"Patrick Dennis" is one of several pen names used by the writer Edward Everett Tanner III. Born in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois on May 18, 1921, he was nicknamed "Pat" even before birth born. (He kicked so much in the womb that his father compared him to the boxer Pat Sweeney noted for kicking his opponents.) Since he liked the name better than Edward, he used it all his life. That part of his pen name is real.

YOUTH
Pat grew up in a typical upper middle class home. His mother was a leader in local social circles and, according to Pat (in a phrase which could have described Mame) was able to "charm the birds right off the trees". He had a stepsister, Barbara, who was ten years older and was his best friend. His father, Edward Everest Tanner Jr., was a Chicago commodities dealer whose uncle had been Grover Cleveland's law partner. His mother (Pat's grandmother) had been a friend of Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy. She had sometimes stayed in their home while hiding after clandestine medical treatments! The dreamy and artistic Pat was a great disappointment to his father who had been a World War I pilot and flight instructor and who excelled in many sports. The relationship between them was always difficult, and, all his life, Pat had trouble talking about his father. Pat's mother was more like a normal mother, but both of his parents were Roaring Twenties types, partygoers and heavy drinkers. Edward developed a serious alcohol problem.

Pat became interested in theatre while still in elementary school He and a friend would dress in homemade costumes and put on the skits Pat wrote. He had a many friends but, while they played baseball, he would go off by himself. Although he always insisted on using proper English, and he corrected his friends when they made grammatical errors, they took it in good part, and he remained very popular, the life of any party. He continued his passion for things theatrical (writing, directing, designing, makeup and costumes) in high school where he had good friends of both sexes. After high school he and some friends even formed a company of talented teenagers which helped local organizations stage special events.

Eventually his parents moved to a luxury apartment on Lakeshore Drive in Chicago where Pat had the chance to mix with the city's elite. After a short stint studying at the Chicago Art Institute, he eschewed higher education for the rest of his life and developed "an exotic personality with a fey edge". (This disguised fits of depression which worsened as time went by.) He soon took a job with Columbia Educational Books working from 4 PM to midnight. This allowed him to go to parties after work and, like Auntie Mame, to sleep all morning.

ADULTHOOD
In 1941 Pat became engaged to a Southern girl and looked forward to having a family. However, World War II interfered and, with the draft board hovering, he joined the American Field Service, the all-volunteer group of combat ambulance drivers sponsored by the U. S. government. After a fairly easy start in the Middle East and northern Africa, he was sent to Italy in 1943. There he was involved in the battle for Monte Cassino and his duties were every bit as dangerous as those of any soldier; he narrowly escaped being killed. In spite of the horrible conditions, he was determined to instill a modicum of gracious living into everything he did while there. When he was wounded and became ill, his letters continued to be light and full of humor. However, the situation finally got to him; he attempted suicide and was diagnosed with acute depression and a nervous breakdown. He escaped into amnesia and was shipped back to the United States to become a psychiatric patient in a Veterans' Hospital. (Some have suggested he was faking the whole thing.) He and all of the wounded American Field Service members were awarded posthumous Purple Hearts.

Pat continued psychiatric treatment for nine months. He was now 24 and decided that the only place for him was New York City. He and a friend took an apartment near Washington Square and proceeded to soak up all the city offered. The sophistication of New York completed his cure. He gave up the idea of being a set designer and turned to writing. Reinventing himself by throwing over his Midwestern roots, he found a job writing copy of an advertising agency (as did Pat in Auntie Mame), and also became a ghostwriter for others. (He used this experience in Auntie Mame when Brian O'Bannion ghostwrites Mame's autobiography, an incident not in the musical Mame.) He did all the cooking in the apartment, even becoming a gourmet chef for the parties they threw on a shoestring budget.

Six feet two inches tall, he grew a beard and shaved his head. Soon he met a Social Register beauty named Louise Stickney a recent Vassar graduate who had been given a poor little rich girl debutante upbringing and longed to escape. She and Pat shared a droll, sardonic sense of humor and, in a sense, they rescued each other. They became engaged and married, but the wedding festivities were not a joyous occasion since the respective parents took a dislike to each other and did not really approve of the whole thing. The couple spent their honeymoon in Europe and returned home to become the epitome of the sophisticated young New York couple as depicted in the movies such as The Thin Man. They threw parties with gourmet cooking again by Pat who, as an Anglophile, wore British tailored suits and a homburg and carried a furled umbrella. He was working for the Council on Foreign Relations and continuing his ghost writing, but he finally decided to write his own material. His first work was the comic novel Oh, What a Wonderful Wedding by "Virginia Rowens". A popular and critical success, it was praised for its "fine "feminine realism"; no one realized the author was a man. In it he first developed his signature style, "exaggerated without being cartoonish" with a decidedly British tone. (His own favorite book was Vanity Fair by Thackeray.) His second book, also by Virginia Rowens, was not as successful, but then came his classic Auntie Mame for which he first used the pen name Patrick Dennis. For details on this book see The History of Auntie Mame.

