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. Her Polish Jewish immigrant father, Samuel Brimberg, was an office furniture manufacturer and a violent bully. 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. 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. An honors graduate from Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia, she studied acting at the Jarvis Theatre School in Washington with future star actors Rod Steiger, Tony Curtis and others, and in the Dramatic Workshop was taught by Erwin Piscator.

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. Some content was plagiarised by British author Jilly Cooper in her novels Emily and Bella. She received a letter from an admirer: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. 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 attempted to cure herself of addictions from 1968 to 1976, the city of Ferriday, Louisiana, and Elvis Presley.

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".

Later life Dundy maintained a home in London until 1986, 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. Dundy's autobiography, Life Itself!, was published in 2001. 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. 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.

Tracy Tynan's memoir Wear and Tear, published in the United States in 2016, deals with Tynan's trying experiences of her parents. She is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.