"I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind." -- Patrick Dennis
Patrick Dennis (May 18, 1921 — November 6, 1976) was an American author. His novel An Irreverent Escapade (1955) was one of the bestselling American books of the 20th century. In chronological vignettes "Patrick" recalls his adventures growing up under the wing of his madcap aunt, Mame Dennis. Dennis wrote a sequel,Around the World with Auntie Mame, in 1958.
"I write in the first person, but it is all fictional. The public assumes that what seems fictional is fact; so the way for me to be inventive is to seem factual but be fictional." All of Dennis's novels employ to some degree the traditional comic devices of masks, subterfuge and deception.
Patrick Dennis was born Edward Everett Tanner III in Evanston, Illinois. His father nicknamed him "Pat" before he was born, after the Irish heavyweight boxer Pat Sweeney, "a dirty fighter known for kicking his opponents." When he was old enough to say so, he let it be known that he liked "Pat" better than "Edward," and so Pat he became. Pat attended Evanston Township High School where he was popular and excelled in writing and theater.
In 1942, he joined the American Field Service, working as an ambulance driver in North Africa and the Middle East.
On December 30, 1948, Dennis married Louise Stickney, with whom he had two children.
Auntie Mame's first edition spent 112 weeks on the bestseller list, selling more than 2,000,000 copies in five different languages. The manuscript was turned down by fifteen publishers before being accepted by Vanguard. Dennis and a friend marketed the book to the booksellers. At the height of its popularity, it was selling more than 1,000 copies a day; throughout 1955 and 1956, it sold between 1,000 and 5,000 a week.In 1956, with Auntie Mame, The Loving Couple: His (and Her) Story, and Guestward, Ho!, Dennis became the only writer ever to have three books on the New York Times bestseller list at the same time.
Working with longtime friend, actor and photographer Cris Alexander, Dennis created two parody memoirs, complete with elaborate photographs. The first, Little Me, recounts the escapades through life and love of glamour girl Belle Poitrine "as told to Patrick Dennis." His wife, Louise, appeared as "Pixie Portnoy" in the book's photographic illustrations, which included their children and an employee as well. The second "bio," First Lady (1964), is the life story of Martha Dinwiddie Butterfield, oblivious wife of a robber baron who "stole" the presidency for thirty days at the turn of the century.
Throughout his life, he struggled with his bisexuality, at one point becoming a well-known participant in Greenwich Village's gay scene.
Dennis' work fell out of fashion in the 1970s, and all of his books went out of print.In his later years, he left writing to become a butler, a job that his friends reported he enjoyed. At one time, he worked for Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's. Although he was at long last using his real name, he was in essence working yet again under a pseudonym; his employers had no inkling that their butler, Tanner, was the world-famous author Patrick Dennis.
He died from pancreatic cancer in Manhattan at the age of 55.
At the turn of the 21st century there was a resurgence of interest in his work, and subsequently many of his novels are once again available. His son, Dr. Michael Tanner, wrote introductions to several reissues of his father's books. Some of Dennis' original manuscripts are held at Yale University, others at Boston University.
Rowans, Virginia (1953). Oh What a Wonderful Wedding! New York: Crowell.
Rowans, Virginia (1954). House Party. New York: Crowell.
Dennis, Patrick (1955). Auntie Mame. New York: Vanguard Press.
Rowans, Virginia (1956). The Loving Couple: His (and Her) Story. New York: Crowell.
Dennis, Patrick (1956). Guestward, Ho! by Barbara C. Hooton, as indiscreetly confided to Patrick Dennis. New York: Vanguard Press.
Erskine, Dorothy, and Patrick Dennis (1957). The Pink Hotel. New York: Putnam.
Dennis, Patrick (1958). Around the World with Auntie Mame. New York: New American Library.
-- (1961). The Intimate Memoirs of that Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television, Belle Poitrine . New York: E.P. Dutton. ISBN 0-7679-1347-7.
Rowans, Virginia (1961). Love and Mrs. Sargent. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy.
Dennis, Patrick (1962). Genius. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
-- (1964). First Lady: My Thirty Days Upstairs at the White House, by Martha Dinwiddie Butterfield, as told to Patrick Dennis. New York: William Morrow.
-- (1965).The Joyous Season. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
-- (1966).Tony. New York: E.P. Dutton.
-- (1968).How Firm a Foundation. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 0-586-03549-4.
-- (1971). Paradise. New York: H.B. Jovanovich.
-- (1972). 3-D. New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan. (published in the UK as Anything You Like in 1974).
Works in other media
The 1956 Broadway play starring Rosalind Russell, and the highly successful 1958 screen adaptation that followed, inspired Jerry Herman's 1966 musical Mame, with Angela Lansbury in the lead. An adaptation of the musical was filmed in 1974 starring Lucille Ball and Bea Arthur.
Little Me was turned into a musical in 1962, with book by Neil Simon and score by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh, and Sid Caesar playing all the male roles. Bob Fosse won the Tony Award for Best Choreography. There have been several revivals of Little Me, most recently in 1998 with Martin Short, who won a Tony for Best Actor.
Two of Dennis's novels were transformed into television sitcoms. House Party (1954), about a supposedly wealthy family who were actually dead broke, served as the inspiration for The Pruitts of Southampton (1966-67), starring Phyllis Diller, Grady Sutton, Gypsy Rose Lee and Richard Deacon. Guestward Ho! (1960-61), about city folk trying to run a dude ranch in New Mexico, starred Mark Miller, J. Carroll Naish and Joanne Dru.
Jordan, R.T. (2004 ed.). But Darling, I'm Your Auntie Mame!: The Amazing History of the World's Favorite Madcap Aunt. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp. ISBN 0-7582-0482-5.
