I picked up Dominick Dunne's Memoir The Way We Lived Then: Recollections of a Well-Known Name Dropper, thinking I'd read the occasional chapter. However, once I started the book, I couldn't put it down, and I stayed up reading till it was Dunne. I mean
done.

Dunne moved to Hollywood as a young man, working as a TV and movie producer. His true obsession, however, was giving and attending parties for the rich & famous. The first 150 or so pages of the book read like an extended bout of name-dropping; and one
would be skeptical of some of it if Dunne had not obsessively documented everything with his good photography. (His favorite subjects as a photographer include Natalie Wood, Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor, and Mia Farrow) Then came Dunne's fall and
eventual re-invention as a writer of roman a' clefs/crime reporter/host of Power, Privilege and Justice.

It seems that just about anyone who was Hollywood or European royalty in the 1960s appeared at the Dunnes' parties -- including the Beatles. And there's an interesting photograph of the Fabs seated, surrounded by a plethora of Hollywood types, while
Dunne's three children greet the lads. McCartney is sweetly engaging Dunne's daughter Dominique (who was murdered in the 80s) in some sort of dialogue.

Dunne notes that his son Griffin "worshipped" John Lennon, and later attended the candlelight vigil outside the Dakota upon JL's murder.

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