WEBVTT - I Got a Lion 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.719 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:08.840 Now that I knew my father's secret, I kept it 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:11.440 from him as he did for me, and. 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:16.080 Joined my parents and their subterfus. The heir of secrecy 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:19.480 was the oxygen I breathed, and the lies I told 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.599 in school were fodder for the petty crimes I'd continue 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:24.160 to commit. 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:33.320 That's Gryffin Dunn, actor, producer, director, writer, and author of 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:38.720 The Friday Afternoon Club, A family memoir. Griffin's is a 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:43.400 story about growing up in a storied storytelling family. His 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.960 father was the best selling writer Dominic Dunn. His aunt 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:50.280 was none other than the great Joan Didion. His uncle 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.600 was the writer John Gregory Dunn. It was a family 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:57.560 that lived at the intersection of Hollywood fame and literary glory. 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.400 A family who has had his share of shiny stardom, 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:07.520 along with a heavy dose of tragedy, ambition, privilege, ascents, 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.280 and falls from grace. It is also, at its core, 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:26.440 a story about secrets and how they shape us. I'm 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:30.520 Danny Shapiro, and this is family Secrets. The secrets that 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.360 are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.760 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. This episode was 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:40.640 recorded in front of a live audience at the Miami 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:41.160 Book Fair. 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:46.520 Tell me about the landscape of your childhood. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.280 Well, I was born in New York. My father was 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:55.120 in live television. He was a stage manager for a 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.880 show called Howdy Duty, and he did felthy things with 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.080 his puppet right before on the air too. And he 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:07.160 moved his family, my mother and myself later my brother, 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.040 to Los Angeles, and we lived in a house in 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:16.480 Santa Monica and then to Beverly Hills. And my father 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:22.359 was from childhood enamored with celebrity and movie stars, and 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:26.280 you know, he's very, very social, and so my childhood 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:31.760 was very kind of regimented. That was the priority, particularly 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.160 most parents at that time. The priority was to be 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:40.960 not a parent, but to be in society and giving parties. 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.560 And my father's sort of quest for celebrity. He could 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.640 never believe as a movie fan that all these celebrities 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.440 would come to his house and drink his booze. And 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:54.600 on certain big parties, my brother, sister and I would 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:59.320 would be in our bathrobes and my sister would wear 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:03.200 a little Dickens like nightcap and we would come down 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:07.120 and bow and my sister would curtsey to the guests 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.840 and they'd all go ooh, that's so cute and then 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.400 send us back upstairs, or if it was a big party, 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:16.120 we'd be checked into a hotel. So it was like, 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:19.320 you know, half being a kid and half being part 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.240 of the guests, you know, part of the family. 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.800 Tell me a little bit about both of your parents, 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:28.920 as close as you can to being a kid, you know, 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.160 how did you perceive each of them when you were 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:32.799 at that stage. 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:33.120 In your life. 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.680 Well, I have a quote from my father, who was 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.280 very ended up, a very different man than the child 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.600 I grew up with. And I remember once saying I 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.120 was angry at him about something and he said, what 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.480 can I say, kid, I'm just a work in progress. 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:49.760 So he was very much a work in progress when 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.480 I was growing up. So my impression at that time 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.320 was my father, who was not terribly athletic, maybe even 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.760 accused of being a touch feminine, who loved movie stars 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.760 and wanted everything to be just so, you know, production 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.760 design wise. As a kid growing up, he was kind 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.760 of an embarrassment. I kind of wanted my friends, my 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.640 best friends, their fathers who were movie stars, you know, 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:21.839 one was Jack Paletz who almost killed Shane, and the 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.120 other was a guy named Howard Keel who was played Lumberjacks. 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.039 And then there was my dad. So a part of 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.000 me was a little embarrassed about, you know, his masculinity, 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.479 and it was I was such a kid I felt 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.960 identified by it. I remember one day I came to 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:42.760 school and told everybody my father was arrested for robbing 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:48.279 a bank, which everyone believed. And my father, you know, 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.920 got a call from the principal, you know, going Nick, oh, 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:56.440 you're out of jail. You know. My dad said, is 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:58.919 that something you'd like me to do? Rob a bank? 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.640 And I kind of it? Did you know? We later 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.920 played baseball. We threw a mit around a ball around 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.279 for a baseball game, a father son baseball game. 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.120 Wasn't that a direct outgrowth of absolutely? 