SHORT TAKES : Author Disowns TV Miniseries

Author Dominick Dunne would like viewers of the NBC miniseries “People Like Us” to know that the TV version is quite different from his book.

“It was a best-seller. I must have done something right,” Dunne said in the May 12-18 issue of TV Guide magazine.

Dunne, who also complained about the way his “The Two Mrs. Grenvilles” was reworked for television, had no say in the script. “I sold it, and I was paid handsomely,” he said.

Dunne’s 1988 novel was about a writer who moves in society circles.

The script changed the central character, Gus, played by Ben Gazzara, from an ironic observer to a conventional hero.

“If I had wanted it that way, I would have written it that way,” Dunne said.

“The network felt that Gus should be a participant,” said the screenwriter, Kathleen A. Shelley. “A movie must have one person for the audience to sympathize with, identify with and care about.”

The miniseries will air Sunday and Monday.