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{{shortShort description|American writer and actress (1921–2008) }}
{{Use American English|date=July 2020}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2020}}
[[File:Elaine Dundy.jpg|right|thumb|220px|[[Jim McDermott (illustrator)|Jim McDermott]]'s portrait of Elaine Dundy]]
 
'''Elaine Rita Dundy''' (née '''Brimberg'''; August 1, 1921 – May 1, 2008) was an American novelist, biographer, journalist, actress and playwright.
 
==Early life==
She was born '''Elaine Rita Brimberg''' in New York City of Polish and Latvian descent. Her Polish-born Jewish immigrant father, Samuel Brimberg, was an office furniture manufacturer and a violent bully.<ref name="Purser">Philip{{cite news|last=Purser [|first=Philip|url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2278393,00.html|title= Obituary],Elaine ''Dundy|work=The Guardian''|date=May 8, 2008|access-date=May 814, 2008.2021}}</ref> Her mother was of Latvian Jewish descent; she was the daughter of a multimillionaire Jewish manufacturer and inventor. Dundy was one of three sisters; a sibling was [[Shirley Clarke]], the independent filmmaker.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Gelder|first=Lawrence Van|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/26/movies/shirley-clarke-is-dead-at-77-maker-of-oscar-winning-film.html|title=Shirley Clarke Is Dead at 77; Maker of Oscar-Winning Film|date=September 26, 1997|work=The New York Times|access-date=March 12, 2020|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Dundy grew up in a [[Park Avenue (Manhattan)|Park Avenue]] home where she was educated by a governess, though she eventually attended high school, where her boyfriend Terry was the son of playwright [[Maxwell Anderson]]. Later, they met again and almost married.<ref name="Purser"/> A habituée of New York nightclubs from the age of 15, she met the exiled Dutch painter [[Piet Mondrian]], who wished to be taught how to [[jitterbug]].<ref name="Times">[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3895328.ece Obituary], ''The Times'', May 9, 2008.</ref> An honors graduate from Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia, she studied acting at the Jarvis Theatre School in Washington<ref name="Independent">Philip Hoare [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/elaine-dundy-author-of-the-dud-avocado-who-first-took-up-writing-as-a-response-to-life-as-poor-little-mrs-tynan-825472.html Obituary], ''The Independent'', May 10, 2008.</ref> with future star actors [[Rod Steiger]], [[Tony Curtis]] and others, and in the [[Dramatic Workshop]] was taught by [[Erwin Piscator]].<ref name="Times"/>
 
A habituée of New York nightclubs from the age of 15, she met the exiled Dutch painter [[Piet Mondrian]], who wished to be taught how to [[jitterbug]].<ref name="Times">{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/elaine-dundy-the-times-obituary-9hpwg27dqn6|title=Elaine Dundy: The Times obituary|work=The Times|date=May 9, 2008|access-date=14 May 2021}} {{subscription required}}</ref> An honors graduate from Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia, she studied acting at the Jarvis Theatre School in Washington<ref name="Independent">{{cite news|last=Hoare|first=Philip|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/elaine-dundy-author-of-the-dud-avocado-who-first-took-up-writing-as-a-response-to-life-as-poor-little-mrs-tynan-825472.html|title=Elaine Dundy: Author of 'The Dud Avocado' who first took up writing as a response to life as 'poor little Mrs Tynan'|work=The Independent|date=May 10, 2008|access-date=May 14, 2021}}</ref> with future star actors [[Rod Steiger]], [[Tony Curtis]] and others, and in the [[Dramatic Workshop]] was taught by [[Erwin Piscator]].<ref name="Times"/>
Dundy's controlling father insisted she live at home while in New York, but she calculated that her monthly allowance would allow her to live in Paris for a short time.<ref name="Times"/> At the end of World War II, she traveled to Europe, first to live in Paris, France, dubbing French films,<ref name="Purser"/> then settled in London, where she performed in a BBC radio play. In 1950, she met the theater critic [[Kenneth Tynan]], and two weeks later, they began living together. They married on January 25, 1951, had a daughter Tracy (born May 12, 1952, London), and became part of the theatrical and film elite of London and Hollywood.▼
 
