Patrick Dennis

Patrick Dennis (1921-1976) was born Edward Everett Tanner III in Chicago. In World War II he was wounded twice while serving as an ambulance driver in the American Field Service. After the war he moved to New York and began writing comic novels. Auntie Mame, the story of an orphan who comes to Manhattan to live with his eccentric aunt, was the best-selling book of 1955. It became a Broadway play and movie starring Rosalind Russell and a musical (Mame) starring Angela Lansbury. In 1961 he wrote the camp classic Little Me, a movie star memoir parody, with photographs. After twelve novels as Patrick Dennis and four as Virginia Rowans, he retired from writing in 1971 and became a butler to the wealthy. He was working in Chicago for McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and returned home to his wife Louise and their two children.