Done & Dunne

In this episode, we investigate the most exclusive party in Palm Beach, The Coconuts. It is a New Years Eve ritual, enjoyed by a very privileged few. For a town mostly run by the ladies, this is the one night the men take over the gala in thanks to the Grand Dames. Something must be amazing out the event – it celebrated its 100th anniversary December 31, 2022.  All sources can be found at doneanddone.com. Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is a whole new season, investigators! This month we travel to one of the most exclusive, and wealthy, communities in the high society scene - Palm Beach, Florida. Dominick Dunne goes on a quest early in his Vanity Fair career that will continue through the years. This season posits the question: What is the Real Palm Beach? Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! Further Reading Fatal Charms: And Other Tales of Today, by Dominick Dunne (Amazon link) The Women of Palm Beach, by Dominick Dunne, April 1986, Vanity Fair   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Investigators, in our episode this week, we finally get our couple down the aisle! Today's tale includes all the happenings surrounding the September 1953 affair.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Alicia invited her Trashy Divorces co-host Stacie to join as they attempt to work through Dominick's August 1984 Vanity Fair piece Candy's Dynasty, about the extravagant lifestyle of Candy and Aaron Spelling. It's a Leo Season special! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the sad passing of Diane Keaton today, we remember her legacy in this one from the vault. This long ago episode delves into the one and only Diane Keaton, and all her spiderwebs! Dominick Dunne interviewed Keaton in 1985, in both New York City and Los Angeles, and this piece provides so much sub-text to so much of Hollywood. Certainly, the story is about the reclusive Diane Keaton, but also leads into our investigation Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and many, many more! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The architect Stanford White is credited with a host of landmark structures in Newport, New York City, and beyond. But it was his sexual predation of young girls, especially the young model and showgirl Evelyn Nesbit, that led to his shockingly public murder and the 1907 "Trial of the Century" in its aftermath. The who was never in question. Harry K. Thaw was the culprit. It was Harry’s motive for the crime, defending his young wife Evelyn, that fascinated the public. Included in today’s investigation is a whole heap of New York City history, from newspapers to theaters, as well as high society figures, sexual secrets, professional jealousies, and courtroom dramas - all set against a landscape designed by the actual victim of the crime. Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alicia climbs on her literary soapbox in this episode, the last to cover in our Big Four Spiderwebs episodes. Ginevra King was F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s first love, and oh my – did she stick to his heart and writing for years, also with a little plagiarism too. This one is a literary spiderweb that Alicia will always be mad about and sheds additional light into Scott’s psyche through the years. Click here to save 20% annually on Patreon!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you like golf, this is definitely the episode of The Big Four for you! Edith Cummings is the gal in our spotlight in this episode, and she led quite a life. Edith was one of the premier amateur golfers during the Jazz Age popularly known as the Fairway Flapper. Not only that, but Edith Cummings was also the inspiration for the character Jordan Baker in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It truly does all connect. Click here to save 20% annually on Patreon!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Holy cats! In this episode we meet the second of our Big Four, Courtney Louise Letts. Courtney was beautiful, glamorous and voted one of the world’s best dressed women. Courtney was also married four times, with some distinguished husbands including explorer John Borden and international diplomat Felipe de Espil. Her story includes way more than fashion and romantic love. Courtney was also a distinguished author of nature and diplomatic histories. Click here to save 20% annually on Patreon!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a departure from Newport this week, we are taking a detour to Lake Forest, Illinois to discover The Big Four. The Big Four was a Girl Gang unlike any other. These daughters of privilege are Margaret Carry, Courtney Letts, Edith Cummings, and Ginevra King, and each has her own special story. Today, we explore the origins of this quartet of lifelong female friendship as well as the life of Margaret “Peg” Carry, daughter of the onetime president of the Pullman Company. Peg’s life was fairly conventional, but the kidnapping of her husband (Edward A. Cudahy) as a child is the real showstopper. This case, including the manhunt and criminal trail set American precedent long before the days where child kidnapping of rich men became popular. Annual subscriptions now available on Patreon – Save 20%! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode we continue our tour through Newport, Rhode Island, looking at the last block of Bellevue Avenue with Miramar as our focus today. Completed in 1914, Eleanor Elkins Widener finished this grand Gilded Age home to honor her husband George Widener, lost on the R.M.S. Titanic in 1912. The Widener family is a big deal in high society, specifically Philadelphia, and although the couple never lived in their dream home together. Eleanor will keep the home in the family and marry again to Alexander Hamilton Rice Jr., living many happy days at Miramar. After passing from the Widener family, the home does serve as a school for a brief time, although it slides back into being a private residence soon enough. There is some late breaking news about this home which is great for museum loving folks – Miramar is slated in its future to become part of the Newport Preservation Society. There is tons of history in this one that will attach in the next episode. It really does all connect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Edith Wharton came by her subject matter the old-fashioned way: she was born into a prominent New York City family, and was subjected to the mores of the city's high society circle from birth. This did not suit the plain, brainy young Edith even a little bit, much to her mother's horror, but Edith did eventually submit to an extremely unhappy marriage to a diagnosed megalomaniac (!), which ended in, you guessed it, a trashy divorce. But this episode contains way more than Edith’s life, writing and love affairs. We also explore the Gilded Age society that Edith lives in, but it is her aunt who really makes that society. Mrs. Mary Mason Jones is quite the OG legend in New York City, and the entire reason for the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses”. Also included are Mrs. Paran Stevens, Oscar Wilde, a set of international locations, many love affairs, and a whole lot of Newport too. Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this holiday episode, we take a diversion from The Gilded Age in Newport to visit the Fabulous Late 1980s in Hollywood, specifically The Platinum Triangle, the area in Los Angeles that encompasses Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and Bel Air. Dominick Dunne’s writing is terrific here from the spring of 1989, coming back to California and revisiting his old stomping grounds, and dropping all the dish. At the time, there was big push at this time to tear down all the homes that existed to build more glorious houses. Attached into this one are so many names that fold into our investigation through time, including but not limited to: David Geffen, Merv Griffin, Eva Gabor, William and Edie Goetz, Candy and Aaron Spelling, Betsy Bloomingdale, and so many more. Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Source ⁠⁠Fatal Charms and the Mansions of Limbo⁠⁠, by Dominick Dunne (Amazon link) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oliver Belmont becomes quite the talk of the town when the entire first floor of this grand home is comprised of stables for his prized horses. Oliver will not stay single for long, marrying the recently divorced Alva Vanderbilt in a move that shocks society. And that is only one of the shocking moves. This home and the people who inhabited it are truly unforgettable. Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s episode, we continue our tour of Bellevue Avenue to explore Champs Soliel, the last great home built in Newport in 1929, truly shitting down the Gilded Age. We get to know its owner, Lucy Wharton Drexel Dahlgren, who led quite an interesting life, with a real twist on a trashy divorce too. Other notable owners include Russell and Annie Laurie Aitken, mother of Sunny von Bulow.  Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the continuation of tour down Bellevue Avenue in Newport. Rhode Island, this week we take a little detour to one street, packed with a whole lot of history. Ruggles Avenue is this side street, and four homes were very important when it came to fancy folks and a whole lot of spiderwebs. Today's summer cottages include Seaview Terrace, The Cloisters, Fairholme, and Anglesea. Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We continue our sleuthing in Newport in today’s episode, focusing in on a little more reporting from our man Dominick Dunne. Dunne covered the second trial of Claus von Bulow, and in so doing, uncovered a few more shady characters. Today, we investigate the two guys coming to help out Claus - David Marriott and Father Phillip Magaldi, both proven to ultimately be lying for Claus to get away with murder. Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alicia definitely falls into a rabbit hole in this episode from the Patreon Vault. Dominick Dunne writes just one little paragraph in his reporting on the von Bulow case that was definitely worth investigating. Dunne makes a mention about Paul E. Molitor, Jr., who was kind of a big deal in Newport for a little while, for his preservation efforts and being a houseguest of Sunny and Claus. But it is really his mysterious death, just at the height of his triumph, that is the real mystery. Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We continue our tour of Bellevue Avenue in Newport today, focusing specifically on one grand home, Clarendon Court. This home and property had a whole lot of history before Sunny and Klaus von Bulow moved into it in the early 1970s. In this episode, we dig into Edward Collins Knight Sr. and his son, the neighboring property Reef Point, Harry S. Black, Masie Caldwell, and William Heyward too. Also, a few cinema tie-ins as well, and discovering the real Tracy Lord. Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we continue our tour of Newport’s Bellevue Avenue with seven more glorious homes including Chateau-sur-Mer, The Breakers, Seaview Terrace, Rosecliff, Beechwood, Marble House and Beaulieu. There are many Gilded Age high society folks who owned these homes at one time or another such as the Astors, the Vanderbilts, and the Whetmores. Also included is a Dark Shadows tie-in, and a deeper dive into the life of silver heiress Tess Oelrichs. Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices