Born: 29-Oct-1925
Birthplace: Hartford, CT

Gender: Male
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Author, Journalist, Novelist
Party Affiliation: Democratic

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: High society novelist and true crime writer

Military service: U.S. Army (World War II)

As a child, Dominick Dunne says he was beaten by his father for his "sissy" attempts at writing plays and staging puppet shows. He attended the exclusive private Canterbury School, then joined the Army and fought in World War II's 41-day Battle of the Bulge. After the war he attended college and worked as a stage manager for The Howdy-Doody Show and other late 1950s series, gradually evolving into a film producer, perhaps best known for the bleak addiction drama The Panic in Needle Park. After a decade hosting grand parties in Hollywood, he turned his attention to writing novels set among the upper class, and -- after his daughter's murder in 1982 -- mystery novels and reports from the trials of Claus von Bulow, William Kennedy Smith, and Erik and Lyle Menendez. He covered the trial of O. J. Simpson for Vanity Fair, describing it as "the biggest news story that's ever been", and wrote the afterword for Simpson's controversial If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer. For implicating Gary Condit in the murder of Chandra Levy he was sued, and settled with an apology and an undisclosed payment to Condit.

His ex-wife Ellen Dunne was a co-founder of the activist group Justice for Homicide Victims; their daughter was actress Dominique Dunne, and their son is actor-director Griffin Dunne. Dominick Dunne's brother was author John Gregory Dunne and his sister-in-law is author Joan Didion.

Father: Richard Edwin Dunne (cardiologist)
Mother: Dorothy Frances Burns Dunne
Brother: John Gregory Dunne (author)
Wife: Ellen Beatriz Griffin-Dunne ("Lenny", b. 28-Jan-1932, m. 24-Apr-1954, div. 1965, d. 9-Jan-1997, three children)
Son: Griffin Dunne (actor-director, b. 8-Jun-1955)
Son: Alex Dunne (social worker, b. circa 1957)
Daughter: Dominique Dunne (actress, b. 23-Nov-1959, d. 4-Nov-1982 murder)

    High School: Canterbury School, New Milford, CT
    University: Williams College

    Bronze Star 1945
    Irish Ancestry
    Risk Factors: Alcoholism, Marijuana

Author of books:
Winners (1982, novel, with Joyce Haber)
The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1985, novel)
Fatal Charms and Other Tales of Today and the Mansions of Limbo (1987, essays)
People Like Us (a.k.a. Jet Set) (1988, novel)
An Inconvenient Woman (1990, novel)
The Mansions of Limbo (1991, essays)
A Season in Purgatory (1993, novel)
Another City, Not My Own (1997, novel)
The Way We Lived Then: Recollections of A Well-Known Name Dropper (1999, memoir)
Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments (2001, nonfiction)

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