Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of That Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television/Belle Poitrine

by Patrick Dennis

Book Overview

Back in print at last From the author of Auntie Mame the bawdy, bestselling, bountifully illustrated autobiography of an imaginary diva whose life is one hilarious mishap after another. For Belle Poitrine, n e Mayble Schlumpfert, all the world's a stage and she's the most important player on it. At once coy and coercive, with a name that means "beautiful bosom" in French, she claws her way from Striver's Row to the silver screen. Recalling Belle's...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767913477
• ISBN13: 9780767913478
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A PAGE TURNER!

So Campy, so Fabulous, so hilarious. Could also be titled "memoirs of a woman who wanted to be a drag queen". I had seen the stage play of the same name and laughed to the point of near incontinence. The book brings all of the memories back into the present state of mind. Thankyou so much for the pictures too.

Patrick Dennis is a Comic Genius

My God - I don't even know where to begin on how great this book is - pure hilarity from start to finish. If you are familiar with the work of Patrick Dennis, than you're in for a real treat. If his writings are new to you, well, you're in for a crash course.Written with perfect, tongue-in-cheek camp humor, the autobiography of Belle Poitrine is the perfect send-up of the best Hollywood autobiographies - hysterically self-absorbed, condescending and - best of all - full of absolutely hysterical photographs by the great Cris Alexander. Belle's rise to fame from her childhood black sheep status, mid-life trials and tribulations, countless marriages (most often ending in widowhood) and more are all represented - once you're under the spell of her life story, the book is impossible to put down. And, please, do not rush to find out the ending - it's utterly priceless, and worth the wait, but to get the full, hilarious effect, you have to read everything leading up to it.Read at your own risk - if you do, you'll surely be telling everyone you know about it - the humor is most contagious, and you'll be compelled to share. Enjoy!!!

Auntie Maim

I discovered this book thanks to a friend back in the dim, dead 80's (thanks ever so, Blanche!) and have jealously guarded the copy of it I found in a used bookstore in Milwaukee's General Mitchell airport shortly after. Now that it is back in print, I can finally give this book out.Utterly hilarious, without being overtly vulgar (unlike the recent "My Lush Life"), this is a perfect parody of the lady-like memoirs of most of the stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. The amoral, boozy, trampy Belle Poitrine presents her life story of booze, trampiness, and general pervi-ness in such laughably lady-like prose that you will literally be shaking with mirth. A true must have.

Belle Poitrine is Auntie Mame without a conscience.

Let's all raise our martini glasses high in honor of the most famous fake Hollywood star! I was given this book as a present by my mother, who knows I love "Auntie Mame". I don't think she expected the photographs! Of course, the photographs are half the fun. Perfectly staged (REAL diva-memoir photos wouldn't be half as realistic!) and brilliantly "acted" by theatrical aquaintances of Patrick Dennis (and sometimes by Dennis himself!), "Little Me" is the only Hollywood memoir you'll consider worth reading over and over again.The richly detailed "biography" tells of Belle's humble beginnings as an actress in a delightful silent short where she had to undress in a "most artistic manner", to her rise to fame in such epic films as "Thou Shalt Not..." and "Forgive Us Our Trespasses" (not to mention "Arabia" and the later, more sucessful "Saudi-Arabia").But this is not a one-joke book... It is told so directly, with so little attempt at overt exaggeration (the voice is incredibly true to the Diva-Dictating-Her-Memoirs we all know deep down inside) that there probably never was a truer example of "camp".Look no further for a send up of all things Hollywood. And three cheers for the new edition!

This book defined "camp" for me at a very early age!

When I first read "Little Me," I hadn't read Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp." Afterwards, I didn't need a definition. Patrick Dennis' tour de force, accompanied by Cris Alexander's photographs, simply leaves no room for doubt what a camp classic is.Any "actress" who wishes to write her "memoirs" (thank you, Patrick, for all those hilariously unnecessary "quotation marks") should read "Little Me" before writing (or dictating) Chapter One.Don't miss Eric Myers' equally marvelous "Uncle Mame," the biography of Patrick Dennis, for the back story on how this book was cobbled together with the help of the New York City Ballet and seemingly half of the wittier folks in New York. Most of the models received a silver dollar and all the liquid refreshment they could hold, according to Myers. But to read what they told Myers, being part of this classic romp was a landmark in their lives. Rightfully so!