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.640 You know, he understood that that. 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.280 Was a kind of cry for help in some way. 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.640 And then it became let's throw a baseball around. And 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:25.680 he didn't have the right glove, and he used your like, 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:27.200 was he a lefty or you're a lefty? 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.039 He was a righty. I was a lefty, and so 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.040 he was. When we were practicing, I had an extra Mi. 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.479 He would wear it on his other hand and I 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:37.200 would throw him the ball and it would just hit 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:39.880 the mitt and then pull up to the ground. You know, 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.800 our family dog was so embarrassed that he took the 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.240 dog to the ball away from us. But I put 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:48.960 him in right field. He was the last one chosen 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.440 of the fathers, and I put him in right field 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:53.920 because it was very rare that a lefty would would 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:58.159 be at bat. And my worst nightmare came true, which 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:00.640 there was a lefty. It was Jack Palant, by the way, 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.279 and it went right toward him and he wasn't paying attention. 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.680 He was like talking to Natalie Wood and eating a 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.960 hot dog and it went sailing over his head and 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.240 it was such an embarrassment to me. But you know, 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.640 he walked back after finally we got up a bat 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.680 and he said, sorry, kid, I know I fucked that up. 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.440 And it made me want to just hug him. And 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.880 I was looking for my friends. I was ready to 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.880 punch their face if they said anything because he was 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.320 just so disarming. You know, it just really touched me. 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.320 It's such a complicated stew of things, right to on 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:44.680 the one hand, see your father and in some way 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:49.160 have a sense of embarrassment because you're a kid, and 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.680 what kids want, kids want to be like other kids. Yeah, 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.359 and also to know that there's something so real and 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.880 genuine about him. He was owning who he was and 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:03.360 kind of saying, you know, sorry. 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.000 This is what she got, it's what you got. 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:13.120 As Griffin grows up, he spends more and more stories 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.840 the lie about his dad robbing a bank. That was 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:17.560 just the beginning. 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:21.280 I became a real fiber, a real kind of liar. 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.800 And my parents we went to church, a Catholic church 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:30.160 in Beverly Hills. We called our Lady of the Cadillacs 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.560 because of the extravagant cars that were in the parking lot. 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:36.400 And one day I just decided, I'm not going to 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:38.880 go to church. I don't want to do it. And 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:40.280 my dad is going, come on, get in the car, 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:41.720 get in the car, and I went, I'm not going. 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:43.640 I don't know what possessed me to say I'm not going. 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:49.200 And during this time I had a real, i no delusional, 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.040 relationship with the President John Kennedy, and I used to 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:56.200 write him letters and once I heard back from his secretary, 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.440 Missus Lincoln. Her name was and I used to think 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:01.640 about them time. Anyway, I said, I'm not going to 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.160 church and dang mine help fuck it. 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:05.040 It. 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:07.280 Gets in the car with my brother and sister. And 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.440 then when they drive back, my brother and sister comes 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:14.240 screaming into the living room. We just met the Kennedys. 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.400 We sat next to the Kennedys and we met them. 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:23.360 I thought, Wow, God must be really pissed and how 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.119 could he do that. I was bereft and I could 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:28.800 not I couldn't live with the fact that my brother 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:31.080 and sister met the Kennedys and I didn't. So I 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.360 went to school the next day and I told everybody 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.079 I met the Kennedy's and uh, you know, it was 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.920 old stage thing. I would like tap them, mister President, 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.200 I'm Griffin Dunn. And he turns to jack and goes, 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:44.240 oh my god, Jackie, this is a little boy who 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:50.520 wrote that letter. And I started to tell this over 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:52.920 and over. And I'm in the middle of, you know, 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.320 starting school the neighborhood playoffs with all my new actor friends, 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.480 and I'm starting to tell this story and I and 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.040 he turned to Jackie, you go, and I go, wait, 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.800 I didn't meet the Kennedys. I'm making all this up. 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:08.160 I don't know why I never met. And I'd start 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:09.920 to have like a breakdown about it. He goes, Okay, 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.520 nobody's saying you did. And I called my brother and 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:18.000 I said, you know, I almost told this story again. 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.200 I've been, you know, feasting off your experience and lying that. 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:23.200 He goes, what are you talking about? At that time? 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:25.840 You guys all met the Kennedys, and I never did. 