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ShareThey shared a name, and, it appears, a sort-of friendship. Big-time, big-name journalist Dominick Dunne, who died last week aged 83, is remembered in this article in The Australian by his friend and fellow journo, Dominic Dunne. Dunne, with a “c”, writes of his initial meeting with the other Dunne, and Dunne’s interest in the man with his name.
On that meeting:
I thanked him for making the time to meet me, and he replied, “I wanted to see what the other Dominic Dunne was like.” He wrote in my copy of The Two Mrs Grenvilles, “To Dominic Dunne from Dominick Dunne, in confusion”.
Dunne’s obit is not the first time he’s commented in the Australian on his connections with Dominick Dunne. A year ago, he wrote this article, which offers just a little bit more about this interesting partnership, and how Dominick effected Dominic:
Certainly, plenty of eyes were cast his way as we sat in the bar of a plush hotel in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I ordered him mineral water, and the same for me, out of deference to his status as a reformed alcoholic. (I recently learned that his house in Connecticut is full of booze. He just doesn’t drink it.) He’d just flown back to New York from Paris, and I was visiting New York from Sydney. As we sat facing each other, I understood why he had become such a celebrated chronicler: his skill was to listen, watch and absorb. For my part, it felt rather like a one-way conversation… When I was living in Washington, barely a week went by when someone didn’t comment about my name: “Are you the Dominick Dunne?” The fact that I was Australian and 40 years younger didn’t seem to bother people.
Dominick Dunne’s final novel, Too Much Money is out in December from Crown. (Dominic Dunne is very hard to research.)
