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.[1] 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.[2] An honors graduate from Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia, she studied acting at the Jarvis Theatre School in Washington[3] with future star actors Rod Steiger, Tony Curtis and others, and in the Dramatic Workshop was taught by Erwin Piscator.
