The Last Love Song (107 page)

“The American soil”: James Baldwin in
New York in the Fifties,
film documentary.

“Who'd you call”
: Joan Didion, “Doulos—The Finger Man: ‘Wild, Scary, Comic,'”
Vogue,
April 1964, 42.

“precisely because we know them so well”: Joan Didion, “The Organizer: ‘A Parlour Trick,'”
Vogue,
July 1964, 35.

“She knew exactly what she was doing”: Dan Wakefield in conversation with the author, May 4, 2013.

“creepy self”: Didion quoted in Wakefield,
New York in the Fifties,
334.

“[S]ome things just aren't as funny as they once were”: Joan Didion, “Bedtime Story: ‘Prolonged Sick Joke,'”
Vogue,
August 1964, 34.

“the only seduction”: Joan Didion, “The Pink Panther: ‘Built-in Comicality,'”
Vogue,
March 1964, 57.

“[T]here was a song”: Didion,
Slouching Towards Bethlehem,
226.

“If New York is the site”: Harold Rosenberg, “The Art World: Place, Patriotism, and the New York Mainstream,”
The New Yorker,
July 15, 1972, 52.

CHAPTER 11

“Joan definitely had the real estate gene”: Josh Greenfeld in conversation with the author, April 6, 2013.

“Joan put an ad in the paper”: Dominick Dunne, “A Death in the Family,” originally published in
Vanity Fair
; reprinted in Andrew Blauner, ed.,
Brothers: 26 Stories of Love and Rivalry
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009), 187–88.

“Feel the swell”: Joan Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 227.

“her blue Dacron crepe nightgown”: John Gregory Dunne,
Quintana & Friends
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1978), 34.

“nutty idea”: Hilton Als, “Joan Didion, The Art of Nonfiction No. 1,”
The Paris Review
48, no. 176 (Spring 2006); available at
www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5601/the-art-of-nonfiction-no-1-Joan-didion
.

“In Hollywood”: Jill Schary Robinson in conversation with the author, April 23, 2013.

“Hollywood was always a nepotistic society”: Tim Steele in conversation with the author, April 29, 2013.

“We don't go for strangers in Hollywood”: F. Scott Fitzgerald,
The Last Tycoon
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941), 18.

“[It was] quite rigidly organized”: Joan Didion,
After Henry
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 33.

“God, I love to look at movie stars”:
Dominick Dunne: After the Party,
directed and produced by Kirsty de Garis and Timothy Jolley (Mercury Media/Road Trip Films/Film Art Docco, 2008), film documentary.

“She was totally comfortable”: ibid.

“People said they were climbers”: ibid.

“[It] was the best place to be”: Dominick Dunne,
The Way We Lived Then: Recollections of a Well-Known Name Dropper
(New York: Crown, 1999), 30.

“‘Get the girls, Peter'”: ibid., 198.

“They were careless people”: F. Scott Fitzgerald,
The Great Gatsby
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974), 120.

“Dancing 10:00 p.m.”: Dominick Dunne,
The Way We Lived Then,
114.

“The freeway is forever!” and “go gargle razor blades”: John Gregory Dunne,
Regards
:
The Selected Nonfiction of John Gregory Dunne
(New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006), 364, 352.

“ribbons of freeway”: “Los Angeles in a New Image,”
Life,
June 20, 1960, 75.

“space between [destination] points”: California Assembly Interim Committee on Natural Resources, Planning, and Public Works,
Highway and Freeway Planning
(Sacramento: Assembly of the State California, 1965), 22.

“audacious lane changes”: Joan Didion,
Play It As It Lays
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970), 163.

“What was happening was”: Tim Steele in conversation with the author, April 29, 2013.

“When the Old Hollywood fell apart”: Jill Schary Robinson in conversation with the author, April 23, 2013.

“like a little neighborhood”: Marlo Thomas quoted in Todd S. Purdum, “Children of Paradise,”
Vanity Fair,
March 2009; available at
www.vanityfair.com/style/features/2009/03/Hollywood-kids200903
.

“too beautiful for high school”: Eve Babitz,
Eve's Hollywood
(New York: Delacorte Press, 1974), 79.

