At Sea with Patrick Dennis: My Madcap Mexican Adventure with the Author of Auntie Mame

Prepare to Feast on LIfe!Robert (Raub) Karr and his best friend, Walter, planned a relaxing cruise from Seattle to Mexico. Little did they know that their vacation would be upended when they met the author and creator of Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis, on board the ship. Dennis was traveling under an assumed name. And much like his character Mame, Patrick Dennis brought a whirlwind of mayhem, fun, and chaos into the lives of those onboard the ship.

Raub, Walter, and Patrick became fast friends, with Patrick attracting a collection of eccentrics and oddball characters wherever he went. What was supposed to be a simple cruise turns into a full-blown adventure when Patrick and Walter jump ship and disappear into Mexico. Later, Raub comes to their rescue. Wealthy widows, art connoisseurs, masked midget wrestlers, ladies of the night, and hunting rats are just part of the trio's comical escapades.

The story behind At Sea with Patrick Dennis: My Madcap Mexican Adventure with the Author of Auntie Mame is as fascinating as the memoir itself. When Raub Karr passed away in 2017, his memoir languished unpublished and was doomed to be lost forever. Fortunately, theatrical hair designer, Bernie Ardia, rescued the manuscript from obscurity. Ardia instinctively knew this story needed to be shared with the world.

So, don your best jewelry, fix yourself a cocktail, and prepare to laugh as you come on a madcap Mexican adventure with Patrick Dennis, Raub, and Walter. To quote Patrick Dennis's most famous character, Mame, "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving."

Patrick Dennis, Raub, and Walter pile their plates high and feast from the banquet of life.

Robert Karr30 December, 1934 - 15 March, 2017After serving several years with Rogers & Cowan as a public relations agent in Beverly Hills, Calif., representing 1960s television and motion picture clientele, Robert returned to his favorite home, Hawaii, and continued his career in broadcasting.Robert worked with and for such greats as Dick Van Dyke, Cara Williams, Jack Benny, Raymond Burr, Gladys Cooper, Gail Patrick Jackson, Gig Young, Charles Boyer, and held the distinction of being the first boss to hire (and fire) a determined high school songstress by the name of Bette Midler. Some of Robert's clients became lifelong friends, no mean feat in Hollywood.Besides his volumes of memoirs, Robert wrote fiction based on his beloved interests, namely the beauty and fascinating history of Hawaii and his favorite animal, cats.Robert was in various stages of editing six of his novels including LaMort du'u Requiro-The Death of a Shark, another entitled Yah Did Too, written completely in dialogue, no narrative, in preparation for publication. His library of work includes a Western screenplay.His short story "A Hawaiian Encounter," was published in Palm Springs Life Magazine.

James Magruder is a fiction writer, playwright, and translator. His stories have appeared in "The Gettysburg Review," New England Review," "The Idaho Review," "Subtropics," "StoryQuarterly," "Arts & Letters," "Third Coast," "Prairie Schooner", "Bloom," "The Normal School," "The Hopkins Review, Gargoyle," "New Stories from the Midwest," and elsewhere. He has published three books of fiction: "Sugarless," a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award; the linked story collection, "Let Me See It;" and "Love Slaves of Helen Hadley Hall."His work for the stage includes the books for two Broadway musicals, "Triumph of Love" and "Head Over Heels." His translations of Dickens, Marivaux, Molière, Dancourt, Lesage, Labiche, Gozzi, Giraudoux, and Hofmannsthal have been seen on stages across the country and in Germany and Japan. His "Three French Comedies" (Yale University Press) was named an "Outstanding Literary Translation" by the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). Current projects include a commissioned chronicle of the first fifty years of Yale Repertory Theatre, titled "Serving the Play."He is a five-time MacDowell Fellow and a six-time recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council. His writing has also been supported by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Hermitage, the New Harmony Project, the Ucross Foundation, the Blue Mountain Center, the Jerome Foundation, the Albee Colony, the Kenyon Playwrights Conference, and the 2010 Sewanee Writers' Conference, where he was a Walter E. Dakin Fellow in Fiction. He has made Baltimore his home for almost thirty years and currently teaches dramaturgy at Swarthmore College.

Bernie Ardia is the driving force behind "At Sea with Patrick Dennis: My Madcap Mexican Adventure with the Author of Auntie Mame." The story behind the memoir's manuscript is as intriguing as the adventures of Robert Karr, his friend Walter, and the great author Patrick Dennis himself. Robert Karr passed away in 2017. The unpublished manuscript languished in a box destined for the unknown. However, fate intervened. A dear friend of Karr's showed the unpublished work to a theatrical hair designer Bernie Ardia, who recognized its importance and knew it had to be published.Having a 40-year career as a theatrical hair designer and wig building. Bernie Ardia, a California native began in print work and television, commercials, and television specials such as Happy Birthday Hollywood. Ardia returned to live theater with David Merrick's national tour of "42nd St". After many years of touring with live productions such as Chita Rivera's "Can-Can," Tim Curry's "Me and My Girl," "Showboat," and countless others. He then focused on designing the hair for such productions as "Ziegfeld: A Night at the Follies," "Kiss of the Spider Woman," the Kennedy Center's "Ragtime," Cameron Mackintosh's "Oliver," Eleanor Bergstein's "Dirty Dancing," "Elf The Musical," and the long-running "Starlight Express" at the Las Vegas Hilton among others. Ardia has now designed for well over 75 productions.