Maris Kreizman Pays Tribute To Joan Didion, AKA ‘Jdiddy’
By Kristin Myers on December 23, 2021 at 3:10 PM EST
Author Joan Didion has passed away.
Her publisher confirmed the news to The New York Times. The 87-year-old writer lived in Manhattan and passed away on Thursday, December 23, from complications related to Parkinson’s Disease.
“Slaughterhouse 90210” author Maris Kreizman paid tribute to Didion, writing, “I want to believe that Joan Didion lived an extra week out of spite so that she could officially outlive Eve Babitz.”
Eve Babitz was an American visual artist and author who was best known for her fictional memoirs and often wrote about life growing up in California. She was born in 1943 and passed away on December 17, 2021, just a few short days before Didion passed away.
“Check on all the girls you know who refer to her as jdiddy,” Kreizman added.
The New York Times paid tribute to the author on Twitter, writing, “Her sharp dispatches on California and tough, terse novels forged a distinct new voice in American writing.”
Joan Didion Was A Prolific Author, Screenwriter
Joan Didion was the author of numerous novels, including “The Year of Magical Thinking.” She also wrote several essays and had several screenwriting credits which included the 1967 version of the film, “The Star Is Born.”
Most of her publications took place between the 1960s and the 1970s, including “A Book of Common Prayer,” “Play It as It Lays,” “Run River,” and “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.” She also published an anthology of her magazine works called “The White Album” after extensively writing for “Life” and “The Saturday Evening Post.” The author was born in Sacramento and published many stories about her home state of California.
In addition to her creative works, Didion was also a journalist. One of her political essays, “Salvador,” wrote about the Unites States' involvement in El Salvador, which was hotly debated at the time. She also penned essays on immigrants on hippie culture and immigrants to Miami.
Joan Didion Married And ‘A Star Was Born’
Didion met and married “Time” writer John Gregory Dunne, which helped launch Didion’s screenwriting career. After adapting her 1970 novel, “Play It As It Lays” together, the two collaborated on several screenplays. The two teamed up with Frank Pierson to write the script for 1976’s “A Star Is Born,” which starred Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.
The couple also wrote 1996’s “Up Close and Personal” together, which was a story about an ambitious young journalist trying to build her career. The film starred Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert Redford.
Dunne passed away from a heart attack in 2003 at the age of 71. Their adopted daughter suffered from pneumonia and passed away in 2005 at the age of 39. The deaths of her husband and daughter influenced much of Didion’s later works, including “The Year of Magical Thinking,” which won the National Book Award.