▲Dundy's controlling father insisted she live at home while in New York, but she calculated that her monthly allowance would allow her to live in [[Paris]], France, for a short time.<ref name="Times"/> At the end of World War II, she traveled to Europe, first to live in Paris, France, dubbing French films,<ref name="Purser"/> then settled in London, where she performed in a BBC radio play. In 1950, she met the theater critic [[Kenneth Tynan]], and two weeks later, they began living together. They married on January 25, 1951, had a daughter Tracy (born on May 12, 1952, London), and became part of the theatrical and film elite of London and Hollywood.
 
==Radio and television==
Among her roles as an actress, she appeared in "The Scream," a 1953 episode of the TV series ''Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Presents'', and a BBC-TV production of ''[[Dinner at Eight (play)|Dinner at Eight]]'' as a maid: "One of those small parts an actress can do absolutely nothing with except look as pretty as possible, act as naive as possible and stay out of the way of the knives." Dundy was heard in different roles on [[Radio Luxembourg (English)|Radio Luxembourg]]'s Harry Lime dramas, directed by [[Orson Welles]].<ref name="Independent"/> In 1955, Dundy and Tynan appeared together on camera, hosting the "Madrid Bullfight" episode of ''[[Around the World with Orson Welles|Around the World With Orson Welles]]'', the documentary series Welles made for [[Associated-Rediffusion]], a contractor for Britain's [[ITV (TV network)|ITV]] commercial network.<ref>Joseph{{cite book|last=McBride [|first=Joseph|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gFp8S8Tf-dQC&pg=PA232 ''|title=What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career'']|location=Lexington, Lexington: Kentucky|publisher=The University Press of Kentucky, |year=2006, p.232 note|page=232n|isbn=0813171512}}</ref>
 
==Books==
In 1958, Dundy published her first novel ''The Dud Avocado'', loosely based on her experiences in Paris. It reached the top of the bestseller lists.<ref name="Telegraph">[{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1933071/Elaine-Dundy.html?source|title=rssElaine Obituary], ''DailyDundy|work=The Telegraph'', |date=May 7, 2008.|access-date=14 May 2021}}</ref> She received a letter from an admirer:<blockquote>Dear Mrs Tynan, I don't make the habit of writing to married women, especially if the husband is a dramatic critic, but I had to tell someone (and it might as well be you since you're the author) how much I enjoyed ''The Dud Avocado''. It made me laugh, scream and guffaw (which incidentally is a great name for a law firm). If this was actually your life, I don't know how on earth you got through it. Sincerely, [[Groucho Marx]].<ref name="Telegraph"/>
</blockquote>
 
Tynan disapproved of Dundy's writing vocation despite having forecast success,<ref name="Telegraph"/> because it distracted attention from himself; Dundy, however, Dundy had seen it as a means to save their marriage. Around this time, Tynan started to insist on flagellating his wife, with the threat of his own suicide if she refused.<ref name="Purser"/><ref name="TimesTracy">{{cite news|last=Hoyle|first=Ben|url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/im-going-to-jump-dad-screamed-my-mother-said-why-dont-you-9gb8bsldh|title=Tracy Tynan's upbringing: celebrities, drugs, wife-beating and sex|work=The Times|date=February 23, 2017|access-date=May 14, 2021}} {{subscription required}}</ref> Drugs, alcohol, and extramarital affairs by both parties resulted in the marriage becoming fraught, and it was dissolved in 1964. In 1962, she was a writer for the BBC's satirical ''[[That Was the Week That Was]]''. Dundy eventuallyattempted curedto cure herself of addictions from 1968 to 1976,<ref name="Times"/> andthough maintainedaccording to her initialdaughter, successshe asstruggled anwith author,drugs whileand alcohol for half a century. Dundy livinglived mainly in New York after her divorce.<ref name="TimesTracy" /> In addition to novels and short stories, Dundyshe wrote for ''[[The New York Times]]''. She wrote books on the actor [[Peter Finch]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=McDougal |first=Holt |date=31 December 1980 |title=Finch, Bloody Finch: A Life of Peter Finch |url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/272578.Finch_Bloody_Finch |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220718170038/https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/272578.Finch_Bloody_Finch |archive-date=18 July 2022}}</ref> the city of [[Ferriday, Louisiana]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Books |first=Dutton |date=1 June 1991 |title=Ferriday Louisiana |url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/272573.Ferriday_Louisiana |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220718170242/https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/272573.Ferriday_Louisiana |archive-date=18 July 2022}}</ref> and [[Elvis Presley]], about whom she said.<ref name="Prior:0">{{Cite toweb 1977,|date=26 IMay didn't know that2004 |title=Elvis wasand aliveGladys until|url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/272572.Elvis_and_Gladys he|url-status=live died|archive-url=https://web."archive.org/web/20220718165713/https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/272572.Elvis_and_Gladys {{Citation needed|archive-date=April18 2013July 2022}}</ref>
 
