Patrick Dennis wrote Auntie Mame

It is the birthday of writer Patrick Dennis (1921), who wrote the bestselling novel Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade (1955) and its sequel, Around the World with Auntie Mame (1958). Patrick Dennis was a pseudonym for Edward Everett Tanner III, who also wrote under the name Virginia Rowans. By far his most successful book was Auntie Mame, which told the story of a boy raised by his eccentric aunt. The book was inspired by Patrick Dennis' Aunt Marion. The book spawned a Broadway play, Auntie Mame (1957), starring Rosalind Russell, a movie based on the play (1958), a Broadway musical, Mame (1966), starring Angela Landsbury and Beatrice Arthur, and a movie based on the musical (1974) starring Lucille Ball, Beatrice Arthur, and Robert Preston. In later years, the author worked as a butler using his real name. His employers never knew their butler, Tanner, was actually the famous writer Patrick Dennis.