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:33.000 Wait a minute, we didn't meet the Kennedys. Dad told 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:37.719 us to say we met the Kennedys. So I've been 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.480 telling a lie on top of a lie, you know, 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.120 for eighteen years or. 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:51.360 So, a lie on top of a lie. And what 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:55.840 do lies do? Really? They shift both our inward and 0:09:55.880 --> 0:10:00.520 outward narratives. When we lie, after all, we're keeping a 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:04.400 kind of secret. We know we're lying, and even if 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.600 we're doing it really, really well, even if, as in 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:12.319 Griffin's case, we're an excellent actor, still we're aware on 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:16.199 some level that we're bringing other people into our own fabrication, 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.839 and that knowing is a very lonely place to be. 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:25.640 Griffin's childhood was lived in a house that pulsed with secrets, 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.400 and as children. Our lived experience is all we know 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:30.080 of the world. 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:33.320 As we were growing up, we had this, you know, 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:35.720 we were presenting one image. It was sort of based 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.240 on the Kennedy family, you know, this winning family of 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.960 two boys and a little girl and a young, handsome 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:47.080 couple and just with great social grace, and that this 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.520 loving couple was a loving couple was the first sort 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.400 of secret that you don't feel as a kid, but 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:58.160 you know, and you don't know that your father has 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.000 actually got a sort of see secret life, that he's 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.840 closeted men who had to keep this a secret, particularly 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:09.240 at this time in his standing in the industry and socially, 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:12.880 to be you know, exposed or out of the closet 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:17.160 would have been a terrible verdict with terrible consequences, and 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:19.880 especially growing up as a little boy and knowing that 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:24.920 you know that your preference is not heterosexual, and so 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:27.880 he had that shame. But you know, you don't know 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.720 you're thinking feeling shame. There's just something in the air. 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.360 There's an atmosphere that you kind of grieve, and you know, 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.160 my mother. The other thing we didn't know was that 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:42.240 my mother was terribly ill. She was getting sicker, and sicker, 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.760 and she eventually was diagnosed with MS as having MS. 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.320 But she took that pain and also the unhappiness of 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.640 her marriage, and probably the knowing and keeping the secret 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.400 of my father to herself, not even talking to him 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:02.240 about it. So it makes a a a rather thick 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:04.760 atmosphere that you know, you kind of grow up and 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.800 it results in you know, in my case, led to 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.080 me lying, telling these FIBs. I know the Kennedys, I 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.320 got a lion, I have a baby lion at home. 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.200 I you know, I mean, just crap and just fall 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:17.880 out of my mouth. 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:34.880 We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:41.880 When Griffin is eleven, he becomes a self described discipline 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.720 problem and is sent off to an all boys boarding 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:49.160 school in Massachusetts. This was very unusual in his family's 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.880 milieu to send a kid to boarding school at that 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.240 age on the other side of the country, and the 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:59.640 school was strict, really strict. It was there that Griffin 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:06.000 prof not only his lying, but his stealing as well. 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:07.880 I could look at someone in the eye and I 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:12.480 could just tell a total untruth and my pulse would 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.520 never rise. I'd have the pulse of a serial killer. 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.560 And all of that was I could trace to the 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.120 untruths in the I don't know the facade that I 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:23.520 was growing up with. 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:28.280 And at the same time, there was this moral center, 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.640 you know, at the core of the serial killer facade. 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.560 I did have a sense of morality and empathy. I 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.160 always had that, even though I didn't know quite about 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.280 like my dad's secrets, I kind of suspected it, so 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.880 I always had real sympathy and love for him. I 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:49.400 related to that much more than the social gadfly. That 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.480 was something real. And I then went to another school, 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:55.920 all boys, God forbid. I went to school with girls, 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:00.280 and I was That's when I found acting. And I 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.960 was playing at Yago in Othello, and the night before 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.480 I was to do the performance, my best friend, who 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.480 was I gravitated toward acting. He gravitated toward drugs, and 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.320 he came in. He went, man, we don't get high 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.040 anymore and you're just a joe actor, And he gilded 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.400 me into taking a hit a pot and teacher comes in. 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.480 I smell smoke and I go no, and this plume 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:27.280 comes out and it was immediate expulsion. And I was 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:30.120 taking to the headmaster that very night, to his home 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:32.800 and he wants to cut a deal. I mean, he 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:36.160 looks at me as like a fundraising tool of the future, 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.000 and he said, if you rat out John my friend, 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.080 you can do iago and just say he was the 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.400 only one smoking. And I don't know. I couldn't do it. 