the Simpson trial.

He was a colorful raconteur and his stories mesmerized listeners. He was a much sought after dinner guest on both coasts and in the glamour capitals of Europe where he frequently traveled. 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, "Power, Privilege and Justice."

"I am openly pro-prosecution and make no bones about it," he told the San Francisco Chronicle that year. "I don't think there are enough people out there sticking up for victims."

The show gave him an added dose of celebrity when it was distributed in foreign countries.

He had already been working on "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," a fictionalized retelling of a sensational 1950s society murder, when his 22-year-old daughter Dominique was strangled by her former boyfriend, John Sweeney, in 1982, shortly after she had completed her first movie, "Poltergeist."

Sweeney was convicted only of voluntary manslaughter, not murder, and was freed after serving less than four years of a six-year sentence. The verdict was seen as a major victory for the defense, and Dunne bitterly told the judge in court, "you withheld important information from this jury about this man's history of violent behavior." He later told the Los Angeles Times the sentence was "a tap on the wrist."

In a 1985 AP interview, Dunne said he nearly stopped writing when Dominique was slain.

"I was going to stop the book," Dunne said. "I didn't want to do a book that dealt with a murder. But my book editor wouldn't let me quit. She was incredibly sympathetic and lenient on time. I'm glad now that she didn't let me quit."

"People Like Us" and "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" were both turned into miniseries, and he stressed he had nothing to do with the changes the TV scriptwriters made.

"If I had wanted it that way, I would have written it that way," Dunne told TV Guide, referring to changes made in the key character in "People Like Us" to make him more sympathetic.

Among his other books were the 1993 "A Season in Purgatory," that helped revive interest in the 1975 slaying of teenager Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Conn. A Kennedy relative, Michael Skakel, was convicted in the killing in 2002.

He also wrote "An Inconvenient Woman" and "The Mansions of Limbo."

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