Yesterday would have been Dominick Dunne's 84th birthday. Friends of the recently deceased journalist gathered last night at the at the Chateau Marmont to celebrate his remarkable life. Steven Mikulan was in attendance, and writes about the memorial on his blog L.A. Noir:

Thursday night's toast to Dunne was attended by a mix of the people he knew from Hollywood and the courts, and also by the street reporters he met and befriended during the first Phil Spector trial - Ciaran McEvoy, Peter Hong, Harriet Ryan and the court blogger Betsy Ross, aka "Sprocket."

Dunne's actor son, Griffin, recalling that as a child his parents would visit friends in this very same suite, related how Dominick gave his kids firecrackers to toss at the police down on Sunset Boulevard during the curfew riots of 1966.

Author Lawrence Schiller praised Dunne for raising social issues usually kept out of polite conversation, while former Los Angeles D.A. Ira Reiner spoke of Dunne's uncanny ability to attract sources of information during O.J. Simpson's first trial.

TMZ founder Harvey Levin recounted how Dunne's righteous indignation over the judicial miscarriage following the murder of his daughter, Dominique, inspired Levin, then a KNBC reporter, to relentlessly delve into the trial, while keynote speaker Linda Deutsch of Associated Press described Dunne's unshakable personal loyalty to colleagues.

Photo from William Morris Endeavor