NEW YORK (AP) – John Gregory Dunne, a screenwriter and best-selling author who often collaborated with his wife, Joan Didion, and took a cynical look at Hollywood and the Roman Catholic Church in works like “True Confessions,” has died at 71.

Dunne, who had a history of heart trouble, collapsed and died at his New York apartment, said his older brother, writer Dominick Dunne.

The grandson of an Irish immigrant, Dunne often focused on the Irish-American experience, particularly in his novel “True Confessions.” The 1977 breakthrough book involved a Los Angeles murder and its effect on two Irish-Catholic brothers, one a detective, the other a priest, neither untainted by corruption.

Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall starred in the movie, which Dunne adapted with Didion.

“‘True Confessions’ was a major novel, one of the best books ever written about politics,” said Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam, a friend and fellow writer. “He was a very important writer, and a wonderful friend – talented, edgy, combative.”

Dunne, born in Hartford, Conn., was the fifth of six children. He developed a childhood stutter, and found it easier to express himself in writing.

Dunne graduated from Princeton University in 1954, then joined Time magazine for five years.

Dunne was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, and was renowned for his colorful descriptions of writing and the creative process. In a 1986 Esquire article, he called writing “manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe.”

Dunne died just after he and his wife returned home from visiting their seriously ill daughter, Quintana Roo, in the hospital, his brother said.

Dunne is survived by his wife and daughter.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete.

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