Investigative reporter and gadfly Dominick Dunne was a columnist at Graydon Carter' Vanity Fair and the host of CourtTV's Power, Privilege and Justice. He was also an author (People Like Us, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles), erstwhile movie producer (1970's The Boys in the Band), and former addict. His son is actor/director Griffin Dunne. Dunne died on August 26, 2009.

Raised in Hartford, Connecticut, Dunne attended Williams College before serving in World War II, where he earned a Bronze Star. After returning from the military, he moved to New York and became a stage manager for television. He later moved to Hollywood and became vice-president of Four Star Television, but after years of schmoozing with the rich and famous and developing a drug addiction, he moved to rural Oregon to escape and write his first book The Winners. His life altered dramatically when his daughter Dominique Dunne, best known for her role in Poltergeist, was murdered in 1982. The killer was sentenced to voluntary manslaughter but severed only a fraction of his six-and-a-half year sentence. In light of the tragedy, Dunne began his long term career with Vanity Fair, where he wrote fictionalized versions of his life including "Justice: A Father's Account of the Trial of his Daughter's Killer," and hosted his show on CourtTV, which focused on the justice system and how it intersects with notions of celebrity. In 2008, he announced that he had bladder cancer, and he passed away the next year. [Image via Getty]