Namedropper!

"The  Way We Lived Then; Recollections of a Well-Known Namedropper" by Dominick Dunne   Crown Publishing   218 pages   $27.50

Astaire, Fred and Adele; Benny, Jack and Mary; Bloomingdale, Alfred and Betsy; Burton, Richard during the Elizabeth years; Farrow, Mia; Hopper, Hedda; Gable, Clark; Gabor, Zsa Zsa; Jagger, Mick; Harriman, Pamela... and that's before you even get to "K" in the alphabet!

It's difficult to see why Dunne was such a star f----r but he most definitely was.  He didn't grow up in poverty; his father was a heart surgeon.  Whence came this lust to be on first-name terms with the rich ad famous?

He wrote that in the '60s, he and wife Ellen Beatriz Griffin Dunne (called "Lenny") were out every night of the week.  If not a dinner party, then cocktails with the so-and-sos, Sunday drop-in barbecues and brunches on tennis courts and in Malibu.  A very giddy life.  I would estimate that the book is 50/50 for photos and prose. 

My brother-in-law is a hoot - he absolutely eats up "the stars."  Every time they come out (from Long Island)  Charlie is on the prowl for or the expectation that a star will appear!  He's going to love this book.  And no, I'm not spoiling the surprise; they don't have (or want) a computer.