was in mid-sentence, trying to commit to words the facets of a particularly
intriguing idea. Writers know how fragile and fleeting such inspirational
pearls can be. The slightest distraction can hurl them into the ages, lost forever. Just when I thought I had it in my grasp,
the phone rang.
My wife Terry answered and stuck her head around the
corner from the kitchen. “It’s Dominick Dunne,” she whispered. Suddenly,
the pearl became utterly forgettable. I picked up the phone and introduced
myself to an extraordinary man.
That was in 1992.
Dunne had been seated next to my mother at a dinner party. Between mouthfuls of gourmet fare, he expressed interest in writing a book about the Martha Moxley murder case. Martha had been brutally murdered in Greenwich, Connecticut, where I lived. My mother told him I knew a great deal about the case, and suggested he give me a call.
During
that first conversation with Nick—and many others spent discussing
the sordid details of the murder, the power to excess of a notable
New England family, and how disgusted we both were that justice
had been mooned for almost 20 years—he was very laid back and remarkably
easy to talk to. There were no airs whatsoever. It was if we’d known
each other for some time.
Like Dunne, I have long been fascinated by the intricacies, details and nuances of complicated
criminal cases. I had studied some law and I'd studied and written extensively about the JFK
assassination, Kennedy politics and power, and the family.
The Moxley murder suspects from the start
had been the Skakel brothers. Since Ethel Kennedy (nee Skakel), widow
of Senator Robert Kennedy, was their aunt, the tie-in to the Moxley
murder was a natural extension of what I already knew and certainly worth a little extra scrutiny.
I had closely followed the Moxley case, been
involved in volunteering to help find the missing shaft of the golf
club (the end with the fingerprints on it), and was working at Greenwich
Hospital when Martha was brought to the morgue there.
What perplexed me in particular was that she was
brought to, and autopsied at, the Greenwich Hospital morgue by the
state medical examiner. Autopsies in murder cases were done
at the Medical Examiner's forensic lab in Farmington, Connecticut,
not a local hospital. That's when I began to suspect foul play on
top of foul play. It was but the tip of the ice burg.
I gave Nick the bizarre and grotesque details of the case, explained why I had serious questions about the investigation and offered to do all I could to help, wishing to play any role possible to bring Martha's family some form of closure.
Nick's book about the case, A Season in Purgatory, tugged at the single loose thread that started the unraveling of a rich-and-powerful cocoon protecting Michael Skakel, who has since been convicted and is serving twenty-to-life for Martha’s murder.
No one has a greater right to claim responsibility for serving up justice in this case than has Dominick Dunne. But this wasn’t the first case that motivated him to shine a light on those who grasp for immunity through money and power. His genuine and relentless pursuit of justice has driven him for the entire second half of his life.
BACK TO TOP
Backdrop
 or this indomitable soul, life has been like biking down
a washboard dirt road—jarring, scary and impossibly thrilling. He’s
seen the world from envied pinnacles, and valleys so low they blister
the imagination. But he has always risen above to carve out a life
most people would find suitably fictitious, but hopelessly short on chance. Since early childhood,
Dunne has proven himself a model survivor, an accomplished self-re-inventor.
He’s a straight-talking Nutmegger who suffers no charlatans and lays bare the wicked. The latter he does with abandon. He scratches incessantly at an itchy impatience for justice, spawned by cruel and wrenching personal tragedy. His accounts of celebrity trials in novel form have been read by millions, and his many columns about the well-known and well-to-do have been de rigueur for untold numbers of readers of Vanity Fair’s cologned pages. He also has his own TV show, Power, Privilege and Justice, on Court TV (Wednesdays at 10:00 PM Eastern), on which he reviews cases that fall within his purview.
 Nick's roots and family are classically New England.
His well-heeled parents—his father a famous heart surgeon, and his
mother a prized debutante—were both Connecticutters. They were aristocratic,
but without the necessary pedigree. As wealthy Irish Catholics,
they found themselves ever on the cusp of a Hartford high society
whose true wink-and-nod acceptance they could not gain.
Anxious to leave Hartford after a childhood
gnarly and troublesome, Nick was drawn to New York's TV
lights, and then to Hollywood's garish lights. There he carved out
a niche among movie stars and heartily indulged his obsession: celebrity.
Though he'd left New England, New England had not left
him, and when his idyllic Hollywood lifestyle viscously collapsed around
him, it was to Connecticut and New York that he returned.
