Elaine Dundy
Elaine Rita Dundy (née Brimberg; August 1, 1921 – May 1, 2008) was an American novelist, biographer, journalist, actress and playwright.
Early life[edit]
She was born Elaine Rita Brimberg in New York City. Her Polish Jewish immigrant father, Samuel Brimberg, was an office furniture manufacturer and a violent bully.[1] Her mother was of Latvian Jewish descent; she was the daughter of a multimillionaire manufacturer and inventor. Dundy was one of three sisters; a sibling was Shirley Clarke, the independent filmmaker.[2] Dundy grew up in a 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.[1]
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.[3] An honors graduate from Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia, she studied acting at the Jarvis Theatre School in Washington[4] with future star actors Rod Steiger, Tony Curtis and others, and in the Dramatic Workshop was taught by Erwin Piscator.[3]
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.[3] At the end of World War II, she traveled to Europe, first to live in Paris, dubbing French films,[1] 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[edit]
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 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's Harry Lime dramas, directed by Orson Welles.[4] In 1955, Dundy and Tynan appeared together on camera, hosting the "Madrid Bullfight" episode of Around the World With Orson Welles, the documentary series Welles made for Associated-Rediffusion, a contractor for Britain's ITV commercial network.[5]
Later life[edit]
Dundy maintained a home in London until 1986,[12] 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.[13] Dundy's autobiography, Life Itself!, was published in 2001.[14] 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.[7][15] Her 1964 novel, 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.[16]
Tracy Tynan's memoir Wear and Tear, published in the United States in 2016, deals with Tynan's trying experiences of her parents.[7][13]
Death[edit]
In Dundy's final years, she was losing her eyesight due to macular degeneration. She died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California, on May 1, 2008, aged 86.[17] She is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.