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Danny Boyle interview I Chief
film critic's verdict I As
it happened: Chris Ayres in LA I Full
list of Oscar winners I Sixth
time lucky for Kate I Best
speeches I 20
best and worst dresses I Complete
Oscars coverage
I have cancer: after 25 years of coming to the Oscars, and never missing one,
I do think this will be my last. I'm not sad about that. I looked at this
year's event as an endless goodbye. I met a beautiful young actress, not
famous but very beautiful, who came over to tell me about her chemotherapy.
All her hair had fallen out but had grown back. I think this is it for me.
It doesn't make me sad. You gotta go some time. To me, death is the next
adventure. I've had an extraordinary life. I'm 83. I don't look it and I
don't act like it, but I am. You gotta be sensible. But I want to enjoy the
time I have left.
The hotels are filled, the parties just keep going on. I love it. A lot of
people had read that I was half-dead and were surprised to see me looking so
well. Most of the time I don't feel sick.
I love the whole spirit of the [Oscar] weekend. I was staying where I always
stay, the Beverly Hills Hotel. Everyone is here, and its famous bar the Polo
Lounge, at Oscar time. Chevy Chase is in the room opposite. Nicole Kidman
and her husband, Keith Urban, are two rooms down. I hadn't met him before
and I went to say hello. Nicole had the nanny bring their baby (Sunday) out.
I love Nicole. She walks and talks like a star - she doesn't make eye
contact if she walks past you, she'll only acknowledge you if you say her
name - but she's a wonderful lady and down to earth. My son Griffin is
marrying an Australian friend of hers so we talked about their wedding
plans. At one lunch in the Polo Lounge, I bumped into Warren Beatty and had
a great talk with him. We hadn't seen each other in a while. He had seen the
documentary about me (Dominick Dunne: After the Party) and wanted to know
all about the course of stem-cell treatment , which I start next week in
Germany. It's illegal in America and mostly people have been saying, “Go for
it” and wishing me well. I also had a lovely brunch with Joan Collins and
her charming husband Percy and we talked about the parties that were going
on. She's hilarious.
The most glamorous party was held by Barry Diller [former studio boss and
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp] and his wife
Diane von Furstenberg at their home. The have the most enormous, beautifully
grassed lawn. It was a giant picnic with carpets to lie down on for the
guests. Everyone from Paris Hilton to the major players, such as [former
Disney chief] Michael Eisner was there. It was opulent and beautiful:
Hollywood at its best. The Vanity Fair party was held at a new venue, an Art
Deco hotel on Sunset Boulevard. Everyone was worried it wasn't going to work
but it was great. Madonna made the biggest entrance. You knew it was her
because she gets the loudest screams from a crowd. She knows how to work
them, she's totally in control. And she walks, like Nicole Kidman, with her
eyes dead ahead. I was at a table with Jackie Collins, who had just fired
her agent and got a new three-book deal. It was lovely to spend time with
Kirk Douglas, who looked fantastic. His and my children grew up together
and, oddly, his son Eric and my daughter Dominique, who were friends, are
both dead.
His wife Anne is one of the great Hollywood social leaders still and it was
wonderful to see all the younger generation come to pay homage to him. You'd
never have guessed he had had a stroke: he looked very fit and was
absolutely in the conversation. The ceremony was great; I know and like Hugh
Jackman very much. I love those people, still going year after year, still
in the fight. But the awards do go on and on. The fact is we only care about
best actor, best actress, best picture and best director. All of those sound
engineers - who gives a shit? I guess it's a necessary part of what the
Academy wants, but it's boring.
The Vanity Fair party begins with a dinner where you can sit and watch the
awards, but because it's full of industry people who talk all the way
through. I'm like: “I'm trying to watch this, be quiet.” Larry David was
yapping away so loudly I told him to shut up. Then he yelled back and told
me to shut up. There was endless champagne, it was very fancy. Graydon
[Carter, Vanity Fair Editor and Dunne's boss] is a consummate partygiver.
Every place setting had a programme for the awards and a little Zippo
lighter inscribed with a quote by Alfred Hitchcock: “I never said all actors
were cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.”
I didn't have too many deep and meaningful conversations. Oscars time isn't
really about that. The rooms are too crowded for one thing, and so you move
from one encounter to another saying “Hello darling, how are you?” But it
was great to see Whoopi [Goldberg]. She's an old friend. She threw her arms
around me and said, “How are you feeling honey?” She's a hilarious and wise
woman and was in the Beverly Hills Hotel with her daughter, who I had never
met before. We had a hug. And I saw Oprah: another great woman and friend.
She asked how things were going and if I was OK. She's a powerhouse, she
could run for office - but she's got time for everybody.
Over the last few days, I've looked around the parties and all the faces at
the hotel and although this does feel like an end, there's nothing to feel
sad about. As I moved from person to person, I thought, “I'll never see you
again”. I've enjoyed every second.
As told to Tim Teeman
Been there, Dunne it
1925: Born in Hartford, Connecticut, to a prominent heart surgeon and
his heiress wife
1957: Moves to Hollywood with his wife, Ellen (Lenny) Griffith, and
their three children. He becomes vice-president of Four Star Pictures and
the centre of LA's social scene, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Truman
Capote, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Paul Newman and Audrey Hepburn
1979: His marriage in ruins, beset with alcohol and drug addictions, he
flees Hollywood for Oregon to dry out and write his first book, The Winners
1982: His daughter Dominique Dunne is murdered. He writes the article
Justice: A Father's Account of the Trial of His Daughter's Killer for Vanity
Fair, and is taken on as a writer for the magazine
1985: Writes The Two Mrs Grenvilles, about the murder trial of the
banking heir WilliamWoodward Jr in 1955
1993: Appointed special correspondent for Vanity Fair, covering
high-profile trials such as that of O.J. Simpson, Claus von Bülow and the
Menendez brothers
2008: Having battled prostate cancer, he reveals he has bladder cancer
