Dominique Dunne

American actress Dominique Dunne was a celebrity to the Manor born. She was the daughter of authors Dominick Dunne and Ellen Griffin Dunne, the sister of actor Griffin Dunne (star of the quirky After Hours [1985]), and the niece of writers John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion. Given an elite education at the exclusive Taft School of Watertown, Connecticut, the Fountain Valley School of Colorado Springs, the British Institute and the Michelangelo School of Florence, Italy, Dunne seemed predestined for a career in the Arts. She chose acting as her avocation, and soon her aristocratic beauty was gracing a myriad of TV series. Starring in the 1982 shocker Poltergeist as the oldest daughter of Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams, Dunne proved she was an accomplished actress and not a mere "presence." Dunn was preparing to star in the science fiction TV miniseries V, when her career and her life came to an abrupt, violent end. Less than five months after Poltergeist was finished, Dominique Dunne was strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend John Sweeney. Despite the concerted efforts of her father Dominick Dunne and other concerned parties, Dunne's murderer received a reduced voluntary manslaughter sentence, and walked out of jail in 1986 after serving only four years of a mere 6 1/2-year sentence. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide