The Little World of Patrick Dennis

Not long ago the publishers E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., signed a contract with the firm of Lancelot Leopard, Ltd., for publication this month of a book entitled Little Me, a wildly satiric spoof of recent as-told-to Hollywood autobiographies. Since Little Me, is that rarest of literary properties, an almost sure-fire best seller, the transaction aroused a sense of deep satisfaction in Edward Everett Tanner III, creator and chief stockholder in Lancelot Leopard. When Playboy's companion publication Show Business Illustrated bought Little Me for prepublication serialization, Patrick Dennis, author of the lively spoof, found further cause for rejoicing. And when Feuer and Martin, producers of such hit shows as Guys and Dolls, Silk Stockings and The Boy Friend, forthwith announced purchase of the book as a vehicle for a Broadway musical comedy in which Sid Caesar would undertake to play no less than seven different parts, a happy, spectral cheer was evoked from Virginia Rowans, author of the novels Oh, What a Wonderful Wedding, The House Party, The Loving Couple and Love and Mrs. Sargent, a recent product of Lancelot Leopard, Ltd.

Any person seeking to locate the principals involved herein -- Lancelot Leopard, Edward Everett Tanner III, Patrick Dennis and Virginia Rowans -- might be astonished to find them all merging into the single dashing figure of Patrick Dennis, a man best known as the author of a fabulously successful book called Auntie Mame.

The chameleonic Mr. Dennis is a tall, thin, bearded and impeccable fellow who stands as straight as a fencer and moves with the easy grace of a ballet dancer. Balding and superior-looking, he affects English-cut suits, set off by pink or blue shirts with attached stiff white collars. In winter he sports a bowler, in summer a stiff boater or expensive panama. In conjunction with his distinguished beard, the correct attire gives him a look of dilettante snobbery -- and this, apparently, is exactly the effect he wishes to achieve. His voice rings with the precise, actorish tones of a petulant Edwardian dandy. He seems to listen closely to his own words, as though equipped with a built-in third ear, by which he is able to savor his own chiseled utterances. His remarks are brisk, usually epigrammatic, often acidulous, and frequently devoted to his favorite subject: himself, He gives every evidence of being a contented, self-aware poseur, thoroughly pleased to be playing games with his own identity, altogether relishing his day-to-day enactment of the role of highly successful authour.

Patrick Dennis has ample cause for self-satisfaction. He was the author of three mildly successful books, written during working hours at his desk in an advertising agency, when Auntie Mame was published in 1955. With it, he hit the jackpot.

Dennis comes as close to anger as he ever does when asked how much money he made from Mame. Eyebrows hiked and beard a-quiver, he answers sharply, "I made more than I needed, but far less than people think." Still, it is possible to make a rough estimate. Auntie Mame sold over 200,000 hard-cover copies at $3.50 each, of which the author collected approximately 50¢ a book. Paperback sales here and abroad soared over 2,000,000, netting the writer about a penny per copy. Auntie Mame also became a Broadway musical that ran for two sellout years. Next came a Hollywood sale for the princely sum of $500,000. Recalling this, the author's stern façade slips a bit. "I got more of that money than the producer," he admits proudly. Producers customarily get 40 percent.

So it is safe to say that elegant Pat Dennis has earned in the neighborhood of a million dollars (before taxes) from Auntie Mame and his other books. Add to this the already lucrative Little Me, and it is not difficult to comprehend why the erstwhile junior adman is today a remarkably confident author, able to view lesser mortals with aplomb -- all, that is, save other writers. Dennis refers to his fellow craftsmen as the Talking Authors, claiming to find their minds obsessed by tiny matters. "They organize meetings and talk about how hard it is to make a living as a writer," he says. "It's as if someone had put a gun to their ribs and forced them to write. I find it much easier to stay home and write than to talk about it." He is annoyed by authors, like Taylor Caldwell, who complain of income-tax problems. "You just have to pile it up and pay it out at a monthly rate," he explains grandly. He is also unique in refusing to write unless he finds himself enjoying it. "Anything I have trouble writing, people have trouble reading, so I just quit working if it doesn't flow," he states.

