PATRICK DENNIS (nee Edward Everett Tanner III) was born in Chicago on this date. He was the writer who created Auntie Mame. Dennis was almost as camp as his heroine and is the only author to have had three novels on the New York Times best-seller list at the same time (for 8 weeks in 1956).

The first edition of Auntie Mame spent 112 weeks on the bestseller list, selling more than 2 million copies in five languages. The manuscript was turned down by 15 publishers before being accepted by the Vanguard Press. At the height of its popularity, it was selling more than 1,000 copies per day; throughout 1955 and 1956, it sold between 1,000 and 5,000 per week. In 1956, with Auntie Mame, The Loving Couple: His (and Her) Story, and Guestward Ho!, Tanner became the first writer to have three books on the New York Times bestseller list at the same time.

Working with longtime friend, actor and photographer Cris Alexander, Tanner created two parody memoirs, complete with elaborate photographs. The first, titled Little Me, recounts the escapades through life and love of glamour girl Belle Poitrine “as told to Patrick Dennis.” His wife, Louise, appeared as Pixie Portnoy in the book’s photographic illustrations, which included their children, their friends, and their housekeeper as well. The second “bio,” titled First Lady (1964), is the life story of Martha Dinwiddie Butterfield, oblivious wife of a robber baron who “stole” the U.S. presidency for 30 days at the turn of the century.

Tanner’s work fell out of fashion in the 1970s, and all of his books went out of print. In his later years, he left writing to become a butler, a job that his friends reported he enjoyed. At one time, he worked for Ray Kroc, the CEO of McDonald’s. His employers had no inkling that their butler, “Edwards,” was the famous author Patrick Dennis.

In December 1948, Tanner married Louise Stickney, with whom he had two children. He led a double life as a conventional husband and father, and as a bisexual in later life, becoming a well-known participant in Greenwich Village’s gay scene.

He died from pancreatic cancer in Manhattan at the age of 55, on November 6, 1976. At the turn of the 21st century, there was a resurgence of interest in his work, and subsequently many of his novels are once again available. His son, Dr. Michael Tanner, wrote introductions to several reissues of his father’s books. Some of Tanner’s original manuscripts are held at Yale University, others at Boston University.