The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

“written with sharp humor the perspective of someone who’s seen it all and knows it.”

Griffin Dunne’s memoir of growing up with virtually everyone in Hollywood is a very funny one. And that’s quite a statement when, after putting it down and chuckling all the way through, you realize that a good chunk of the book is devoted to his sister’s murder and the way it spurred his father Dominick Dunne to become a true crime writer.

Credit then to Griffin’s engaging style and generous storytelling ability. As the son of Dominick Dunne, who was a Hollywood and stage producer (The Boys in the Band) before becoming a true crime writer later in life, and the nephew of John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion—very much a power couple in ’70s and ’80s—Griffin was in the perfect spot to meet and grow up with a Who’s Who of Hollywood. His best friend and temporary roommate was Carrie Fisher but she’s just one of many bold-faced named personalities he broke bread with.

Griffin tells the story of when he was a kid and the Hollywood elite got together for a softball game. His Dad Dominick was still closeted back then (and married to Griffin’s mother) but all Griffin knew was that his father, ahem, lacked the ballplayer gene. 

The manager stuck Dominick out in right field because there were few left-handed batters at the time and Griffin was praying no one would hit it to him. Everything went well until Jack Palance came up to bat. Palance batted from the left side and cracked a missile right at Dominick who by then was so bored with the game that he was eating a hot dog Natalie Wood had just bought for him. The two of them were chatting in the outfield when Dominick saw the ball coming at him. He threw down the hot dog, put on his glove and began to chase the softball around the outfield, kicking and bumbling it along the way. 

Everyone had a good laugh except Griffin who wished that Dad was a little more like Uncle John, a man's man with a hot Irish temper. As Griffin writes: "My fragile identity at that time was tied to a father who couldn't throw to third and gave me two French Poodles named after famous homosexuals. . . ."

Of course, having famous relatives who were writers sometime had its drawbacks. A young and meticulous Griffin once wrote himself a “To-Do” list that included this gen at No. 7: "Beat off." Of course, his father found the list and confronted him: "What the fuck is this? You have to remind yourself to beat off?"

Years later, John Gregory Dunne wrote up a character in one of his novels who is so stupid that he had to write reminders to beat off. When Griffin asked where he got that idea, his uncle admitted that Dominick had told him about Griffin's Beat Off reminder. He also mentioned that, when Dominick relayed the story at Elaine's, he and Joan Didion were laughing so hard that they fell off their chairs.

The title of the book comes from Griffin's mother. After she began taking acting classes, she'd invite everyone back to her house where they got drink and partied. The kids, including Griffin, his brother Alex and sister Dominque, and a bunch of young actors that included George Clooney, became part of the scene dubbed The Friday Afternoon Club. 

Griffin wound up acting and producing, just as you would imagine a child of Hollywood would, celebrates his life with self-deprecating humor, and the memoir is an easy read until, of course, he eventually relates the story of his sister Dominique's murder at the hands of her boyfriend. 

The Dunnes attend the murder trial every day, with Dominick taking notes for magazine editor Tina Brown, and, at night, Griffin somehow manages to get himself to a film set where he's starring in a screwball comedy called Johnny Dangerously with Michael Keaton. In the days before social media, almost no one on the film set knew what was going on Griffin’s life during the days. All except Michael Keaton.

On the of the verdict, it didn’t go as Griffin expected. He was in his trailer on the film set when he learned the jury did not find Dominique’s killer guilty of second-degree murder, only involuntary manslaughter. Keaton saw the look on Griffin’s face and asked him what was going on. When he found out, Keaton told the director, “Okay, we’re calling it a wrap. Griffin has to get home.”

Griffin writes: “What he did that day remains one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me.”

It would be easy to dismiss a memoir by someone like Griffin who had every break in life, but this one is a gem written with sharp humor the perspective of someone who’s seen it all and knows it.