The way we lived then Book

I didn't go looking for this book. It's one of those thrift store finds that drew me in. It's in the "oh hell, why not?" category. It's also not one of those books you're going to want to save when you're running from some natural or manmade disaster as your house or apartment complex or tipi explodes into toothpicks behind you. Not even close.

Dominick Dunne is an interesting character. He makes no bones about who he was and what he was after. He admits fairly early on in this memoir that he intended to be a starfucker (or as close a thing to that as he could become) and his nisus was clearly "Hollywood or Slow, Shameful Death" from day one. And for a small town boy from a prosperous family with no real entertainment biz connections, he did very, very well for himself. For a time, he was a producer of somewhat high renown and regard. He was known for throwing the best, most lavish parties. He spared no expense, although much of the money spent on these excesses came from his heiress wife, whose family grew vicariously resentful as they cast cold eyes on the proceedings. Maybe they noticed that he was increasingly treating his loving wife and children as props.

On the occasion of one particularly memorable party, the young children were sent to a hotel for a weekend with a nanny so that the Hollywood elite might swarm the redecorated premises. That party called for a redesign of the baronial home's exterior, a change which remained in place for years as a grace note of Dunne's nostalgia for that black-and-white themed party. Dunne would always remind anyone who would listen that Capote, who attended the party, later copied its theme for a hugely-hyped soiree of his own overflowing with A-listers and then shamelessly failed to invite Dunne and his wife to the event. If you wish to summon Dunne's ghost to a seance, commiserating with his spirit on this would be excellent bait. It clearly rankled to the end.

And then slowly Dunne became a lifestyle casualty, an addict, and did very poorly indeed and was drummed out of the town. His comedown was somewhat legendary in the business. People seemed to relish turning their backs on him and vilifying him. Frank Sinatra once paid a waiter to go over to Dunne's table in a club and punch him in the mouth. The waiter apologized before and after the punch. Frank was a creepy fuck.

Dominick is quite comfortable admitting most of his shortcomings and delivering a bastinado to himself. Perhaps this is because he had a successful second act in his life as a crime writer and a somewhat disheveled third act as a crime journalist. Hollywood came calling again when they wanted to adapt his books into movies, so he had that to enjoy. This book ends just as that second act is beginning and those years are not covered in the memoir itself.

For those who love old Hollywood and the early days of television, the book is chock-a-block with photographs taken by Dunne himself and some of the photographers he commissioned to document his various soirees, Malibu beach parties and such. Many of the stars that were household names in Dunne's lifetime are already dim dwarfs fading in heavens no longer visited. Dunne's penchant for taking too many pictures earned him persona non grata status among some royals (Nickie loved his royals) and celebrities. He was a little obsessive and stalkerish about it, apparently. He admits as much. It cost him some friendships. He never quite lost his fanboy ways and fawning manner. This grated on some people who needed to feel they were only ever among peers.

Although Dunne is happy to confess everything and tell you where the bodies are hidden, he leaves a whopper out of the book. He does not out himself as a bisexual (or gay) man. But it amazes me that it might have taken ten years for this "secret" to come out in his marriage when he does things like spend extended time living in a South American villa with Gore Vidal and Anais Nin. It becomes pretty apparent that he always wanted to be Truman Capote, his beloved nemesis, whose In Cold Blood neo-genre suggested Dunne's future career direction after Hollywood shitcanned him. His Hollywood career ended because he insulted one of the chief power players of the day at a drunken dinner. It didn't help that this happened in the context of making a really awful film with Elizabeth Taylor that went excessively over budget.

Playwright Mart Crowley was a great friend of Dunne's and they ran together fairly constantly. Dunne was instrumental in getting Crowley the film adaptation of his only well-known work. This book sheds light on which actors and actresses ran with the gay, hardly closeted crowd. Dunne partied with these people, then went home to the mansion and the family, assuming the veneer of respectable heterosexuality so that he might continue working in a business that really brooked no queerness unless it was a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" actor like Roddy McDowall. Natalie Wood, for one, clearly loved "the gays." She lived for them, in fact. I'm surprised Dunne doesn't drop hints about Robert Wagner, since practically everyone does these days. But I guess he had his reasons.

Dunne isn't a bad writer and this book has its superficial charm. But even as the author disavows his slavish devotion to people who were often better artists than they were human beings, you sense he still wants to lick up the vomit of the party that did him in. If you get a chance to see the documentary After the Party, check it out. It reprises much of what is in this book and it shows you quite a bit more of Dunne's second (and third) acts. Dunne finally got to share in the celebrity he coveted all his life when Vanity Fair made him a star by publishing his true crime articles. And he later snagged a job hosting a television show dedicated to the same. He delivered his monologues like a grumpy grandpa late for the restroom. People seemed to like it. If you really look at the quality of his "journalism," you come to realize he could have benefited from some proper training. He knew how to write heady, spinny prose that increased Vanity Fair's readership. His specialty was the fall from grace narrative. Champagne to iron cot stuff. He wasn't so great on checking facts and writing the truth. This led to a number of high-profile lawsuits which led to the end of the Vanity Fair gig.

You sense that Dunne knew by the end that his priorities might have been out-of-whack in this life. He suffered some of the tragedies we pretty much all will face at one point or another, but he also experienced some most of us will never face. His lovely and loving daughter, Dominique Dunne, was killed by her boyfriend shortly after she was in the blockbuster Poltergeist. The miscarriage of justice that ensued is actually what led to Dunne's third act as a crime journalist.

Dunne's sister-in-law, Joan Didion, always spoke generously of his talents as a writer. One senses she was being kind to a man she knew had suffered considerable losses. Dunne himself was more clear-eyed about his own place in literature. He recognized that he wrote decently in a certain genre and that his books had their place and that might not be the literary empyrean. You might end up liking "Nick" because he does sound like the sort of man who could make an absolutely amazing go of it, were he given another life to live. He did some good. He did some harm. He learned from his mistakes. In that sense, this book is a portrait of an Everyman. But this Everyman wanted to capture all the pretty birds in his gilded cage and photograph them. And this he did. For a brief while.