Dennis conceived the theme for Little Me a year ago when an illness prevented him from accompanying his wife to one of the parties he so dearly loves. Left to his own devices at home, he began to dream up possible ideas for books -- and soon hit upon the inspired notion of penning the fictional memoirs of film and TV star Belle Poitrine. The actual writing of the book took him 90 days, par for a Dennis novel. But he did not stop there. Viewing the venture in terms of production as well as text, he saw that his satiric saga would be neatly implemented by the inclusion of amusing pictures. So, with the aid of photographer Chris Alexander, and a cast of 60 of his friends, including Rosalind Russell, Peggy Cass and Dody Goodman, he organized the shooting of some 150 posed photographs to illustrate Little Me. Dennis, who personally selected the period costumes and arranged each sitting, was his dapper self throughout the sessions: to Jeri Archer, who portrays Belle Poitrine, he cried before every click of the camera, "Remember, you have the I.Q. of a beetle!" Since Little Me seems destined to start a new vogue in elaborate books, the question arises as to whether he plans to do another like it. "Why should I?" he asks, with a shrug of his tailored shoulders. "Everyone else will be doing it now."

Dennis lives with his wife and two children in a four-story town house just off Park Avenue, a building which may well be the most sumptuous author's dwelling in New York. Dennis decorated the entire house himself. The duplex living room is dominated by a Palladian window sixteen feet high and eight feet wide; tapestries cover the walls and a brace of chandeliers dangles from the twenty-foot ceiling. The furniture is Empire, inherited by his wife from a wealthy ancestor who lived at the court of Napoleon II. His workroom -- if such a prosaic word can be applied -- is adjacent to the living room, overlooking a small rear garden. Dennis does his writing at a severely modern desk, separated by a stride or two from an inviting Récamier sofa, where he may commune in comfort with his muse. Above the workroom is a dining room which features a huge Viennese porcelain stove. On the third floor are located the bedroom and a sitting room. The top floor -- reached by a self-service elevator -- is the children's domain. Here are bedrooms, kitchen and quarters for the maid, where the children -- Michael, seven, and Betsy, five -- can, if necessary, lead a self-sufficient existence.

Pat Dennis always seemed destined for such splendor. "His success is a tribute to the power of positive posing," one friend says. Even as a struggling copywriter he appeared to be anticipating a life of future luxury; for then, as now, he wore a beard, spoke in clipped accents and clothed himself in the most expensive suits he could afford. It is possible that he might be equally happy without the accouterments of fame. "He was ready for success when it arrived," another friend says. "But if it hadn't come he wouldn't be bothered." Dennis' philosophy seconds this view. "I take things when they come, as they come," he declares.

Yet he was sufficiently stimulated by the sale of Little Me to Feuer and Martin to feel that he owed himself a special gift for his 40th birthday last May 18. He decided to charter an excursion boat and take 150 of his friends on a ride up the Hudson. Dennis still talks about that boat ride, but probably not as awesomely as most of his guests, an assortment of New York publishing-house editors, literary agents, public-relations men, stage and TV celebrities and pretty actresses. Almost every known type of alcoholic beverage was available in abundance during the voyage. Below decks, two chefs cut succulent slices from immense sides of rare beef, while another cooked omelets to order. Most of those aboard recall the junket as a wild affair. During the trip a woman of mature years formed a liaison with a youthful deck hand, and the nylon panties of a blithe young lady of fashion mysteriously appeared as a decoration in the engine room of the craft. But to others the voyage was decorous. "I've done nothing but hear about things I didn't see," a guest complains. "To me, it was just another trip up the Hudson."

Dennis himself recalls only bright spots. "One hundred and fifty alcoholics on one boat," he murmurs with nostalgic relish. Only one tense moment threatened to mar his pleasure, when someone complimented him on his resemblance to Commander Edward Whitehead, of Schweppervescence fame. Over the years Patrick Dennis has waged an unceasing battle to be considered unique. "Commander Whitehead's beard is red, and mine is getting gray," he corrected sternly. Here he seemed to sense that this was too prosaic a remark for a man who likes to be thought outrageous. He took a quick breath and fixed his interlocutor with a baleful glare. "The only things Commander Whitehead and I have in common are blue eyes and genitals," he added with finality.

Good humor thoroughly restored by the success of this sally, he moved onward.

• • •

On the sidewalks of New York, Pat Dennis cuts a conspicuous figure. Beard, correct Savile Row attire, furled umbrella and upright bearing all combine to give him the appearance of a distinguished visitor from the British Foreign Office. Most of the people who pass him by turn to stare -- yet very few recognize him. A man who vastly enjoys amusing himself and his friends, Dennis cares little for the customary publicity rites which attend authorship. He is one of the few living writers who has never appeared on TV or radio to promote one of his books. Nor has he ever subjected himself to an autographing party. The efforts of TV's recent Person to Person to penetrate the Dennis town house were heroic, but completely unsuccessful.

