"... in the back seat from someone’s wife when hitchhiking, as everyone used to do before the Manson murders; how Tennessee Williams grabs his testicles when he’s waiting tables at a dinner party — for better and worse, people always seem to be making a run at Griffin’s crotch — and Martin Scorsese’s wrath when he violates an order of celibacy during the filming of 'After Hours' (1985).... Much of [this memoir] is a privileged young man’s search for a place in the showbiz court to which he was born.... dropping Timothy Leary’s finest acid. Sean Connery, then playing James Bond, saved him from drowning! Bob Denver from 'Gilligan’s Island' had a temper!"
Writes Alexandra Jacobs, in
"Growing Up With Joan Didion and Dominick Dunne, in the Land of Make-Believe/In his memoir 'The Friday Afternoon Club,' the Hollywood hyphenate Griffin Dunne, best known for his role in Martin Scorsese’s 'After Hours,' recounts his privileged upbringing" (NYT).
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35 comments:
"I don't like him because he was popular, but I can't directly criticize his sex life without being called a prude, so I'll say he was privileged."
I would not typically buy a book like this. But I did (through your link). I think it was on this blog that I read about it a week or so ago and it caught my interest. The movie "After Hours" has always been on my Most Underrated Movies list. And his family was a very interesting group. So...I'm going to read this book. It might be enjoyable after the last two I trekked through.
how Tennessee Williams grabs his testicles when he’s waiting tables at a dinner party
As a wise man once said "when you are a celebrity they let you do it."
Did Dunne complain to Williams? Grab his hand, slap his face?
Sounds like no from the little bit you posted.
Would Dunn have complained if Chuck or I (non-celebridades) grabbed his balls?
John Henry
I am starting to think some of these guys are weird.
Temujin:
Try VDH’s latest: The End of Everything. I read it in two days. I bought it via the Althouse portal.
Meh. Kenneth Anger did it first and did it better.
I also bought the book through your link. I was going to call the impulse to read (listen) to the book as voyeurism on my part but I didn’t know how to spell it so I had to look it up: “Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature.” I didn’t know that there had to be a sexual component to voyeurism - which does describe this book but not exactly why I bought it. It’s fun to catch a glimpse of how the other half lives - those very wealthy, high society folks I never encounter in my life. And Dunne is never mean as he walks you through his life so it’s a very pleasant book to listen to.
Some of the stories may even be true.
Might have lost it horseback riding.
"Won't you give a poor boy a ride?"
Iconic video (watch her hands on the throttle).
Sweet hitch-a-hiker
Was busted up along the highway
I'm the saddest ridin' fool alive
Wondering if you're goin' my way
Won't you give a poor boy a ride?
Now here she comes a-ridin'
Lord, she's flyin' high
She was rollin' down, movin' too fast
Do you wanna, she was thinkin', can I last?
I enjoyed his acting in “An American Werewolf in London” in ‘81 and in “After Hours”, but don’t remember anything much from him after that. It seemed like he left the business, but perhaps he had a lot of small roles. I enjoyed reading what his father wrote.
It was weird going through Dunne's acting credits on IMDB the other day- he had had roles in a lot things I had seen in the last 25 years, but I only noted it at the time in "Goliath".
Good thing Manson put a stop to wives giving young boys hand jobs in the back of cars. At least he did one good thing.
Dunne seems somewhat interesting, although carrie fischer wasn't.
John Althouse Cohen recently did a Facebook post about After Hours. Just wondering if that's why you blogged this?
Carrie Fisher had some unusual friends, to say the least. I remember reading about one of her friends who died in his sleep at her home - he’d had a longtime drug problem - who was a Republican political consultant, as well as some sort of gay James Bond-type dirty trickster. If all was true and as wacky as described in the article I’d read, this is a guy who should’ve had a book written about him.
And it turned out the guy - last name of Stevens - was the younger brother of one of my wife’s high school classmates. It cracked us up and freaked us out.
Mr. Begley: Noted.
