Background
Patrick Dennis was born as Edward Everett Tanner III in Chicago, Illinois, in 1921, to Edward Everett Tanner II and Florence (née Thacker) Tanner, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois.
(Encore, Encore! The brilliant sequel to the smash bestsel...)
Encore, Encore! The brilliant sequel to the smash bestseller Auntie Mame is back and the reviews are in . . .
https://www.amazon.com/Around-World-Auntie-Patrick-Dennis/dp/0767915852?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0767915852
(Kerry, a wealthy and socially prominent New York City ten...)
Kerry, a wealthy and socially prominent New York City ten-year-old, describes how his parents' marriage falls apart on Christmas morning, and recounts their divorce, his mother's romance with her ambitious lawyer and his father's with a fashionably skinny magazine editor.
https://www.amazon.com/Joyous-Season-Patrick-Dennis/dp/0971461228?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0971461228
(Back in print at last! From the author of Auntie Mame: th...)
Back in print at last! From the author of Auntie Mame: the bawdy, bestselling, bountifully illustrated autobiography of an imaginary diva whose life is one hilarious mishap after another. For Belle Poitrine, née Mayble Schlumpfert, all the world's a stage and she's the most important player on it. At once coy and coercive, with a name that means "beautiful bosom" in French, she claws her way from Striver's Row to the silver screen. Recalling Belle's career, which ranged from portraying Anne Boleyn in Oh, Henry to roles in both Sodom and its sequel Gomorrah (not to mention the classic Papaya Paradise), Little Me serves up copious quanitites of husbands, couture, and Pink Lady cocktails, with international adventures and a murder trial to boot. A runaway bestseller that made its way to Broadway, starring Sid Caesar in 1962 and Martin Short in 1998, Little Me is now reprinted--with all of the 150 historic, hysterical photographs depicting the funniest scenes from Belle's sordid life, including cameo appearances by the author and Rosalind Russell. Considered a collector's item, the first edition of Little Me was like a performance in book form. Now this glittering spoof of celebrity is gloriously reincarnated for connoisseurs of all things chick and cheeky.
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Me-Intimate-Television-Poitrine/dp/0767913477?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0767913477
(With a wit as sharp as a vodka stinger and a heart as fre...)
With a wit as sharp as a vodka stinger and a heart as free as her spirit, Auntie Mame burst onto the literary scene in 1955--and today remains one of the most unforgettable characters in contemporary fiction. Wildly successful when it was first published in 1955, Patrick Dennis’ Auntie Mame sold over two million copies and stayed put on the New York Times bestseller list for 112 weeks. It was made into a play, a Broadway and a Hollywood musical, and a fabulous movie starring Rosalind Russell. Since then, Mame has taken her rightful place in the pantheon of Great and Important People as the world’s most beloved, madcap, devastatingly sophisticated, and glamorous aunt. She is impossible to resist, and this hilarious story of an orphaned ten-year-old boy sent to live with his aunt is as delicious a read in the twenty-first century as it was in the 1950s. Follow the rollicking adventures of this unflappable flapper as seen through the wide eyes of her young, impressionable nephew and discover anew or for the first time why Mame has made the world a more wonderful place. "Outrageous, hilarious, ribald, sophisticated, slapsatiric." The Denver Post
https://www.amazon.com/Auntie-Mame-Irreverent-Patrick-Dennis/dp/0767908198?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0767908198
Patrick Dennis was born as Edward Everett Tanner III in Chicago, Illinois, in 1921, to Edward Everett Tanner II and Florence (née Thacker) Tanner, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois.
Tanner attended Evanston High School as well as several private schools in Evanston and Chicago and then entered the Art Institute of Chicago. At this time he adopted the pseudonyms Patrick Dennis and Patrick Tanner, names he would use the rest of his life to protect his privacy.
Before joining the American Field Service in 1942, Tanner worked in Chicago for the Stebbins Hardware Company and Columbia Educational Books, Inc. As an ambulance driver during World War II, Tanner saw service on the Arabian Peninsula and in North Africa, France, and Italy. Wounded twice, he was awarded two Purple Hearts posthumously.
In 1945, Tanner moved to New York City, where he worked as an account executive for the advertising agency of Franklin Spier, Inc. , then as an advertising manager for Creative Age Press, and finally as the promotion manager for Foreign Affairs. He remained at the magazine from 1951 until January 1, 1956. From 1957 to 1971 he served as the drama critic at the New Republic.
Tanner was the ghostwriter for four books before he started writing his own novels. His first published novel was Oh, What a Wonderful Wedding (1953), written under the name Virginia Rowans. A New York Times book review on June 28, 1953, stated: "Miss Rowans writes with a fine feminine realism and few of the foibles of our competitive society escape her. " In 1954, House Party was published, again with the author listed as Virginia Rowans. Tanner's best-known book, Auntie Mame, his first under the pseudonym Patrick Dennis, appeared in 1955. It had been submitted to fifteen publishers over a period of five years, before Vanguard Press brought it out. Although he had spent more than a year working out the plot, the story of an eccentric, middle-aged woman from Beekman Place in New York City, as told by her nephew, had been written in only ninety days. As Tanner later told a reporter for Life magazine: "I write fast or not at all. 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. " Auntie Mame received favorable notices. "The humor, broad at times, " wrote Robert W. Henderson in his review, "is coupled with satire on phony avant-garde intellectuals, racial prejudices as evident in suburban communities, and snobbism in general. "
The acclaim received by Auntie Mame altered Tanner's life, bringing the author both wealth and fame. It remained on the best-seller list for two years, selling more than two million copies in hardcover, paperback, and translations. Auntie Mame has also enjoyed a long life on the stage and screen. Featuring Rosalind Russell, the stage adaptation of the novel ran on Broadway from October 3, 1956, to June 28, 1958. Russell also played the lead in the movie of Auntie Mame, released on December 4, 1958. The novel was adapted once more, this time into the musical Mame, which was produced both on Broadway and as a movie.
Tanner published his next two books in 1956, Guestward Ho! and The Loving Couple by Virginia Rowans. For a period of eight weeks in 1956, Tanner had three novels on the New York Times best-seller list--a record that has never been broken. (Tanner, however, discovered the downside of this experience: "You're competing with yourself in the bookstores. ") In 1957, Tanner published his next book, The Pink Hotel, written by Patrick Dennis and Dorothy Erskine. In 1958, Around the World with Auntie Mame appeared. Within a few months, it sold 130, 000 copies. In 1961, he published Love and Mrs. Sargent, his last work under the pen name of Virginia Rowans. The rest of Tanner's work was published under the name of Patrick Dennis: Little Me (1961), Genius (1962), First Lady (1964), Joyous Season (1965), Tony (1966), How Firm a Foundation (1968), Paradise (1971), and Three-D (1972).
There have also been four adaptations of his work for other media. In addition to the different reworkings of Auntie Mame, Little Me (the fictitious memoirs of an actress) was adapted by Neil Simon and produced on Broadway in 1962, starring Sid Caesar. Two television series were based on Tanner's work: "Guestward Ho!" (1960 - 1961) and "The Pruitts of Southhampton" (1966 - 1967). In 1965, Tanner moved temporarily to Mexico City but returned to New York in 1970, where he died at his home on Park Avenue.
(Kerry, a wealthy and socially prominent New York City ten...)
(With a wit as sharp as a vodka stinger and a heart as fre...)
(Back in print at last! From the author of Auntie Mame: th...)
(Encore, Encore! The brilliant sequel to the smash bestsel...)
Quotations:
"I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind. "
"Writing isn't hard - no harder than ditch digging. "
"Chinchilla is said to be more chic than mink, though personally it reminds me of unborn burlap. "
He was a bisexual, in later life becoming a well-known participant in Greenwich Village's gay scene.
On December 30, 1948, Tanner married Louise Stickney, a writer; they had two children.