As part of her research for the Presley book, Dundy moved from her luxurious suites in London and New York to live for five months in Presley's birthplace of [[Tupelo, Mississippi]]. ''[[Elvis and Gladys]]'' was first published by Macmillan in 1985 (reissued in 2004 by the University Press of Mississippi). The ''[[Boston Globe]]'' hailed it as "nothing less than the best Elvis book yet".<ref name=":0" /> ''[[Kirkus Reviews]]'' described it as "the most fine-grained Elvis bio ever."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/elaine-dundy-3/elvis-and-gladys/ |access-date=2022-07-18 |website=Kirkus Reviews |language=en}}</ref>
 
==Later life==
Dundy maintained a home in London until 1986,<ref>Elaine Dundy ''Life Itself'', 2001, Virago, p. 346.</ref> and then moved to Los Angeles to be near her daughter. By then, Tracy was a costume designer; she is married to film director [[Jim McBride]].<ref name="Garner">{{cite news|last=Garner|first=Dwight|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/books/review-in-tracy-tynans-memoir-wear-and-tear-feeding-on-explosive-drama.html?_r=0|title=Review: In Tracy Tynan’sTynan's Memoir, ''Wear and Tear'', Feeding on Explosive Drama|work=The New York Times|date=July 12, 2016|accessdateaccess-date=March 4, 2017}}</ref> Dundy published her's autobiography, ''Life Itself!'', was published in 2001.<ref>{{cite news|last=Kellaway|first=Kate|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jun/24/biography.arts|title=With friends like these...|work=The Observer|date=June 24, 2021|access-date=May 14, 2021}}</ref> In the same year, Kenneth Tynan's diaries, written in his last decade, were published. Their daughter had helped to have the book issued. It led to a two-year split between the two women, until Dundy re-entered rehabilitation once more.<ref name="TimesTracy" /><ref>{{cite news|last=Wolcott|first=James|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/dec/06/londonreviewofbooks|title=Critical condition: Kenneth Tynan's diaries|work=The Guardian|date=6 December 2001|access-date=14 May 2021}} Reprinted from {{cite news|last=Wolcott|first=James|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n24/james-wolcott/skating-charm|title=Skating Charm|work=London Review of Books|volume=23|issue=24|date=3 December 2001|access-date=14 May 2001}}</ref> Her 1964 novel, ''[http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?product_id=9135 The Old Man and Me]'', was reissued in 2005 by the feminist publishing company [[Virago Press]], and that same year, she wrote the introduction for Virago's reprint of [[Daphne du Maurier]]'s 1932 novel ''I'll Never Be Young Again''.<ref>{{citationCite web needed|date=October5 2015May 2005 |title=I'll Never Be Young Again |url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50247.I_ll_Never_Be_Young_Again |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220718171954/https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50247.I_ll_Never_Be_Young_Again |archive-date=18 July 2022}}</ref>
 
Tracy Tynan's memoir ''Wear and Tear'', published in the United States in 2016, deals with Tynan's trying experiences of her parents.<ref name="GarnerTimesTracy" /><ref>{{cite news|lastname=Maxwell|first=Dominic|url=http:"Garner"//www.thetimes.co.uk/article/wear-and-tear-the-threads-of-my-life-by-tracy-tynan-xgsl909lq|title=''Wear and Tear: The Threads of My Life'' by Tracy Tynan|work=The Times|location=London|date=March 4, 2017|accessdate=March 4, 2017}} {{subscription required}}</ref>
 