In all he wrote 16 books, all designed only to entertain. (Eight were by Patrick Dennis, four as Virginia Rowens, one by Dorothy Erskine and Patrick Dennis, and four by others "as told to Patrick Dennis".) It has been said that they had a camp sophistication and "a kind of magic insight into the sex and gender and society" of the period. Their light comic mode, designed only to entertain, is seldom used today.

AFTER AUNTIE MAME
Auntie Mame made him a millionaire; it was so successful that Pat was able to quit his job at the Council and buy an Upper East Side town house which he decorated with all the flair of Mame herself, even tearing out walls and making other structural changes. The Tanners had two children, Michael and Elizabeth (Betsy) and, while not as distant and disapproving as his own father had been with him, Pat still treated them more in the fashion of Edwardian British upper class families. (Children were brought up by nannies and servants, treated like grown-ups, and sent to boarding school at very early ages.) His children would be brought into parties and shown off, then sent back to their rooms. Pat was not as permissive with them as Auntie Mame was, but he did teach them to mix martinis for guests at the age of four, and he did not hold back on his language in front of them. Nevertheless, they adored him; he continued to be his usual funny person in front of them, and they loved that.

Pat spent one year as the drama critic Patrick Dennis for The New Republic but, surprisingly, decided he was not cut out for this. His episodes of depression reoccurred amid the pressure to create new works as successful as Auntie Mame. He drifted from obsessive interest to obsessive interest and, between periods of intense writing, he and Louise continued to give lavish parties.

However, his depression deepened, exacerbated by his excessive drinking. In addition, he finally faced his bisexuality. Although he was still very much in love with his wife, he took a male partner. He also took an antismoking drug which had the side effect of inducing suicidal thoughts and a resulting attempt failed. He ended in a psychiatric hospital which was not able to help. When he appealed for discharge, the doctors decided he was still a danger to himself. (These doctors did not know how to deal with him because his IQ was about 20 points higher than any of theirs.) He did start to write again which helped, and he came to realize that he had to leave his wife because of the pressure of leading two lives. He and Louise still loved each other and, although they separated, they did not divorce. They could not live together, but they remained friends and moved in the same social circles.

The country was changing. The subjects of his satires were disappearing, and his style of comic novel was no longer popular. After taking his son 11 and daughter 8 on a long trip to Paris, Rome, Tunis, Cairo and Madrid, he moved to Mexico City. There he continued his old habit of giving elaborate parties and corresponded voluminously with his family. His son Michael, who is a physician, saved all of his letters.

THE BUTLER
After several years, life in Mexico palled, and it was time to try something new so he became a butler! The role fit him perfectly. He was already an expert on running an elegant house, managing many servants and planning lavish parties. He could now live on the inside of one of his books which had satirized the upper classes. He had always seen himself as the inspiration for Auntie Mame and now he could live like her. He adopted the name Edwards Tanner, a slight variation on his real name. It sounded "butlerian".

His first position was with a retired US ambassador. Among his recommendations was one from "Patrick Dennis". (To his chagrin, the ambassador asked who Patrick Dennis was. Pat said he would have been asked the same question if he had written the recommendation as Geoffrey Chaucer!) He became the dream butler and loved the life. (He did not try to adapt an English accent; his English was already better than that of some of his employers.) The ambassador was overheard to remarks that "Edwards is a perfectly trained servant of the old school"; he even fooled the other servants. After the Ambassador died, he worked for a Chicago socialite. There he had his own apartment and supervised 10 servants of various nationalities including a French chef. However, he was not happy and left after a year.

Then he found the best job of all. It was with Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's and owner of the San Diego Padres. (His wife, Joan Kroc continues to be a noted philanthropist and is the founder of the Joan Kroc Center in San Diego.) There he had half a floor for his apartment in Chicago and also supervised their place in Florida, their ranch in California and their yacht, private railroad car, private jet and 15 cars. He was the majordomo over all and spent his time travelling between the various properties. He loved and admired the Krocs, and they found him "indispensable". While he never saw Mrs. Kroc, they talked every day on the phone. When Ray was alone, he preferred to take his meals in the kitchen and insisted Edwards sit down and have a drink and a chat with him. Years later, Joan Kroc was amazed to find that their wonderful "Edwards" had written Auntie Mame.

LAST DAYS
During his time with the Krocs, Pat and his wife Louise saw each other frequently and often talked about getting back together. He finally gave up the job with the Krocs, and they moved back together in New York. However, the end was near. He had been losing weight and energy from an undiagnosed illness while in Chicago. In New York he was discovered to have pancreatic cancer, a death sentence at the time. He died on November 6, 1976.

Note: Most of this material was adapted from the book Uncle Mame: the life of Patrick Dennis by Eric Myers.

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Revised August 2011
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