Dennis McDougal, who covered Hollywood for the Los Angeles Times before writing biographies of Lew Wasserman, Bob Dylan and Jack Nicholson, died Saturday of injuries suffered in a car crash. He was 77.

McDougal and his wife, Sharon, 76, were driving from their home in Memphis to visit family in the Los Angeles area when their car was rear-ended on Interstate 10 near Palm Springs, his granddaughter Megan Cole Lyle told the Times.

The couple was airlifted to Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, where he died. Sharon McDougal died of her injuries two days later.

McDougal’s 1998 book, The Last Mogul, Lew Wasserman, McA and the Hidden History of Hollywood, was ranked No. 59 by The Hollywood Reporter on its October 2023 list of The 100 Greatest Film Books of All Time.

“McDougal conducted 200 interviews to determine how a man who came from nothing grew McA into the world’s largest talent agency, ran...