Little Me Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Praise

  Foreword

  PREFACE

  CHAPTER ONE - A STAR IS BORN

  CHAPTER TWO - MY ALL FOR MY ART

  CHAPTER THREE - THAT TODDLIN’ TOWN

  CHAPTER FOUR - WAR!

  CHAPTER FIVE - THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

  CHAPTER SIX - THE SEARCHING YEARS

  CHAPTER SEVEN - THE TOAST OF LONDON

  CHAPTER EIGHT - UNKIND HEARTS

  CHAPTER NINE - CALIFORNIA, HERE I COME!

  CHAPTER TEN - MARRIAGE AND MOTHERHOOD

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - MY NAME INLIGHTS!

  CHAPTER TWELVE - A DIFFICULT YEAR

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN - THE END OF AN IDYLL

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - ON MY OWN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - A BEL AIR HOUSE WIFE

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN - CALLED TO THE COLORS

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - BACK TO BROADWAY!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - AT A LOW EBB

  CHAPTER NINETEEN - SING FOR YOUR SUPPER!

  CHAPTER TWENTY - I FIND GOD IN SOUTHAMPTON

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - FRANKLY FORTY

  Acknowledgments

  INSIDE BELLE POITRINE

  ALSO BY PATRICK DENNIS

  Copyright Page

  TO

  Agnes, Arlene, Bette, Billie, Billie, Brigitte, Cobina, Cornelia, Diana, Diana, Elsie, Ethel, Ethel, Ethel, Eva, Fanny, Frances, Gertrude, Gertrude, Grace, Gracie, Gladys, Gypsy, Hedda, Helen, Ilka, Ingrid, Irene, Jeanette, Joan, June, Kate, Katherine, Laurette, Lillian, Loretta, Louella, Mae, Marilyn, Marlene, Mary, Mary, Mary, Natasha, Norma, Olivia, Osa, Pauline, Pearl, Ruth, Ruth, Sheilah, Shirley, Sophie, Tallulah, Wendy, Yvonne, Zsa Zsa and those whose life stories will follow

  PRAISE FOR Little Me

  “Whimsical, waggish, and wickedly clever. In every respect an enormously funny book.” —NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

  “Witty, mischievous, sly, sometimes savage, always clever. I would like to think that it is a shaft plunged straight into the quivering heart of the ‘as told to’ show biz biog. It’s all devilishly clever pokerface fun.” —JOHN BARKHAM, SATURDAY REVIEW SYNDICATE

  “Skillful in handling every device of satire from sly parody and brash burlesque through the more mordant forms of irony and wit, Dennis is endlessly inventive . . . A special bow must go to the photos which crowd virtually every page of Little Me.” —VARIETY

  “A masterpiece of parody . . . Dennis has come up with a winner that compares, technically, with the similar technical achievements of Cervantes and Fielding.” —THE NEW REPUBLIC

  “A clever piece of work and fun to read. The pictures by Cris Alexander are something to write home about, or, maybe not, depending on your home.” —MIAMI HERALD

  “Wonderfully funny.” —NEW YORK POST

  “Little Me is one of the most outlandish collections of narrative and photographic nonsense ever put between hard covers. Only Patrick Dennis of Auntie Mame could have done it.” —CHICAGO TRIBUNE

  “This is by far the funniest book of the year—and perhaps of many years. The as-told-to story to end all as-told-to stories.” —LOS ANGELES TIMES

  “A hilarious take-off on the typical movie biography . . . Here is a most entertaining spoof, in which text and pictures combine into one continuous guffaw.” —PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

  “A bawdy, slapstick take-off of all the memoirs ever written by female entertainers and lady actresses.” —ASSOCIATED PRESS

  FOREWORD

  by Charles Busch

  WHAT IS THIS? A book filled with old photographs? Who is this blonde lady on the cover? Is it one of the Gabors? Belle Poitrine? Who is that? Could this possibly be the autobiography of a movie star that I somehow never heard of?

  These are some of the questions that many of us pondered when we first laid eyes on Little Me, Patrick Dennis’s brilliant literary parody of self-reverential celebrity autobiographies. I stumbled across this sacred volume during my childhood in the early sixties. One day, like a magic talisman, it appeared on the nightstand in my parents’ bedroom. It came into my life around the same time that my father brought home the recordings of Lenny Bruce and Vaughan Meader’s parody album of the Kennedys, The First Family. It was during this period that I also discovered, to my eternal fascination, that the twitchy but strangely beautiful lady singing and wrestling with the microphone cord on television was actually Dorothy grown up.