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:49.440 I couldn't do it, and I got kicked out of school. 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.240 And that was the last I ever set foot in 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.840 the school again. You know, it was in the tenth grade. 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:56.720 It would have been eleventh, but I was held back 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:00.080 because I was dyslexic. So you know, I went and 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:04.280 into the adult world feeling very uneducated, which led to 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.640 another fib that I went to college, which I never did. 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:13.560 But I did catch up on my reading somehow. Being dyslexic, 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.360 I was told, you're kind of a dummy, and we 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:19.680 feel sorry for you. But once I got out of school, 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.400 I didn't have that pressure. So I had to catch 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:24.760 up with my own lie and read the books I 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.600 would have read, and then I became a voracious reader. 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.880 Literature is perhaps the only art form that can offer 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.800 us direct access to inner lives other than our own. 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:45.400 We approach books as maps of sorts, guideposts to help 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.120 us navigate how we live inhabit a world of imaginative 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.400 empathy and understand how others live. So it makes a 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.480 lot of sense, especially that those of us who have 0:15:56.520 --> 0:16:00.360 grown up with family secrets are drawn to reading. Read 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.840 to feel less alone, to peer into the windows of 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:07.600 other people's homes, to see what we recognize and what 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:12.760 we don't. Griffin is nearly twenty when he moved to 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.680 New York to start his career. He's waiting tables, going 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:21.680 to acting school and auditioning. Sounds like a fairly typical experience, 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.240 but there's more to it. His parents are now divorced, 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:28.920 and Griffin isn't only getting to know himself during this time, 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:30.920 he's getting to know his dad too. 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.640 When I first moved, he'd actually gone into self exile. 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.760 He'd lost all of his money, he'd sold all of 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.200 his belongings in a garage sale, and all the people 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.480 that he invited to his home and they all haggled 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:46.760 with him over ashtrays and end irons and stuff, and 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:48.960 he left quite humiliated. So when I was in New 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:53.200 York beginning my career, he had driven up the coast 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:56.720 of California into Oregon and lived in a cabin right 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:58.560 in front where his car broke down, and he lived 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:02.600 there and then really grew character. He was at that 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:04.760 point in his life and I was just beginning my 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:10.000 life as an actor. But it was also, you know, 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.560 an incredible I wanted to live in New York. From 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:15.520 the moment I first laid Iceland, I knew. I just 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.720 was counting the days, and I created a narrative of 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:21.760 really kind of a magical New York. You know, I 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.760 wasn't getting acting work, but I worked at Radio City 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.520 Music Hall, feeding in the popcorn concession are and I 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.399 had a little paper hat and one of my jobs 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.359 was to refill the popcorn and the Nativity scene. They 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:37.800 had a zoo downstairs, and I would feed the camel's 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:42.920 popcorn and wander around to the catacombs and Rockefeller Center. 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.040 And my roommate at the time was my best friend, 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.919 Carrie Fisher, who eventually said, I got this part in 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:54.320 a movie that's really stupid, and so I got to 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:58.119 go to England. And so she's like working and I'm 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.359 as an actress and I'm working as a waiter and 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:04.520 a popcorn concessionaire. So it was kind of great, and 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:06.679 she was, you know, in a Broadway show before in 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:09.680 the chorus, and I would go around backstage and I 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.800 knew all the stage hands and see them throwing snow 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.960 for the you know, the dancing scenes of the debut, 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.679 Reynolds dancing under a snow. So it was all, you know, 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.400 it's just the New York I wanted, you. 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:25.840 Know, Griffin, it's striking me that it's so much about 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.639 what things look like and what things really are. I mean, 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.760 there are all of these layers to that where I mean, 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:36.240 when you were living with Carrie Fisher in the Day's 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:38.320 Artists Building and you would go to the restaurant in 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:40.800 the Cafe Days Artists Building on West sixty seventh Street 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:44.760 in New York City, the very expensive, very expensive restaurant, 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.240 the may Treads thought that you were, you know, I 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:54.879 don't know, a viscount or a lord, and and you 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:58.400 know treated you as such and you didn't dissuade him. 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.919 There's constantly these things that are kind of turning on 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:06.480 their head. So tell me, like what was your relationship 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.160 with your father like during those years, and when did 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.760 you actually come to know, you know, sort of the 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.960 truth of his sexuality and which you kind of always 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:19.000 knew all along, but didn't know. Again, this being kind 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:19.840 of about the secrets we. 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:24.000 Keep from our sh sure well, growing as an individual, 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.760 you know, and finding out who you are. And I 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:30.239 always hope to find that, but never have to go 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.920 through the journey of finding myself that my father did. 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:39.119 I've never seen such public humiliation. And he really he 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:44.280 took that pain and that humiliation and his secrets and 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.040 he learned from it. And he lived in this cabin 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.760 and he wanted to be a writer and expressed itself 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:55.119 in these single space letters, just pages and pages that 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.800 were confessional and him really getting at the root of 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:00.920 who he was and how he got to this point 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.760 in his life. And he was also it was a 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.080 workshop for finding his voice, a voice that he would 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:10.480 eventually find as a very well known writer. So here 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.720 I was really getting to know him now. He never talked. 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:16.919 We'd never once had a discussion about being closeted or not. 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.439 I didn't feel the need to have that conversation. I 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:24.480 think he always assumed his sons knew. I know my 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:29.080 sister knew because when my dad was having this garage sale, 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.959 the lowest point in his life, my sister, who was 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.439 starting out as an actress, and immediately started working and 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.920 was making more money than him by far. Out of 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:44.040 the gate. She brought her her friend who was older 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:47.520 than her but younger than my father, a guy named Norman, 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:50.600 and he helped, you know, so Dad wouldn't have to 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:53.720 touch the money and everything. He tagged everything with Dominique 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.440 and did all the bartering for him. My sister, who 0:20:57.520 --> 0:20:59.640 was one to really knew how to keep a secret, 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:04.440 she saw what was going on, and I never knew 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:05.240 anything about it. 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:16.680 On November fourth of nineteen eighty two, Griffin's sister, Dominique, 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:22.280 age twenty two, was brutally murdered. She was a beautiful, 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.560 talented young actress at the start of what was going 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:28.879 to be an exceptional life, and she died at the 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:34.159 hands literally of her ex boyfriend. This tragedy struck at 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.480 the very heart of the Dunn family, who attended the 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:41.920 media circus of the trial every day. Nick took notes 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:46.119 at the trial. His rage and grief funneled into Pristine's 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:50.399 sentences and razor sharp observations that later became a piece 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:55.360 for Vanity Fair. At the trial, Griffin was struck by 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:59.120 a peculiar distance Nick seemed to be keeping from Norman. 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:02.560 It would be years before he would find out why. 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:07.760 Norman was a witness at the trial of Dominique's murder 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:12.320 for the murderer, and that's the next time I saw him. 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.520 And then as my father has cancer, he's at an 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.640 experimental stem cell treatment place in Germany, and I fly 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:23.520 there to be with him, and I knock on his door. 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:27.320 When I arrived, I'm in the room next door, and 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.120 the door opens and there is Norman, the guy from 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:34.399 the trial, and my dad, who's quite ill, goes, you 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:37.720 remember Norman from the trial. Well, they'd been lovers for 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:41.200 over forty years. My dad was very weak, he was 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:44.800 very pale. He was in and out of sleep, and 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.959 Norman and I sat ordered a bottle of wine and 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:50.480 we talked. We brought me right up to speed from 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:53.280 the time they first met, and that Dominique was the 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:56.720 only one who knew and she thought she was tickled 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:02.120 pink that she set this relationship. But she never told us, 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:05.679 She never told her brothers, she never told anyone. So 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:06.880 that's how I found out. 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:10.840 It's such an amazing story, and I think, like some 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:15.239 of the work of becoming an adult, you know, that 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:19.480 is an ongoing work in progress is coming to know 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:23.399 our parents as people, you know, people that aren't our parents, 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:26.840 people who had lives before us, and you know, during 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:29.800 our lives that aren't just about about us. 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:32.080 And it was so striking and so moving. 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:36.320 And you're thinking back to Dominique's trial and your father 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:39.399 kept his distance from Norman in this very you know 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:43.640 in a way that you noticed and then understanding those 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:49.360 years later that he must have been absolutely terrified that 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:52.200 their relationship was going to come out on cross examination 0:23:52.280 --> 0:23:55.040 of Norman. And you describe it as the longest day 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:55.800 of his life. 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:59.720 Which I was not aware of. I didn't know, of 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:02.840 course at this time, that my father and Norman knew 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:05.639