Connecticut was—and still is today—Dominick
Dunne's home. He has a New York apartment, the necessary perch from
which to spy the glitter, but it's in Connecticut that he prefers
to write his novels, and it's easy to see why. There's distinct
serenity at his cozy and inviting house; a Corinthian oasis filled
with books of all manner and description. The Da Vinci Code
sits atop a pile of books on the coffee table. Neatly beside it,
another pile is topped by a pictorial biography of Marilyn Monroe.
There's no doubt. He feels safer here from the indignities that have so hacked at his soul. He's come full circle, and "what a long, strange trip it's been."
Hardscrabble Road, Bitter Deliverance
n his youth, Nick Dunne found athleticism a burdensome
gambit for which he had no aptitude, much to his patrician father’s consternation. That made him an attractive dinner-table target—his
father aiming for the bulls eye in Nick’s sensitivity. Nonetheless, he dug in his heels and performed far better in the entertainment field than did his siblings on the football field.
His fabled Hollywood life began as a fluke and mushroomed in stature to others’ envy. An invitation to one of Nick and wife, Lenny’s, Hollywood parties was highly prized. But, as glorious as it was, it all ebbed badly, and the low tide that quickly followed stank.
BACK TO TOP
 Hollywood
was and is a social bonfire. Dominick Dunne played with it and suffered
third-degree burns to 100% of his psyche. It would become a large
back-monkey, it’s addictiveness both potent and consuming. And addiction
to that led to dependence on alcohol and cocaine. That volatile mix
in turn put loud, scandalous words in Nick’s mouth at well-attended
cocktail parties—words derogatory, yet honest, about some well-known
people. The Hollywood elite was not amused and it characteristically
rejected him.
In addition, the obsession with tinsel brought with it a ravenous financial appetite. Party expenses drained the Dunne’s resources to exsanguination. Soon gone were his wife, his reputation, his status, his confidence, his fortune, his convertible Mercedes and very nearly his life.
Bitter, rejected and black-balled, Nick realized that he somehow had to exorcise his demons. He slumped into an old Ford and headed due north to the Cascade Mountains for wound licking, respite and introspection. But a flat tire intervened, and for the ensuing six months he lived in an Oregon cabin with no phone and no TV. More importantly, there was no booze, no cocaine and no Hollywood.
During that half year, Nick reclaimed his life and essence, and re-defined and honed his raison d’etre. He also killed the back-monkeys on his own—no swanky clinics, no doctors; nothing to numb withdrawal's nagging sting. He returned briefly to LA, shook the dust from his sandals and headed to New York, where destiny was pouring the foundation of his future.
Thespian Bloodlines
In addition to his writing, he has been a movie
actor and producer, a tradition handed down to his son, Griffin,
who co-starred in An
American Werewolf in London and who writes, produces
and directs movies himself, including Addicted
to Love, which he directed, and in which Nick
appeared. Nick’s daughter, Dominique, is perhaps best known for
her role as Dana Freeling in the movie Poltergeist.
She had landed a major part in V,
the NBC miniseries, and had begun filming when
she was savagely murdered by ex-boyfriend, John Sweeney. In a jealous
rage, he strangled her on October 30, 1982, the same night,
seven years later, when Martha Moxley had been killed.
Nick’s coverage of the ensuing trial marked the
first milestone of his second life and an enduring memorial to
his daughter. His account in Vanity
Fair helped set the style for that magazine under
Tina Brown’s editorship. (Brown was the foundation of what Vanity
Fair is today—a great, highbrow, bling-bling icon about
tony influentials.)
The trial coverage also produced the first of many novels that poked
up through the filthy soil covering bad-acting types who hire mega-lawyers
to deflect justice.
BACK TO TOP
There’s not a lot of gray when people paint their
impressions of Dominick Dunne. People either love him or hate him,
the former enamored of a charming, funny man who can tell stories
enthrallingly, the latter appalled by an honesty at times brutal.
But no matter how one feels, Dunne is worthy of the utmost respect.
He’s squeezed ashes into diamonds throughout his life; a life admirable
for its doggedness, if for nothing else. Having endured what Nick
has, a tailpipe hosing would seem the only painkiller to others
more brittle. But not for him, not that he didn’t mull it. His brother’s
suicide, however, sobered that notion. Instead, he broke through
unimaginable gloom and despair to become one of America's most popular
authors.
This is the story of his life as told by Dominick
Dunne to NewEnglandTimes.Com exclusively.
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Edmund Wilson quote, The Great American Bathroom Reader, Copyright © 1997 by James Charlton Associates.
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