Timehost: We're very pleased to be joined tonight by the well-known writer and chronicler of life among the high and mighty...Dominick Dunne, Vanity Fair contributing editor and special correspondent. Mr. Dunne's most recent book is a piercing look at Hollywood titled The Way We Lived Then. Welcome, Mr. Dunne!

Dominick Dunne: Thank you very much. That was a beautiful introduction. I am happy and delighted to be here and hope that I can answer all your questions.

Timehost: To start things off, could you give us a brief overview of your book and how you came to write it?

Dominick Dunne: When I was a very young person I knew that I wanted to live a life of glamour and the circumstances of my life were such that the steps along the way just sort of fell in. At college I became great friends with Stephen Sondheim. I also met the famous diarist Anais Nin. Everything seemed to be moving me closer and closer to the world of the famous. I ultimately got there through TV. I moved to Hollywood. I was aware that I was leading a life and having access to a world that very few people got to see. I was not yet a writer. I didn't start to write until after I was fifty years old. At the time of this book, I was in my late twenties. I began to want to record it even though I wasn't a writer So I kept copious scrapbooks, saved telegrams, and other bits of information. And out of these 16 scrapbooks, I decided to write this book.

photographer7833 asks: Are there pictures in the book that subjects, friends, or their families didn't want you to publish? Are there photos that you've held back because you think they're too private?

Dominick Dunne: Well, they've been held back not because they were too private but because it never occurred to me to publish them. If there are people who dislike having their picture in it, I certainly havenÕt head from any of them. This is a very kind book about the people whom I took photographs of in those years.

lovyababy6465 asks: What's the key to getting to know all the famous people you've known?

Dominick Dunne: I canÕt tell you that because I really donÕt know. It's absolutely stunned me that that has happened to me. I was a stage manager in live television. I worked with a lot of famous stars who were trying out this new medium. One of them was Humphrey Bogart, who heard about me and asked for me. And that was initially how I got to know the famous people -- I worked for them. Bogart would ask me to go to his house for rehearsals so that I could run lines with him.

Timehost: Can you tell us a little bit about whether Bogart was the same in person as his public image?

Dominick Dunne: I can only tell you this about Humphrey Bogart: he was extremely kind to me. There were a lot big stars who hardly noticed the less important people around them But he was very very kind to me. We used to have great talks. I rehearsed with him for three weeks before we shot. It was a live television performance of The Petrified Forest, starring Bogart, Henry Fonda, and Lauren Bacall, who was Bogart's wife. Bogart invited me to his house and to a party that he gave, he and Betty Bacall. That was extraordinary behavior because I ranked so far below them But those kind of things kept happening to me.

andrew93_2000 asks: Which modern star would have the hardest time surviving in the Hollywood of thirty years ago? or vice versa, which Hollywood star of the 60s would not be in the movies today?

Dominick Dunne: I never know how to answer those. I was fortunate enough to see the last of the studio system. I was under contract to 20th Century Fox when Darryl Zanuck was head of the studio and Marilyn Monroe was queen of the lot and I saw first-hand how actors under contract were trained and coached and taught how to dress and taught how to deal with the media. None of that exists today. Personally, I sort of like the dress up of the olden days, though I think they are starting to dress up more nowadays. But I was amazed to see that Tom Cruise went to the premiere of Eyes Wide Shut a highly anticipated movie, in a sweater and a t-shirt but no shirt. That simply wouldn't have happened under the old system.

Louisk39 asks: Was Marilyn Monroe really a dumb blond? or was that an act? Was the gossip true about her and either John or Robert Kennedy?

Dominick Dunne: To answer the second part first, I firmly believe that it was true that Marilyn was involved with both brothers. And possibly in love with the President. She was not a dumb blonde at all. She was troubled. She took too many pills. She was also incredibly nice. She was much loved on the Fox lot, but despised by the front office because it took so many takes for her to act.

mbk7 asks: Did Frank Sinatra really hate Peter Lawford?

Dominick Dunne: For years, they were great and close friends. Way before the Rat Pack, they were friends. Peter Lawford was Frank Sinatra's entree into the family, as Peter was married to a Kennedy, Patricia Kennedy. After Jack Kennedy became president, he had promised to spend a long weekend at Frank Sinatra's house in Palm Springs. Sinatra had built a new guest house for this visit. But President Kennedy's brother Robert, the Attorney General, advised Kennedy not to stay there because of Sinatra's alleged connections to the mob. He did come after all; he went to Palm Springs, but he stayed at Bing Crosby's house. So it was a double whammy against Sinatra, He never spoke to him again. and from that moment on he loathed Peter Lawford, who was merely the messenger. It devastated Peter. One night, years later, in Las Vegas, Sinatra heard that Peter Lawford was in the back at one of his shows, and he refused to go on until Lawford left the nightclub.

jerkieboy13 asks: Can you tell us a good story about Truman Capote?

Dominick Dunne: Yes. I can. When I had my fall from grace and lost everything including my marriage, my home, my career -- everything -- I left Hollywood at 50 years old, broke, drunk, drugged, and went to a cabin in Oregon to get my life back in order. While there, I had a letter of encouragement and admiration for what I had done from Truman Capote. I thought I had been forgotten and was over with, and his kindness gave me great hope. He is a writer I admired enormously.

