John Gregory Dunne

John Gregory Dunne (May 25, 1932 – December 30, 2003) was an American writer. He began his career as a journalist for Time magazine before expanding into writing criticism, essays, novels, and screenplays. He often collaborated with his wife, Joan Didion.

Early life Dunne was born in Hartford, Connecticut and was a younger brother of author Dominick Dunne. He was the son of Dorothy Frances (née Burns) and Richard Edwin Dunne (1894–1946), a hospital chief of staff and heart surgeon. John was the fifth of six children in the family. John's maternal grandfather, Dominick Francis Burns (1857–1940), founded the Park Street Trust Company.

John Dunne developed a severe stutter as a child and took up writing to express himself. He learned to manage it by observing others. He attended the Portsmouth Abbey School and graduated from Princeton University in 1954, where he was a member of Tiger Inn.

Dunne and Didion gradually picked up writing work from book publishers and magazines, traveled together on journalism assignments, and established a working pattern that served for the next 40 years. They had a constant advising, consulting, and editing collaboration. Critically acclaimed bestselling books followed for each, including Dunne's The Studio, his nonfiction account of 20th Century Fox.

Personal life Dunne was uncle to actors Griffin Dunne and Dominique Dunne. He was 31 and she 29. They contemplated filing for divorce in 1969, as Didion famously wrote in one of her essays. Unable to have children, in 1966 they adopted a baby at birth and named her Quintana Roo, after the Mexican state.

In 1988, Dunne and Didion moved from Southern California to New York City. They moved to the Upper East Side, where Didion continued to live for 33 years until her death in 2021. Dunne died in their Manhattan apartment of a heart attack on December 30, 2003.

Didion wrote and published The Year of Magical Thinking (2005), a memoir of the year following his death, during which their daughter was seriously ill. It won critical acclaim and the National Book Award.

Books

Fiction True Confessions (1977) Dutch Shea, Jr. (1982) The Red White and Blue (1987) Playland (1994) Nothing Lost (2004)

Non-fiction Delano: The Story of the California Grape Strike (1967) The Studio (1969) Vegas: A Memoir of a Dark Season (1974) ; McNally Editions (2025) Quintana and Friends (1978) Harp (1989) Crooning: A Collection (1990) Monster: Living Off the Big Screen (1997) Regards: The Selected Nonfiction of John Gregory Dunne (2005)

Screenplays The Panic in Needle Park (1971) Play It as It Lays (1972) A Star Is Born (1976) True Confessions (1981) Up Close & Personal (1996)