  All of the artists above set a deliciously perverse tone during the early sixties, a worldly sophistication and wit that were an enemy to sham but self-mocking as well. Perhaps as a reaction to the irreverent glamour of the new presidency, anarchic comedy found its commercial voice. Among the forms of humor that flourished was that queer, bastard child known as “camp.” Volumes have been written analyzing this cultural phenomenon. Purveyor that I am of this frequently abused and misunderstood form of artistic expression, I’d present Little Me in court as exhibit A. It defines camp at its most delirious and finely tuned.

  If Patrick Dennis’s best-known novel, Auntie Mame, had provided Eisenhower America with a crash course in camp humor, then Little Me was its master’s degree. To my way of thinking, camp is both a celebration and a satiric comment on the mad excesses of popular culture, particularly those involving feminine images. And with that last sentence, I’ve already betrayed one of camp’s chief dictums: Any statement that smacks of pretension must immediately be followed by a cheap laugh, preferably at one’s own expense. Much camp humor derives from the dropping of a mask, the revelation that what was thought to be grand is, underneath, really rather lowdown and dirty. The literary voice of Little Me, Belle Poitrine, is always that of a great lady. But reading between the lines and scanning the photographs illustrating her memoir, we see that she’s still Belle Schlumpfert at heart, a denizen of Drifters’ Row. Like Auntie Mame, who escaped from Buffalo to be the belle of avantgarde New York, this Belle also continually reinvents herself as she climbs the ladder of success wrong by wrong. However, Belle Poitrine is the anti–Auntie Mame. She is not above the most unscrupulous of methods of achieving her goals—murder among them. She may share Mame’s “Live! Live! Live!” philosophy, but adds to it “and be damn sure nobody gets in your way.”

  Little Me is a Chinese box of reinvention and disguise. Even its author’s identity is a complex one. This is the autobiography of a fictional star as told to Patrick Dennis, who also never existed—he was himself the nom de plume of Edward Everett Tanner III. “Pat,” as Tanner was known to his friends, was the author of sixteen books, many of them bestsellers. Some of them were published under yet another nom de plume, that of Virginia Rowans. Rabid Patrick Dennis fans can debate till the next millennium which of his books was his masterpiece. For some it’s Genius, for others it’s The Joyous Season. For little me it’s Little Me.

  This faux memoir of a deluded but determinedly optimistic grade-Z movie star is a forerunner of the “mockumentary” that is more and more becoming a staple of American film comedy. This Is Spinal Tap and the films of Christopher Guest such as Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show owe much of their deadpan and meticulously accurate tone to this seminal work by Patrick Dennis and his brilliant collaborator, the photographer Cris Alexander. Little Me can be enjoyed as an outrageous comic novel but also as a history of Broadway and Hollywood through the first half of the twentieth century. Patrick Dennis and Cris Alexander never falter in creating the illusion that Belle Poitrine is a real person in a very real world. This is one of the few works of fiction that would satisfy the nitpickings of the most finicky theater and film historians. The line between fact and fiction is so deftly blurred in Little Me that it’s easy to think of the characters as real show-biz figures. Belle Poitrine and Je
ri Archer, the remarkable actress/model who plays her in the book, are forever one.

  It’s been my privilege to get to know a number of the friends of Patrick Dennis who posed for the photographs in the book. I met my first Little Me alumnus about fifteen years ago. I was attending a very grand transvestite ball at the Waldorf-Astoria, “Night of a Thousand Gowns,” and, leaning across the bar in a spectacular white crepe Adrian knock-off originally created for Katharine Hepburn, I began chatting with a handsome, white-haired gentleman named Kurt Bieber. Having a bit of Belle Poitrine’s delusions of grandeur myself, I sought to impress Mr. Bieber with my status as a self-described drag legend. Rather shyly, he confessed that he had once been something of a cult figure himself. As soon as he mentioned the novel Little Me, I recognized him at once. I was conversing with the one and only Mr. Letch Feeley, Belle Poitrine’s leading man in such fictional movieland epics as Papaya Paradise, Tarzan’s Other Wife, and Nights on the Nile! I was as speechless as if I had bumped into George Brent or Cesar Romero.