Timehost: A few more "really like" questions for you....

andrew93_2000 asks: What was Judy Garland really like?

Dominick Dunne: I canÕt say that I knew Judy...I knew her, but it would be pretentious of me to claim that I was close to her. I saw her at the Lawford's house. She came to our house only once, where she locked herself in my wife's bathroom, and took all the pills, but there was something incredibly nice about Judy as well. I would also see her at Roddy McDowell's house as well. In the years that I saw her, she was on her way down -- I did not know her at her peak. But I always liked her.

goodangel_us asks: asks: What is Elizabeth Taylor really like in person?? Is she just a down to earth person?

Dominick Dunne: It's impossible to call Elizabeth Taylor "down to earth," Those are words that simply do not fit her. She has been a star since she was a child. I produced one of her movies, Ash Wednesday, in Italy in the early 1970's, and spent almost a year with her in Italy at that time. She was peaking in her beauty and fame. She was married to Richard Burton. To me, she was the greatest of all the movie stars that I have been close to . And again, underneath all the glitter and the glamour of her life, she is a completely good person. I was with her when Rock Hudson died and saw how she at that time used her fame to get Hollywood interested in giving money to AIDS. She was the first major celebrity who started that. I love her.

Louisk39 asks: What was the wildest Hollywood party you ever attended?

Dominick Dunne: The kind of wild parties I went to were after my Hollywood time, when I was into drink and drugs. But that was not with the kind of people this book is about. But one that especially stands out, that wasn't wild, was Humphrey Bogart's party, where both Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland sang, where Spencer Tracy was, and David Niven, and Henry Fonda, and Lana Turner, who lived next door. Every major star was there. I was ecstatic. All I could do was stare at these people. But I canÕt say it was wild.

Timehost: How did you figure out what to say to people like that...get over your stage fright, so to say?

Dominick Dunne: I think it probably came from my stage manager days, in the early days of television, when it was a new medium and they needed my presence to guide them around from set to set and to tell them what was the next scene. And I got used to it and could talk to them, not in a worshipful level, but in an equal sort of level, and they felt confident and comfortable with me.

andrew93_2000 asks: Which Hollywood producer was the most lecherous in chasing after starlets? How many major stars got into films by way of the testing couch instead of the testing stage?

Dominick Dunne: I've only heard rumors about that. I canÕt tell you I have any first hand knowledge. I would feel that I was repeating gossip and everything in this book I know first hand. But there used to be lots of stories about Darryl Zanuck, and his many French girlfriends, who he tried to make movie stars of.

jerkieboy13 asks: What was most tense moment youÕve had during an interview?

Dominick Dunne: The tensest moment I had doing an interview as a writer was when I finally got in to interview Imelda Marcos after her fall as the First Lady of the Philippines. I was the first journalist who got in to see her. She granted me ten minutes while Ferdinand Marcos was at the dentist but she became intrigued with me and the questions I asked, and she spent maybe an hour or an hour and half with me. And she showed me her jewels. And then Ferdinand Marcos came back from the dentist and was infuriated with her for talking to a journalist and for showing me all her jewels. And they had a terrible fight, which ended the interview. And that was the tensest interview that I ever had.

Timehost: Great story....

roxana_defoe asks: Who are your inspirations for your writing?

Dominick Dunne: The writer I most idolize is the 19th century writer Anthony Trollope. I think his book, The Way We Live Now, from which I ripped off my book's title, is my favorite novel. I am also a great admirer of Evelyn Waugh, especially Brideshead Revisited. I also admire, and have learned a great deal from, Truman Capote.

Timehost: Going back to Imelda Marcos for a second, did you get to see the shoes, too?

Dominick Dunne: I think one of the reasons Imelda Marcos liked me so much is that I did not ask her one word about the shoes.

lovyababy6465 asks: What is your family in Hartford's reaction to your being a well-known namedropper in Hollywood?

Timehost: You write that you come from a typical, white-bread background...

Dominick Dunne: In the first place, I am no longer in Hollywood, and I havenÕt been in Hollywood in 1979, when I left. I live in Connecticut and in New York City. I don't have any family left in Hartford.

process_of_writing asks: Does writing come easily to you, or is it a struggle?

Dominick Dunne: It does not come easily to me, but it is not necessarily a struggle either. I had a wonderful day of writing today on a new novel that I'm working on, and there's no better feeling than that. It's important to write everyday.

Timehost: Could you tell us a little bit about this new novel that you're working on?

Dominick Dunne: I think it is bad luck to actually talk about something that you're working on. But I will say this: it's set in the same world as my novel People Like Us. But it is set a decade later, in the late '90's. It is called "A Solo Act." It is set in New York. And it involves an actual, but only slightly known, murder case, among the rich and powerful.

Timehost: We're at the end of our time, unfortunately, but before we end, do you have any closing thoughts?

Dominick Dunne: Thank you very much. I've enjoyed talking to you. I hope that my answers were what you wanted to hear. And I hope you buy this book. It's a wonderful Christmas gift. Under thirty bucks!

Timehost: Thank you very much for joining us this evening, Mr. Dunne! We look forward to A Solo Act.

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