This podcast tends to take a somewhat dim view of Truman Capote, a longtime acquaintance and maybe sometimes frenemy of Dominick Dunne. But Truman had his bright spots, too. Today we're treating you to an episode of another of Alicia's podcasts, Love Letters to..., with a Love Letter to Truman's First Swan, Carol Saroyan Matthau.

We'll see you Monday with more of The Two Mrs. Grenvilles.

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Welcome back to a whole new arc of Done & Dunne! For the next several episodes, we'll explore the facts and fictions of the 1955 shooting death of William Woodward, Jr., by his wife Ann, and the class-wide coverup that New York's fanciest families executed. 

Dunne wrote 1985's The Two Mrs. Grenvilles as a thinly veiled fictional account of the whole sordid tale, which landed right in the sweet spot of his interest in high society's perfidy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BytHsxRJm0E&t=8s

https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1985/7/murder-most-swank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Zt47V3pPw

https://everything2.com/title/And+Justice+for+All%253F

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1939/03/05/592841492.html?pageNumber=199

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Dominick’s 1985 novel The Two Mrs. Grenvilles marks the completion of his transition from Hollywood producer to writer and investigative journalist, and was an auspicious start to the second act of his career that made him a household name. Covering the events of the 1955 high society killing of William Woodward, Jr., by his wife, Ann, and the ways that the upper crust closed ranks to hide the scandal, it set the tone for all that would follow in Dominick’s final quarter century.

Coming January 10, our New York State of Crime season turns its eye to the Woodward killing and the facts and fiction behind Dominick Dunne’s The Two Mrs. Grenvilles.

Get your copy of the book at Amazon!

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The architect Stanford White (1853-1906) is credited with a host of landmark structures in New York City and beyond, but it was his sexual predation of young girls, especially the model Evelyn Nesbit, that led to his shockingly public murder and the 1907 "Trial of the Century" in its aftermath. Society figures, sexual secrets, professional jealousies, and courtroom dramas: if only Dominick Dunne had owned a time machine!

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We met Alva Vanderbilt two episodes ago, and left her hosting the ball that would launch her into New York City's high society set in 1883. Today, we chart her rise, her brutal fall, and her audacious return to society's heights, as the mother of a duchess and a campaigner for women's suffrage.

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This week on Done and Dunne, we are going to scoot through the 1890s from the Astor side of things, including warring cousins and their hotel legacy, the end of Ward McAllister and the 400, and the life, death and legacy of John Jacob Astor IV.

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Hello fellow Investigators! I am so excited to share some huge news we've been cooking up here at Hemlock Creatives.

Coming for you December 6, every weekday, is a new podcast dedicated to delightful and unexpected things. Narrated by me, Alicia, these 10 to 15 minutes episodes celebrate the people, places and events of the past.

Check out the trailer and the first three episodes up now as a bonus for you, with new episodes coming at you starting December 6!

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening now!

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This week, we take a turn in a whole new direction by wandering through high society in 19th century New York City. The Knickerbockers had their own peculiar ways, and the Queen Bee of all of them was Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, who with the assistance of Ward McAllister, dictated the terms of the city's emerging elites with the creation and implementation of The 400. 

But in 1883, a sassy southern belle, Alva Smith Vanderbilt, shook Knickerbocker society to its very core by throwing a party, which brought the Gilded Age to New York City. 

Let's investigate!

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In this edition of A New York State of Crime, Alicia illuminates a Dominick-adjacent story, that of the mysterious 1965 death of crime reporter Dorothy Kilgallen. Was her death an accident, a suicide, or the result of her investigation into the events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy?

Sources:

The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: The Mysterious Death of What’s My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen, by Mark Shaw (amazon.com)

Denial of Justice: Dorothy Kilgallen, Abuse of Power, and the Most Compelling JFK Assassination Investigation in History, by Mark Shaw (amazon.com)

Kilgallen: A Biography of Dorothy Kilgallen, by Lee Israel (amazon.com)

Dorothy Kilgallen (spartacus-educational.com)

Local author says columnist cracked the JFK case in 1965, just… (padailypost.com)

What Did Dorothy Know? (washingtonpost.com)

Spilling Secrets | Vanity Fair | April 2006 (archive.vanityfair.com)

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Today, Alicia takes us back to wartime New York, for the scandal that rocked 1940s cafe society. Our man Nick described the case this way in his July 2000 Vanity Fair story:

A young, attractive socialite, Patricia Lonergan, is found naked in her bedroom, bludgeoned and strangled to death. The accused: her wildly handsome, devastatingly charming husband, Wayne, a fortune hunter whose lurid alibi shocks even New York’s toughest police officers and tabloid reporters. The murder and subsequent trial were the media sensation of 1943 and ’44, played out against the cafe-society backdrop of the Stork Club and El Morocco.

Let’s investigate!

Sources

Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments, by Dominick Dunne (Amazon affiliate link)

The Talented Mr. Lonergan, by Dominick Dunne (archive.vanityfair.com)

The Stork Club | Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip | American Masters | PBS (YouTube link)

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