  Years later, my partner Eric Myers wrote a biography of Patrick Dennis entitled Uncle Mame. During the two years that he worked on the book, Eric and I got to know so many members of Patrick Dennis’s circle. His late wife, the scintillating Louise Tanner, who was photographed in Little Me as Pixie Portnoy, and his two children, Michael and Betsy, all became friends. We’ve dined at the home of adorable Elaine Adam, the model for Belle’s arch-rival Magdalena Montezuma, and have enjoyed the divine compay of nonagenarian Hervey Jolin, who played, among other rôles, Mrs. Palmer Potter. No book on Patrick Dennis could have been written without the participation of his dear friends Shaun O’Brien and Cris Alexander. Shaun, the great character dancer of the New York City Ballet, was the stunningly handsome Mr. George Musgrove. Cris not only took the photographs for Little Me but played Belle’s first husband, Fred Poitrine, and the Dowager Countess of Baughdie. (In Groucho Marx nose and glasses, he was also the Elated Nurse who announces the birth of Belle’s child.) When Eric and I spent the night at Cris and Shaun’s beautiful, eccentric Victorian home in Saratoga Springs, they put us in the Russian-themed “Prince Yussupov Room.” Fans of this book will understand our heart-stopping thrill at sleeping in the very bed shared by Belle Poitrine and her third husband, Morris Buchsbaum.

  Flipping through the pages of this book, I always imagined that the making of it must have been so much fun. Apparently it was indeed a hoot. For all of us, Little Me is a bit like looking through a scrapbook of photographs of the greatest house party of all time. One of the major achievements of this madcap tome is that it doesn’t make us feel excluded—instead, we’re deliciously in on the joke. For far too long, we fans of Belle Poitrine have had to nervously lend our precious copies of her memoirs to our closest friends with the most severe warnings to return them unharmed. How divine that this new edition is now available to be given as gifts to those we love—and to corrupt a new generation of children who will stumble across Little Me on their parents’ bookshelves. As Belle herself would exclaim, “Youth will be served!”

  PREFACE

  by Cris Alexander

  HOW DID ALL THIS COME ABOUT? Wellllllll, better go back to 1954. . . . If, as an actor, I hadn’t been in Wonderful Town at the Winter Garden Theatre with the even more wonderful Rosalind Russell, I wouldn’t have been in AuntieMame (the 1956 play based on the 1955 novel) and most probably would never have met up with Patrick Dennis—outside of hardcovers.

  My first vision of this bearded dandy was at the read-through of Auntie Mame on the bare stage of the Broadhurst Theatre where he appeared, uninvited, to the dismay of the entire cast, the producers (Fryer and Carr), the playwright/adapters (Lawrence and Lee), and especially Miss Russell. He had come to give us his blessing, after which he just disappeared, “brolly” furled, as suddenly as Mary Poppins—but out the stage door, not straight up into the wings.

  It wasn’t until he took to materializing at the Philadelphia tryouts that I began to know and marvel at this amazingly sensitive and kind man. We would gravitate to the same bar after performances and soon found that we shared enthusiasms for many more things than vodka. So by the time his fabulous Auntie hit Broadway, we’d gotten to know each other pretty well and he had also become interested in my being a professional photographer, which he thought very sensible. When I boasted that I had shot a number of no-slouch authors such as Christopher Isherwood, William Styron, and Georges Simenon, he was relieved that I didn’t just snap animals or weddings. It wasn’t long after the gala opening of Auntie Mame that he began popping in at my Fifty-seventh Street studio.

  Whereas my studio walls were formally adorned with such clangers as Vivien Leigh, Ethel Merman, Judy Holliday, Gloria Vanderbilt, Martha Graham, Lenny Bernstein, etc., the powder room was hung helter-skelter with various greeting cards, stills from semiridiculous 8mm movies I had made, and altered Hollywood stills (my favorite was a dreamy close-up of Garbo in the embrace of not John Gilbert but Marlene Dietrich). There were a few cut-outs from magazines too irresistible not to include, such as Wanda Landowska tenderly stroking a crocodile on her lap, or Mary, the world’s fattest mouse. Sitters often took a long time washing their hands.

