Wissenswertes

She was generally perceived as not just a literary giant, but also a cultural icon.

Didion's best-selling memoir "The Year of Magical Thinking" (2006) was later adapted for stage with Vanessa Redgrave portraying the author.

Before his career ever took off, Harrison Ford was a personal carpenter to the Dunne family who became so close, Didion would send him first editions of her books as Christmas gifts.

B.A. from U.C. Berkeley (1956)

Sister-in-law of Dominick Dunne.

She had an adopted daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne Michael, was born on March 3, 1966 and died on August 26, 2005 of natural causes.

Photographer Julian Wasser captured many of her portraits including the famous pose of her with her 1969 Corvette Stingray at her home on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood.

Though she was rarely photographed without a cigarette in her hand, she reportedly didn't smoke as much as one might have imagined.

Aunt of actor/director Griffin Dunne, actress Dominique Dunne and Alexander Dunne.

Mother-in-law of Gerry Michael.

Sister of Jim Didion.

She was the daughter of Eduene (Jerrett) and Frank Reese Didion, a finance officer in the Army Air Corps. She was of mostly German, English, Welsh, and Irish heritage, with her surname originating in Germany.

Her sister-in-law Lennie (Ellen Beatriz Griffin Dunne), the wife of Dominick Dunne -- brother of Didion's husband John Gregory Dunne -- was involved in a charity that sold castoffs of people in the entertainment industry. Anytime anything that had belonged to Natalie Wood came in, Lennie would hide it, give Didion a call, and Didion would buy it all, sight unseen. That's how she ended up owning a lot of clothing and underwear that had belonged to Wood, according to playwright Mart Crowley, who had been Wood's personal assistant for many years. Crowley said her husband Dunne would often brag that Didion was wearing a great dress or shades that had once been Wood's.