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Author And Screenwriter Joan Didion Dies At 87

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Author and screenwriter Joan Didion has died at 87, Variety reported Thursday.

She died from complications from Parkinson's Disease.

The American Theatre Wing's 2012 Annual Gala
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 24: Joan Didion attends The American Theatre Wing's 2012 Annual Gala at The Plaza Hotel on September 24, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

Didion was a leading figure in the "New Journalism" movement in the 1960's, a technique centered around the telling of news using narrative storytelling and literary technique.

She was well-known for her essays and novels including "Play It as It Lays," and her screenplays she co-wrote with her late husband John Gregory Dunne.

Together, the two wrote screenplays for the films "True Confessions," "A Star Is Born," "The Panic in Needle Park" and "Up Close and Personal," Variety said.

She is also well-known for her Pulitzer Prize Award nominated biography/autobiography "The Year of Magical Thinking," a work that won the 2005 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The work would later be translated into a Broadway play in 2007.

Didion, a native of Sacramento, earned her Bachelor's degree from University of California, Berkeley.

According to Variety, Didion's nephew, director and actor Griffin Dunne, released a Netflix documentary about his aunt in 2017, titled "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold."

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