  So, back to the question: How did all this come about? Ah, Patrick’s first visit to my studio turned out to be the trigger. The master had insightful observations on all the famous faces—except Gladys Cooper, about which he said, “What a beautiful picture of Danny Kaye!” It took a beat for my leg to realize it was being pulled. Spotting a likely door, he shyly asked, “Is that it?” This was my first indicaton that this unusual person ever urinated. Even before the flush I could hear him chuckling. The door flew open. “Get in here and explain all this, if you can!”

  One photo had particularly tickled him: Grand old Queen Mary strolling proudly out of Whitehall accompanied by two dowdy duchesses and being ogled by a pair of Liverpool librarians.

  “Oh, that was a Christmas card. The message inside was ‘Greetings, You Buggers!’ ”

  “Hmm, I see.” Patrick lowered the toilet lid, sat down, crossed his legs, and bade me make myself comfortable on the wash basin. “A notion has been rolling round up here about an autobiography . . .”

  “Why ever not?” I ventured. “You’re famous enough already and . . .”

  “An autobiography of this famous movie actress—not like Bette or Katie or Pola—but a really rotten one, on screen and off. And now I’m beginning to see it!”

  So it could be said that Little Me’s conception took place in my studio loo!

  Well, a merry three years rolled by before that notion resurfaced. Five novels had been published: Guestward Ho!, The Loving Couple, The Pink Hotel, Around the World with Auntie Mame, and Love and Mrs. Sargent. During those years a lasting friendship developed. He also met and admired my mate, Shaun O’Brien, who was then on his way to becoming a highlight of the New York City Ballet. I met and adored his equally witty wife, Louise, a successful author in her own right. And they soon became super simpatico.

  From left to right, Carl Reynolds, Herbey Jolin, Mrs. Geo. Windsor, Shaun O’Brien, and Yours Truly. Circa 1952. We had all been in London together that summer. One of these Christmas cards got passed along by an English friend of ours to Ernest Thesiger (Dr. Pretorious in “The Bride of Frankenstein”) who was a long-time tatting companion and gossip monger to the Queen Mother. Unlike Victoria Regina, she was much amused and acquisitively propped it upon her wig stand. That document may still be in the Royal Archives.

  When it came to light that I was a painter as well as a photographer, they put me to all sorts of projects. Portrait of her, portrait of him. Murals in the baroque dining room of their posh Ninety-first Street townhouse. On such occasions I got referred to as “Fra Lippo Lipschitz.” I especially relished doing a study of their two young children sheltered under an umbrella with their formidable and funny governess and “general everything,” Corry Salley.

  Michael and Betsy were the only children I have
ever been crazy about. I have been accused of pedaphobia, but they were the exception. The first time I met Michael he was standing at the top of the two-story flight of stairs in their apartment. Forty years ago it was my habit to zoom up two stairs at a time. As Pat introduced us, Michael extended a hand and said in one breath: “My, Mr. Alexander, you came up those stairs with the speed of light. I understand you don’t like children.” He was all of four years old at the time.

  We were all enjoying those rarefied times in Manhattan, and somehow the idea of writing the confessions of a movie star was rekindled. Patrick may have chanced upon one of the many Hollywood memoirs that proliferated in the late fifties, but whatever the reason, we were back on track. “If I write you a bunch of pictures, would you take them?” “Are Johnny Ray’s feet wet?” We agreed to give it a try.

  “Firstly, dear boy,” he said, “we need a beautiful blonde model who would be willing to do anything . . .”

  “Have I got the babe for you! A beautiful actress who is often blonde and not only would, but does do practically anything.” He cocked a large ear.

  Now, here we go back again . . . 1938. Picture this. As a stage-struck teenager going up in an elevator with a fellow hopeful to the “prestigious” Feagin School of Dramatic Art in the newly risen Rockefeller Center, I was introduced to the most stunning (I think is the word) creature I had ever seen off the silver screen—statuesque to parody, in full slap at nine A.M., draped and turbanned in purple jersey. My companion, with as straight a face as he could make, introduced this creature as “My chum, Herman Beulahfield.” Herman seared me with rolling eyes and, in a foggy baritone, purred, “I just know we’re going to be special friends, darling.” She had obviously been bitten by Tallulah Bankhead. In fact, she claimed to actually have been. But as she’d predicted, we did soon become good friends. She was more fun than a barrel full of Thelma Todds and, surprisingly, not a drag queen. “Herman,” by the way, was her camp name, Gladys Tinfow was her real name, and Jeri Archer was her stage name, God bless her.