It was a party Dominick Dunne would have loved: the
dinner at the Plaza Hotel's newly renovated Oak Room after the screening of the
documentary about his life and career: “After the Party.” But the bespectacled
writer who perfected the genre of celebrity “true crime” journalism was in
hospital. Tina Brown read his statement as the ailing writer prepared for
surgery: “Only a catheter in a very private place could keep me from
personally welcoming you to the documentary that Kirsty DeGaris and Tim Jolley”
have made. So, his sister-in-law Joan Didion (FSG has just reissued her
brilliant essay collection “Slouching Toward Bethlehem”), Nora Ephron, Patricia
Duff, Tony Peck, Harold Evans, and many others enjoyed the fine turbot without
him. British novelist Ian McEwan crossed the pond to report on our election.
“Well done, said the author of “Atonement,” ” and a personal favorite, “The
Child in Time.” Good thing we caught up with Dunne at the Hamptons
International Film Festival, where Alec Baldwin and others feted him, and
congratulated him for his candor: He was not the best husband, or father, as his filmmaker son
attests in the excellent documentary. Australian writer Kirsty DeGaris had
interviewed Dunne for a magazine piece and realized what a window into American
culture he was, going after the celebrities who seemed to be (and were) getting
away with murder. Of course that preoccupation comes from personal tragedy.
Available at dominickdunne.net Oregon Thunder Road the biopic skillfully
tells how Dunne found his voice after he and his wife Lenny separated, how he
holed up in
and began to write. Then pushing misfortune into tragedy, his beloved daughter
Dominique was killed by her boyfriend. How does one outlive one's child under
this circumstance? Dunne's response was to investigate similar crimes in
“Vanity Fair Magazine.” From Phil Spector to Michael Skakel to O.J. Simpson,
none of their excuses would fly with Dominick Dunne. Heal well, party boy!
Meantime, at Town Hall the Bob Woodruff Foundation was celebrating the fine
work of our war heroes, many of whom attended, uniformed, some in wheelchairs.
Bruce Springsteen sang; his duet with wife Patti Scialfa on “” was particularly great-- as
Regis Philbin told jokes to the crowd: Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Brian Williams,
Felicia Taylor, Christiane Amanpour, Jane Krakowski, Caroline Hirsch, among
them. And then Bruce told some jokes. By the time Whoopi Goldberg took the
stage with Sotheby's auctioneer Jamie Niven, to raise the stakes on Bruce's
1993 Harley with leather jacket thrown in to sweeten the pot, she feared that
he would upstage her. As the bidding rose on that bike, she offered to ride
with the winner. Bruce also donated the guitar he had just played for this
important event. We know he is generous, but can he tell a joke? Let's just
say, he had an unusual way to cure the problem of husbands' snoring, involving
tying a ribbon around the old oak tree, if you get my drift
Regina Weinreich
Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura
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