As though to shield himself from such public scrutiny, Dennis delights in projecting an image of confusing eccentricity. The author of eight books, he has yet to put his right name on one; he has even presented himself in the role of literary transvestite. A man cloaked in many guises -- cheerful narcissist, man about town, prolific author and loving husband -- he has taken great pleasure in turning himself into a character fully as bizarre as his own madball creation, Auntie Mame.

The joys of playing tricks with his own identity were discovered by Dennis early in life. Born in Chicago, the son of a well-to-do real-estate broker named Edward Everett Tanner II, Pat was christened Edward Everett III. One evening his father returned from a prize fight featuring a pugilist named Pat Muldoon to find little Edward Everett III belligerently waving his fists in his cradle; the delighted parent forthwith began calling his son Pat. Growing older, the child soon found he had two names to choose from. He selected Pat, noting with mounting excitement how doggedly school and official records clung to Edward Everett III. Perhaps this confusion helped him to become one of the least organized pupils ever to set foot in Chicago and Evanston schools. Whereas some children dislike school, he detested it. He did his best to fail and now says, not without some pride, "I was able to telescope two years of Latin into four." Yet Pat seemed to enjoy attending summer school. Why? Because it kept him away from the countryside, which he loathed even more than the groves of academe.

In his own halting fashion Pat eventually completed his formal schooling, only to find himself on the brink of another struggle: World War II. In 1942 he joined the American Field Service -- or, as he calls it, the Junior League Overseas. While driving an ambulance, he saw rugged action and was twice wounded. But already a pattern of good luck seemed to be shaping his life. His worst injury kept him bedridden for a month. During this hospitalization only one book was available for him to read: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the daring, deadpan best seller of the Twenties. Loose ends in Pat Dennis' life have a way of tying into neat knots. Today, Anita Loos, author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, is a close friend. More to the literary point, the book was to be a strong influence on both Auntie Mame and Little Me.

During his stint with the American Field Service, Pat's outfit was at one point attached to a thickly bearded unit of the Free French Army. The French soldiers gave him further inspiration for personal camouflage: he decided to grow the rich poilu beard he wears to this day.

After the war, Pat elected to start his civilian career in the cosmopolitan confines of New York City. From the very start he seemed completely self-confident. "I've never seen anyone less cowed by the city," a friend recalls. "Big names, big places -- nothing fazed him." His first job was as a part-time manuscript reader for the literary agency McIntosh and Otis, where he soon attracted attention because his written reports were so far superior to the works he read. He next moved to a nine-to-five job at the Franklin Spier advertising agency. Despite the fact that he was then embarking on a year of Jungian psychoanalysis ("It unclogged me, made me more honest with myself -- we all need that"), at Spier he was the sort of lighthearted employee seen in plays and movies, but seldom in real life. Arriving at the office each morning, he would sit at the typewriter recording his dreams of the night before for his analyst. Then he typed reports for McIntosh and Otis, for whom he still worked. At 11:45, with a noon lunch in the offing, he took fifteen minutes or so to bat out the most brilliant copy the (continued on page 104) Patrick Dennis (continued from page 102)agency produced. His lunch was usually long and studded with cocktails, for he enjoyed social drinking then as much as he does now. Back at the office he regaled the staff through much of the afternoon by embellishing on the gossip he had heard during lunch.

At this time Dennis also began ghostwriting for the Crowell publishing firm. In the midst of one particularly arduous job it suddenly occurred to him that it would be much more fun to write a book of his own. Accordingly, he quit the cocktail-lunch circuit and began to write Auntie Mame. Ninety lunch hours later the book was finished -- but unsigned. Because Patrick Tanner seemed far too humdrum a name to affix to his opus, he began searching for a pseudonym. During a random perusal of the New York phone book, the name Dennis leaped at him from atop a page -- and the quest was ended: the author of Auntie Mame would henceforth be known as Patrick Dennis.

The world is familiar with the astonishing success of Auntie Mame, which stayed on the best-seller lists for two years. Less well known is the amount of time it took to sell the manuscript. For five long years it made a fruitless journey down the alphabetical list of publishers, until at last it reached V -- and was accepted by Vanguard. No shouts of acclaim were heard on the January day in 1955 when Auntie Mame first appeared on the nation's bookstalls, and for two months no newspaper even bothered to review it. The book was a sleeper, which required a month or two more before it finally edged onto the bottom of the best-seller list. Then -- still largely unreviewed -- it moved slowly but inevitably toward the top. Life's minor ironies amuse Pat Dennis, and when, in 1958, he published a sequel called Around the World with Auntie Mame, he was sardonically delighted to find the critics indulging in hindsight reviews of Auntie Mame, which was belatedly hailed for its "Stylish offhandedness," "spontaneous and sustained lunacy" and "yeasty good humor."

