Sandy
Dennis: A Personal Memoir by
Sandy Dennis, Louise Ladd (Editor), Joanne Woodward
In the most unorthodox show biz autobiography
you'll read all year, the late Sandy Dennis (A Thousand Clowns,
Any Wednesday, many others) reveals a real flair for poetic
evocation of the bright and dark moments of her short, cat-filled
life. Brought to unhappy endings with nearly all the humans in her
life (including jazzman Gerry Mulligan), she takes solace in
enough strong-personality kitties to make Andrew Lloyd Webber
ponder a sequel. She refers to her film career not at all, and
when she speaks of her stage career she never bothers to reveal a
title, but remembers fond personal details, such as how warm and
belonging she felt on one of her homey sets. Written mostly during
her long, losing battle with ovarian cancer, the 77 pages of prose
poems read like vivid, impressionistic dreams.
"Had
the Oscar- and Tony-winning actress Sandy Dennis survived her
battle with cancer, she would have seen her 60th birthday this
past April on the same day that Sandy Dennis: A Personal Memoir
was published. She also would have seen the glowing reviews that
have followed for her graceful and lovely collection of memories
and observances from her life, including, perhaps, this one. Her
gifts as an actress (most notably in films like Who's Afraid of
Virginia Wolf, The Out of Towners, and The Four Seasons)
earned her great regard among peers like Joanne Woodward and Jack
Lemmon, but she was equally well-known as a loyal friend, a devout
animal lover who lived with over 40 cats, and a portrait of
courage as she faced and battled ovarian cancer, dying at the age
of 54 in 1992. Not until after her death did it become known that
Dennis had another substantial talent - that of a writer who
sketches lyrical remembrances, from her childhood to her last
days, the way an impressionistic painter wields a brush. An
example of this is "A cat, whose name was Puss, hid in and
around the pond. He perched in the early morning mist, noble and
foolish. The hotel must have existed as a house in the beginning
of its life. Tall and elegant, surrounded by an iron fence, with
the sea only a half mile away. Was it because of the sea, or
perhaps the time of year, that my mind dwells? Autumn colors,
pronounced, but gray. Soft, covered with a kind of caul. A cover
to be slipped away.". This is an original and surprising look
at the personal life of a woman whose acting gifts we knew of on
screen, and whose writing talents were sadly silenced." -- From
Independent Publisher
About the
Author
Sandy Dennis was born Sandra Dale Dennis in Nebraska in
1937. An accomplished actress, she starred in such films as Who's
Afraid of Virginia
Woolf (Academy Award, Best Supporting Actress), Up
the Down Staircase, and Come
Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean; and on
stage, including A Thousand Clowns (Tony Award, Best
Supporting Actress) and Any Wednesday (Tony Award, Best
Actress). She spent her last years in Westport, Connecticut,
surrounded by her gardens, close friends, and her many, many cats.
A quiet, gentle, kind person, she died of ovarian cancer in 1992
at the age of fifty-four.
Sandy Dennis Filmography:
