John Gregory Dunne

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

DIED. JOHN GREGORY DUNNE, 71, novelist, essayist and (in collaboration with his wife Joan Didion) screenwriter; of a heart attack; in New York City. For five years in the late '50s, he was a writer for TIME. His novels (Dutch Shea, Jr.; True Confessions) were full of Irishry--tough and compassionate, knowing without being cynical, true expressions of a complicated, cranky, lovable man whose hatred of hypocrisy was legendary. But his best subject was Hollywood, which he anatomized in two books (Monster; The Studio) and many articles. These were inside jobs--but without the malevolence and condescension many writers bring to their true tales of movie work. Dunne generally preferred the passionate "bullies" to the "smoothies," smiling as they measure your rib cage for a shiv. He often found, of all things, civility and honor in the movie game. And his portraits of it are unsurpassed in their dry wit, understated truthfulness and lasting, corrective value.

--By Richard Schickel