In the five years between completion and sale of Auntie Mame, Pat wrote three other novels: Oh, What a Wonderful Wedding, The House Party and The Loving Couple (a split-personality book told in two "first persons," relating the staff and distaff sides of a marital fracture). These were all penned under a new sobriquet which was coined at a conference with the editors of the T. Y. Crowell publishing house. At this meeting Pat proposed the names John Doe, Richard Roe, Lancelot Leopard, John Brown, John Smith, Benson Hedges and Virginia Rounds. His own favorite was Lancelot Leopard, but the editors recoiled at this. They favored Virginia Rounds, to which Pat assented. It was then decided that Virginia Rowans (pronounced Rounds) was closer to the public domain. Pat claims that the fact that this was a girl's name did not strike him until much later. "It might just as well have been Lucky Strike," he says.

After the success of Auntie Mame, an article appeared in Time magazine publicizing Pat's numerous identities. Interviewers descended upon him, seeking to find out why he wished to hide his true self behind so many names. He replied that he wanted to protect his privacy ("I have as much as Marilyn Monroe," he says); that Franklin Spier might object to his noontime writing; and that writers were offensive people who talked about themselves too much, a pitfall he wished to avoid. In the midst of such explanations the irreverent author could not resist trying to sound outrageous. "I start with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind," he told one reporter. To another he confided that he got his ideas in the bathtub: "I think best in the tub -- and I also get clean." He chose to deprecate his work, saying, "Writing's easy if you do it badly enough." He also made a capsule comparison of the styles of Patrick Dennis and Virginia Rowans. "Virginia is more thoughtful, Patrick more slapdash," he said. With this, book reviewers tend to agree. Patrick Dennis is a lively, free-swinging writer, whose instinctive feeling for popular taste allows him to stop just short of vulgarity. Lacking Patrick's racy lunacy, Virginia is more expert, but formal and, as a consequence, less stimulating.

By 1960, Pat was the author of seven novels. Four were signed Patrick Dennis, three Virginia Rowans, and he had complicated matters further by collaborating as Patrick Dennis with two friends named Barbara Hooton (Guestward Ho!) and Dorothy Erskine (The Pink Hotel). At one time he had three simultaneous best sellers: Auntie Mame, The Loving Couple and Guestward Ho! These successes brought him to such a peak of prosperity that he decided, for tax purposes, to incorporate and, in effect, manufacture his own books. They would then be leased to established publishers for distribution and sale. He christened the new corporation Lancelot Leopard, Ltd., thus finding use for a name he had never ceased to cherish. The first Lancelot Leopard book was Love and Mrs. Sargent. The second, bearing the Dutton imprint, is Little Me.

Lancelot Leopard promises to be a highly lucrative venture. "We plan to declare a 50-percent dividend and do over the secretary's office this year," Pat says, with an airy wave of his hand. This last is artful nonsense, for the corporation office is located solely in his own balding dome. He has insisted on pressing Lancelot Leopard stock on old friends, thereby enabling them to share in its profits. "You don't have to change your life if you don't want to," he believes, and holds firmly to this credo. His prosperity has not interfered with the close friendships he made soon after his arrival in New York. Guests at parties in the duplex living room today are for the most part people he first met at Franklin Spier, and during his later employment at the Creative Age Press and Foreign Affairs magazine, from which he departed on January 1, 1956, to become a gentleman author. "I don't believe Pat and his wife have made five new friends since Auntie Mame was published," one intimate says. Like candidates for the Presidency, they know who was for them before the nomination.

Pat met Louise Stickney fifteen years ago when they were both working at Franklin Spier; two years later they became Mr. and Mrs. Tanner. When anyone expresses disappointment at such a prosaic courtship, Louise Tanner smiles and says, "Yes, I know -- we should have met on a camel." The two take obvious delight in each other's company. "They'd rather be with each other than with anyone else," a friend says. Both are excellent talkers who enjoy striking verbal sparks from one another. In these exchanges, the quiet wit of his slim, sophisticated wife neatly complements Pat's flamboyant words.

Three or four times a year the Tanners host large parties at their home, where Pat is invariably surrounded by friends awaiting samples of his brittle wit. He unabashedly enjoys drinking at these affairs, a proclivity some acquaintances deplore. "You're so boring when you drink," one guest told him. "I know, but you're so fascinating," was his silky rejoinder. Although his verbal dexterity and carefully sculptured tones enable him to dominate most gatherings, if these fail, he has a number of sly attention-provoking tricks. When he wants another drink, for example, he is likely to balance his empty glass on top of his head. For a time he wore a toupee, which he would doff with startling effect whenever he felt a party growing dull. Supple as a cat, he is able to lock his knees behind his head without apparent effort. At one party which featured a demonstration of Yoga, he astounded everyone by proving himself more limber than the guest of honor.

