Dennis McDougal, true-crime writer and Hollywood muckraker, dies at 77

Boston Globe

31-03-2025

Mr. McDougal was the author of more than a dozen books, including 'Angel of Darkness,' his first, published in 1991, about serial killer Randy Kraft, and 'Five Easy Decades: How Jack Nicholson Became the Biggest Movie Star in Modern Times' (2008).
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'The Last Mogul' (1998), about talent agent and head of Universal Studios Lew R. Wasserman, was reviewed in The New York Times, which said Mr. McDougal 'marshaled reams of documents and hundreds of interviews to show exactly how MCA used its muscle — from making friends with Presidents to strong-arming network executives and devising intricate tax shelters for star clients.'
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His other biographies included one of Bob Dylan in 2014 and the forthcoming "Citizen Wynn: A Sin City Saga of Power, Lust, and Blind Ambition," about casino tycoon Steve Wynn.
Mr. McDougal was also a consulting producer of 'Inventing LA: The Chandlers and Their Times' (2009), a Peabody Award-winning PBS documentary based on his book 'Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L.A. Times Dynasty' (2001). A review in The New York Times described the book as 'illuminating reading for anyone interested in 20th-century Los Angeles or modern-day newspapering.'
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'He was the consummate investigative reporter,' said Mr. McDougal's literary agent, Alice Martell. 'He was relentless. He didn't leave any pebble or grain of sand unturned.'
Dennis Edward McDougal was born Nov. 25, 1947, in Pasadena, Calif., and grew up in Lynwood, a city in South Central Los Angeles. His father, Carl, was a jewelry manufacturer. His mother, Lola (Irvin) McDougal, was a relentless reader.
'Among my earliest memories of mom revolved around books,' Mr. McDougal wrote on his blog in 2023. 'Read, she said. It's the only way up and out of whatever hole you're in.'
From 1967 to 1969, he served in the Navy in the South China Sea, on the communications relay ship Annapolis. This inspired "The Candlestickmaker" (2011), a fictionalized account of his experience with drug abuse during the Vietnam War.
"I tried anything I could get my hands on," he recalled in a 2011 interview with Luke Ford, a blogger. "A good third of the crew of my ship, at least when we weren't out to sea, when we were in port, was drunk or stoned at least half the time."
After being honorably discharged, Mr. McDougal attended UCLA, earning a bachelor's degree in English literature in 1972 and a master's degree in journalism in 1973. He was later awarded a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University.
Mr. McDougal wrote for two small California newspapers — The Press-Enterprise, in Riverside, from 1973 to 1977, and The Press-Telegram, in Long Beach, from 1977 to 1981 — before spending about a decade as an investigative reporter at The Los Angeles Times, where he covered glamour and graft in the movie and media industries. During his time there, he chronicled Michael Jackson's tempestuous career; the mismanagement of pop charities such as Band Aid and USA for Africa; the trial of a murder in which Robert Evans, the head of Paramount Pictures, was implicated; and Rodney King's debut as a rap artist.
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Mr. McDougal worked as a producer at CNN during the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995 and wrote about Hollywood for The New York Times, TV Guide, and other publications in the 2000s. His last article for TV Guide was about actor Robert Blake and the unsolved murder of his second wife, Bonny Lee Bakley; Mr. McDougal and journalist Mary Murphy adapted the article into a book, 'Blood Cold: Fame, Sex, and Murder in Hollywood,' published in 2002.
In 2011, Mr. McDougal told Ford that the digital era had democratized the music and movie industries and that he did not regret its effect on major publishers. 'The traditional media has all too often used its bully pulpit to dictate rather than to communicate,' he said. 'I'm glad to see the dictatorial aspect of the media passing away.'
In addition to his stepson, who is known as Fitz, Mr. McDougal is survived by three daughters, Kathleen Vokoun, Jennifer Dominguez, and Andrea Adkins; and 15 grandchildren. A fourth daughter, Amy Riley, a lawyer, died in 2020 at age 44. His first marriage, to Diane Benbenek, ended in divorce.
Mr. McDougal was not only a dogged reporter but also a passionate writer.
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His daughter, Amy, battled mental illness, a subject he immersed himself in when he wrote a true-crime book, 'In the Best of Families' (1994), about the son of President Ronald Reagan's personal lawyer, who murdered his own mother. Years later, when Mr. McDougal's daughter was killed in Mexico, he wrote in The Los Angeles Times that she was failed, in part, by 'ill-conceived laws' instituted under Reagan that 'shuttered scores of mental hospitals' and 'made it more difficult to hospitalize someone resistant to treatment.'
He added: "If you can muster and sustain some form of fury akin to my own, I would ask that you offer that instead of thoughts and prayers."
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