Dunne directed "Addicted to Love", one of the great anti-romcoms. And he used his father in the movie as a restaurant critic.
"Dunne directed "Addicted to Love", one of the great anti-romcoms. And he used his father in the movie as a restaurant critic."
Great movie, but I didn't know he was the director!
What is an "almost hand job?"
A hand job without a happy ending?
Something else?
John Henry
I had to look him up...know his father of course.
He has a poor man's Judd Hirsch look about him.
Hollywood's a weird town and he must have run into all kinds of weirdos. Maybe even more back in the day.
Hid dad always struck me as slightly gay.
Btw, if I was getting a handjob from Carrie Fisher, I'd be thinking, "May the lube be with her."
Tip your waiter...
His father, Dominick Dunne, was a war hero and my hero. When his daughter (Griffin's sister) was brutally murdered, and her killer was given a leftist Hollywood sentence of 3.6 years, Dunne took his grief and literally invented a new art form: crime stories written from the perspective of the injustices crime victims -- not criminals -- suffer daily in modern American courts and the media. He gave me the ability to go on when nobody else spoke for people like me. He took on the sleazy criminal bar and the weepy NPR "truecrime" hug-a-thug types and everyone else in the criminal-fetishist media and exposed them for what they are. Society people hated him for telling this truth.
It's nice to see in the book review that Griffin Dunne finally grew up and realized that his father, not his hack lefty uncle, was the real man of the two.
I sometimes take a break from reading about world historical figures to read celebrity memoirs. This sounds like it might be worth reading. I read Myrna Loy's autobiography. When she was America's Perfect wife, she was married to a drunk who occasionally beat her up. Milton Berle, without any apparent self knowledge of the fact, was a full on transvestite--or whatever you call people nowadays who get off on dressing up as women..... The one celebrity memoir I've read that approaches literature was Mary Rodgers memoir "Shy". She wrote part of the book on her deathbed. It was mostly about people who had already died. It was published after her death. She doesn't hold back. It's very tart and witty, but there's something haunting about all those wealthy and accomplished people blundering through life. The editor/ghost writer leaves footnotes on the same page as her remembrances of different people. The footnotes are a kind of Greek Chorus. So many of the people that Mary Rodgers knew went on to commit suicide or otherwise screw up their lives.....The very rich and the very talented are different than you and me, and it's not money.
I've heard of this fellow's father, but not him. I don't plan to read his memoir and will go on not knowing or caring anything about him.
Show-biz people are almost all damaged and worthless. The sideshow freaks and geeks of our era.
William: I remember being stuck somewhere with only Shelley Winters' autobiographies to read. They turned out to be great fun. Who else hung out with Saul Bellow and Roger Corman? Those old Hollywood Studio actresses were workhorses.
William: I'm picking up "Shy" because the Times article made it out to be fascinating.
Not so much about Dunne's book. I still couldn't tell who was who from that article, but that's probably on me.
'Way I see it, only a female or a trans man can be "deflowered".
Someone wanna 'splain this to me?
I listened to his interview on the Superfly podcast with Dana Carvey and David Spade. He sounded like an interesting person with some good stories. Then, in the middle of the interview, out of nowhere, and completely out of context to what was being discussed, he had a huge attack of Trump Derangement Syndrome. It immediately made me dislike him.
"His"? "Deflowering"? Men don't have "flowers". Is "he" trans/neo-feminine (i.e. emulation) gender or psycho-iatric ally confused?
Griffin Dunne, best known for his role in Martin Scorsese’s 'After Hours'...
Best known, maybe. But the best movie he was in was 'Johnny Dangerously'.
"His"? "Deflowering"? Men don't have "flowers".
Have you met Rich?
Listening to the book now, narrated by the author. His voice is identical to his father’s. Eerie.
Tarantino's OUATIH is the definitive '60s/'70s LA movie. Everything's bang on.
A perfect 2nd to James Ellroy, the master.
" ... how Tennessee Williams grabs his testicles when he’s waiting tables at a dinner party ...
Tennessee Williams worked as a waiter?
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