In Pat Dennis' closet hang fifteen suits bearing the London label of Kilgour, French and Stanbury. Each Wednesday he carefully selects one, then taxis to (concluded on page 180) Patrick Dennis (continued from page 104) the Belmont Plaza Hotel for a haircut and beard trim. Afterward he goes on to Voisin or the Café Chauveron to lunch with friends. (At the table he invariably orders a sidecar, a favored drink of the Twenties, the period he most savors.) Aside from this midweek ritual, Dennis generally spends the day at home. He arises early, after precisely seven hours of sleep, and, seated in a leopard-skin office chair, devotes himself first to matters involving Lancelot Leopard. Next, he may write, using a regular office typewriter rather than the electric machine favored by most prolific authors. Though his pose before the world is that of a man to whom undue exertion is all but unknown, he has on occasion labored at his typewriter for as long as sixteen hours at a stretch. Around the World with Auntie Mame was his toughest book, principally because he did not wish to write it at all. ("I hate to bite the hand that feeds me," he says, "but I'm tired of Mame.") After lunch he will either continue writing, read current books or engage in one of his favorite occupations, lengthy telephone conversations.

The Tanners do not like the theater, movies, night clubs or dancing. On nights when there is no party to attend, the two are likely to sit home talking, usually to the accompaniment of several quiet drinks. Pat maintains that his life is a dull one, saying, "If I ran an Oldsmobile Agency in Peoria, I'd have more excitement." He is, however, obviously content with his domestic lot -- though a visitor to the Dennis home may be somewhat nonplused to hear Pat fondly addressing his five-year-old daughter as Miss Bitch and his seven-year-old son as Mr. Bastard. The children, it should be noted, show no ill effects.

Pat still despises the country and would much rather pass the summer in his air-conditioned town house than in a rural retreat. He has worked out an effective system for discouraging those who invite him to spend weekends in the country. "Why don't you visit us, instead?" he smoothly asks. "It's so cool here, you can wear old clothes, and we have the most wonderful community-theater movement here in town." Last July 4, Pat and Louise attended a picnic eaten off the parquet floor of a stately mansion on East 72nd Street. During the evening the guests went up on the roof and for fifteen minutes dutifully waved sparklers in the air. It was exactly the sort of outdoor evening Pat likes.

Another of his pet hates is TV. In part, this is because of what happened to the only script he has written for television, a lunatic effort in the vein of Auntie Mame. "Do you know what they did to that script of mine?" he asks in crescendo tones. "They added a Portuguese nun!" Further resentment is aroused by what he considers the abysmal caliber of TV drama. "Television and I are not ready for each other," he mutters. To salve his feelings, he has devised a curious -- and characteristic -- revenge. He has become the self-appointed President of the Young Dr. Malone Fan Club. Nearly every afternoon at three he esconces himself before the TV to observe the daily session of this venerable soap opera. To watch him at this unlikely pursuit is to see a man milking life. Not only is he charmed by the involuted plots of Young Dr. Malone, he is also personally acquainted with all the actors -- they come to his parties. He takes a special pleasure in the knowledge that one actor, who plays an unmarried son, is in reality the father of four, while another, who plays the son's father, is childless. Such in-the-know minutiae fascinate him. So do other aspects of the program. "It's completely bogus, but I love it," he says, a glint of malicious mischief in his china-blue eyes. "Those troubled faces -- how I adore them!" Any attempt by the show to convey elegance provokes his favorite adjective: "How tacky, oh, how tacky, how beautifully tacky!" He is disappointed if no blackmailers turn up in the day's installment. "They're the best," he says. "So vicious, and so evil."

At the conclusion of the program Pat Dennis leans back, the scraggly, graying beard lifted into the air. "Just wonderful, wonderful," he sighs contentedly. "The amnesia, the illegitimate kids, the temporary blindness -- it just rolls on and on." Yet the soap opera seems to have made an impression, for suddenly he exclaims, "The trouble people have in life!" This reflective concern is shortlived, however. The inner ear has warned him that such a conventional attitude does not befit Pat Tanner, Pat Dennis, Virginia Rowans, or even Lancelot Leopard. It is the chosen role of this diverting fellow to be endlessly irreverent and unique. "Of course, I have serious problems, too," he quickly adds. "I'm doing over two rooms next month."