==Death==
In Dundy's final years, she was losing her eyesight owingdue to [[macular degeneration]]. She died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California, on May 1, 2008, aged 86.<ref>[http://nyrb.typepad.com/classics/2008/05/elaine-dundy-19.html ''New York Review Books Classics blog'' : A Different Stripe: "Elaine Dundy, 1921-2008"]</ref> She is buried at [[Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery]].
 
==Bibliography==
[[Image:Oldmanandme.jpg|thumb]]
 
===Novels===
*''[[The Dud Avocado]]'' (1958)
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===Articles===
*"Hip, Beat & Square", ''The Observer'', 4 December 1960
*"Memory in Spain", ''The Observer'', 25 December 1960
*"Stanley Kubrick and Dr. Strangelove", ''Queen'', 13 March 1963 (reprinted in ''Glamour'', April 1964)
*"Reviewing Reviewing" (on the first issue of the ''New York Review of Books''), ''The Spectator'', 7 June 1963
*"Formentoracle", ''The Observer'', 4 May 1964
*"Crane, Masters, Wolfe, Etcetc. Slept Here" (on the Chelsea Hotel), ''Esquire'', October 1964
*"What Means Tiny Alice?" (on Edward Albee), ''New York Herald Tribune'', 31 January 1965
*"How Toto Succeed Inin Thethe Theatre Without Really Being Successful", ''Esquire'', May 1965
*"The Image in the Marketplace", ''Esquire'', July 1965
*"Can a Simple Welsh Lass of Thirty-six Find Happiness with a Macedonian Rock-and-Roll Star of Twenty-four?", ''Esquire'', December 1965
*[on Christopher Plummer], ''New York Herald Tribune'', 26 December 1965
*Tom Wolfe Issue (letter), ''New York Review of Books'' 17 March 1966
*Tom Wolfe ... But Exactly, Yes! ''Vogue'', April 1966
*[on Rosemary Harris], ''New York Herald Tribune'', 10 April 1966
*"Vivien Leigh: On Interviewing a Star Onon a Wet Washington Day", ''Village Voice'', 1966
*"Suddenly It's Fun", ''The Observer'', 20 August 1967
*"Finding outOut the hardHard wayWay whatWhat itIt meansMeans to beBe Jewish", ''The (London) Times'', 11 February 1976
*"Life isIs All Ups and No Downs on This Carousel" (on Erik Erikson), ''The New York Times'', 5 September 1976
*"Why Actors Do Better for Sidney Lumet", ''New York'', 22 November 1976,
*reviewReview of: ''Changing'', by Liv Ullmann, ''The Saturday Review'', 5 February 1977
*reviewReview of: ''Haywire'', by Brooke Hayward, ''The Saturday Review'', 2 April 1977
*"Born to Please" (on Vivien Leigh), ''The New York Times'', 22 May 1977
*introductionIntroduction to ''I'll Never Be Young Again'', Daphne du Maurier, 2005
 
===Short Storystory===
*"The Sound of a Marriage", ''Queen'', 1960 or 1965? (reprinted, ''Cosmopolitan'', February 1967)
 
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*{{IMDb name|id=1133864|name=Elaine Dundy}}
*[http://www.elvisinfonet.com/dundy1.html Interview with Elaine Dundy]
*[http://www.elvisnews.com/Presentation/Functional/Page/articles.aspx?command=show&item=806 Elvis News interview with Elaine Dundy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060529184432/http://www.elvisnews.com/Presentation/Functional/Page/articles.aspx?command=show&item=806 |date=May 29, 2006 }}
*[http://www.elainedundy.com/Guardian/guardian.html "Out of the Darkness": Elaine Dundy on losing her sight] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060502230238/http://www.elainedundy.com/Guardian/guardian.html |date=May 2, 2006 }}
 
{{Authority control}}
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[[Category:2008 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American actresses]]
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