“unassuming little Beverly Hills restaurant”: Valerie J. Nelson, “Beverly Hills Restaurateur Kurt Niklas Dies at 83,”
Los Angeles Times,
August 20, 2009; available at
articles/latimes.com/2009/aug/28/local/me-kurt-niklas28
.

“Compared to The Daisy”: Dan Jenkins, “Life with the Jax Pack,”
Sports Illustrated,
July 10, 1967; available at
sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1080051
.

“evil”: Cindy Kadonaga, “The Daisy Discotheque: A Born-Again Nightclub,”
St. Petersburg Times,
June 11, 1977.

“Oh, Mr. Dunne”: Dominick Dunne,
The Way We Lived Then,
131.

“I was the amusement for Sinatra”:
Dominick Dunne
:
After the Party,
de Garis and Jolley, film documentary.

“corner banquette”: Joan Didion,
Blue Nights
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 62–63.

“Kosher Nostra” and subsequent references from Russo: Gus Russo,
Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers
(New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2006), 34, 282, 284, 285.

“Along with his pal Lew Wasserman”: Tim Steele in conversation with the author, April 29, 2013.

“exactly like a bunch of topflight Chicago gangsters”: Frank McShane,
The Life of Raymond Chandler
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1976), 121.

“We were forced to sit in a house together”: Joan Didion's remarks at Kelly Writer's House, University of Pennsylvania, March 31, 2009.

“I had no idea how to be a wife”: Didion quoted in Sam Schulman, “The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion,”
Commentary,
December 2005; available at
www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-year-of-magical-thinking-by-joan-didion/
.

“crapshoot”: John Riley, “Writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne Play It as It Lays in Malibu,”
People,
July 26, 1976; available at
people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20066717,00.htm
.

“We needed … money”: Als, “Joan Didion, The Art of Nonfiction No. 1.”

“like being trapped on a dance floor”: Joan Didion, “The Sound of Music: More Embarrassing Than Most,”
Vogue,
May 1965, 143.

“It will probably be a big success”: Pauline Kael, “Cat Ballou: Lumpy, Coy, and Obvious,”
Vogue,
September 1965, 180.

“This is an old-fashioned action Western”: Joan Didion, “The Sons of Katie Elder: Old-fashioned Action,”
Vogue,
September 1965, 76.

“At the time I began working for
Vogue
”: “Conversation Between Joan Didion and Meghan Daum,”
Black Book,
December 12, 2004; available (2011) at
www.meghandaum.com/about-meghan-daum/36-conversation-between-joan-didion-and-meghan-daum
.

“I was suffering a fear”: Joan Didion,
Telling Stories
(Berkeley, Calif.: Friends of the Bancroft Library, 1978), 9–10.

“no talent” and “no ability”: ibid., 10.

a letter to the actor Buzz Farber: Joan Didion to Buzz Farber, November 28, 1964, Dobkin Collection, Glenn Horowitz Booksellers, Inc., New York.

“[S]he had gone”: Didion,
Telling Stories,
31.

“When she heard the door close”: ibid., 25–26.

“When she was almost asleep”: ibid., 26.

“There's a rush to opinion”: Anne-Marie O'Connor, “Joan Didion Re-enters Her Life,”
Los Angeles Times,
October 4, 2005; available at
article/latimes.com/2005/Oct/04/books/la-bk-joan-didion-2005-10-04/3
.

“Well, of course”: Josh Greenfeld in conversation with the author, April 6, 2013.

“you didn't see other writers and editors”: O'Connor, “Joan Didion Re-enters Her Life.”

“sense of impending doom”: Dunne,
Quintana & Friends,
13.

“Middle America”: ibid., 11.

“Respect was grudgingly given”: ibid., 13

“schmucks with Underwoods”: Jack Warner cited in John Gregory Dunne,
Crooning
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 200.

“Show me a hero”: F. Scott Fitzgerald cited in Dunne,
Regards,
18.

“reciprocates carnally”: ibid., 19.

a letter from Dunne to H. N. “Swanie” Swanson: John Gregory Dunne to H. N. Swanson, February 13, 1965. The letter is in the possession of Houle Rare Books in Los Angeles.

“constructive criticism”: Dunne,
Regards,
20.

“We were coming out of [the Daisy]”: Dunne quoted in Leslie Garis, “Didion and Dunne: The Rewards of a Literary Marriage,”
New York Times,
February 8, 1987; available at
www.nytimes.com/1987/02/08/magazine/didion-dunne-the-rewards-of-a-literary-marriage.html/
.

“Basically the terminology is easy”: ibid.

“If you're going to be a whore”: Tim Steele in conversation with the author, April 29, 2013.

“We were crazy about it”: “Telling Stories in Order to Live,” Academy of Achievement interview with Joan Didion, June 3, 2006; available at
www.achievment.org/autodoc/page/did0int-1
.

“[N]o one goes to a piano bar”: John Gregory Dunne, “Catching the Next Trend,”
Esquire,
April 1979, 10.

“twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of free publicity”: Didion,
After Henry,
228–29.

“You want a different kind of wife”: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking,
209.

swallowed a phenobarbital: Didion makes reference to taking the medication in a letter to Mary Bancroft, March 30, 1966, Mary Bancroft Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute.

“planning meetings”: ibid.

“white Saint Laurent evening dress”: Dunne,
Regards,
244.

“Outsiders … had to be thoroughly vetted”: ibid.

when Nick Gurdin killed a man: ibid., 245.

“Everything was changing”: Dominick Dunne,
The Way We Lived Then,
127.

“The nanny would have the meal with the kids”:
Dominick Dunne:
After the Party,
de Garis and Jolley, film documentary.

“A series of such [military] encounters around the world”: Susanna Rustin, “Legends of the Fall,”
The Guardian,
May 20, 2005; available at
www.theguardian.com/books/2005/may/21/usnationalbookawards.society
.

“with the possible exception of Senator Goldwater”: Dunne,
Crooning,
113.

“repeated droll allegations”: ibid.

“The stench of fascism is in the air”: Rick Perlstein, “1964 Republican Convention: Revolution from the Right,”
Smithsonian,
August 2008; available at
www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1964-republican-convention-revolution-from-the-right-915921/?all
.

“The nigger issue”: Bruce Watson,
Freedom Summer,
cited at
padresteve.com/2013/05/07/things-havent-changed-too-much-jackie-robinson-goes-to-the-1964-GOP-convention-and-freedom-summer
.

“A new breed of Republican”: Jackie Robinson cited at ibid.

“The throng began tossing garbage”: Belva Davis,
Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman's Life in Journalism
(San Francisco: Berrett-Koeler, 2011), 4.

“crypto-liberals”: Perlstein, “1964 Republican Convention.”

“You know, these nighttime news shows”: ibid.

“greatest campaign in history”: American President: A Reference Resource at
millercenter.org/president/Nixon/essays/biography/3
.

“stagnate in the swampland of collectivism”: “Goldwater's 1964 Acceptance Speech”; available at
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwaterspeech.htm
.

“liberal media,” “unspoken, unadmitted,” “like so much marsh gas,” and “[M]onkeys”: Joan Didion, “Alicia and the Underground Press,”
The Saturday Evening Post,
January 13, 1968, 14.

“By the early 60s”: Charles Taylor, “The Gipper's Dark Side,”
Salon,
June 8, 2004; available at
salon.com/2004/06/08/killers_4/
.

“fake”:
Dominick Dunne: After the Party,
de Garis and Jolley, film documentary.

“Lotusland” and “You cook New York”: Dunne,
Regards,
354–55.

“On nights like [this]”: Raymond Chandler cited in Didion,
Slouching Towards Bethlehem,
218.

CHAPTER 12

“Everything was getting wilder”: Dominick Dunne,
The Way We Lived Then: Recollections of a Well-Known Name Dropper
(New York: Crown, 1999), 139.

“was not important”: ibid., 140.

“were in the Mercedes”: ibid., 143–44.

“multipaneled mirrored dining room”: ibid., 145.

“stop-by”: ibid.

“came by for a smoke” and other quotes about Morrison: ibid., 145–46.

“Hot damn, Vietnam!”: Seth Rosenfeld,
Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), 260–61.

“mechanism held together”: ibid., 207.