Elaine Dundy

Elaine Dundy (August 1, 1921 – May 1, 2008) was an American novelist, biographer, journalist, actress and playwright.

She was born Elaine Rita Brimberg in New York City, of Polish and Latvian descent. Her Polish-born Jewish father, Samuel Brimberg, was an office furniture manufacturer and a violent bully. Her mother was the daughter of a multimillionaire Jewish manufacturer and inventor. 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. 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. 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.

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. At the end of World War II, she traveled to Europe, first to live in Paris, France, dubbing French films, before settling 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 sister, Shirley Clarke, was a leading independent filmmaker and a professor of film at UCLA.

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