“Dennis takes readers beyond Hollywood to the essence of life.”
--Gail Cooke,
Syndicated Columnist
“When I worked with Sandy I knew she had poetry in her soul. I never knew she could put in on a page.”
--Jason Robards
“Those who knew her only through her acting roles and public presence should read this book...They will find...a completely different side of this warm, compassionate and ultimately brave lady...This intimate look into the mind of Sandy Dennis is quite moving.”
--Jack Lemmon
“From the first sentence of the first chapter I found myself completely absorbed--drawn in by the air of mystery created--to a place and time so alluring that I was compelled to read on.”
--Joanne Woodward
“Reveals the sensitively observant, funny, and mysterious side of the almost invisible Sandra I knew in high school.”
--Dick Cavett
“Sandy Dennis is so special, so unique--an incredible woman and artist. To be able to share a portion of her life through her own words, and to taste the compassion and love she held for nature and all of us, is a rare privilege.”
--Elliott Gould
“Honest and revealing. Like looking into someone’s soul.”
--Michael Learned
“Sandy’s book is beautiful. Everyone who has been here for the weekend has been as touched and enthralled by it as I was.”
--Uta Hagan
“Sandy faces her life and death in the most practical terms. Her book is very beautiful.”
--Mike Nichols
“Lovely and unexpected...a poignant reminder of what was lost when the author died at the age of 54.”
--Publishers Weekly
“...Sandy Dennis’s poignant remembrances, not of great performances and stellar accomplishments, but of highly personal and simple yet unforgettable moments in her life.”
--Magill Book Reviews
An excerpt from Sandy Dennis: A Personal Memoir:
Three Pennies: Chapter 1
I walked, that hot summer afternoon, past the Fises’ croquet lawn and cut across the empty street. Waves of heat lifted from the tarred road, burning my bare young feet. I stepped up onto the curb and into the cool grass. Time hung endless and full that afternoon as I made my way up the sidewalk and entered the tiny neighborhood store. A small paper-white house. One room had been made into a convenience store. Inside the screen door I stood on the soft wood floor. A long wooden counter seemed to stretch endlessly the length of the room. I had come for jawbreakers. I could have three, perhaps four, as Blond Dolly often gave extras. I was patient with anticipation. In time someone would come, and I would choose and go out into the day to sit on the back stairs of our house on that corner lot and suck on my jawbreakers.
How long did I wait in that empty store, pennies in my hand? I did not know time then. I dreamed and waited. I shifted and counted the tiny Xes that ran across the front of my smocked dress. I walked the length of the counter to the door at the back of the store. It was open and led downstairs to the basement. I started down the stairs, hands on the wooden railing. Halfway down, I saw hanging from the ceiling a person, a grown, sexless person. I recognized death but without compassion or fear. It was cooler now, halfway into the basement. Many years later in Moscow, as I descended the stairs to gaze at Lenin resting waxy in his glass coffin, the coolness started to invade my senses and I remembered that long ago summer afternoon. I remembered like a painting one could walk into and stay for a time and then return to one’s own life.
Everything was very still that afternoon. I stood halfway down those stairs, holding onto the wooden railing. I turned and walked back up the stairs and stood at the counter in front of the glass jars filled with jawbreakers. I could take what I wanted. I knew there was no one in the store. I had no sense of violence. I slipped the three pennies from my hand onto the counter, stood on my tiptoes and lifted the tin lid of the slanted glass jar, chose three black jawbreakers, and walked past the screen door that closed behind me with a gust of sealed air. I walked out into the white hot summer afternoon, retracing my steps, the jawbreakers melting, sticky in my hands...
...I must have been three that summer, the summer I knew it was wrong to take something. It was the first occasion I remember of a moral decision made entirely on my own. The color and heat of that day, the taste of licorice, the sidewalks ribboning home. The empty lot on the corner, tall with weeds and hollyhock. The smocked dress I wore. Sticky hands. The silence of that thousand-year-old endless afternoon remains a mystery without attached emotion...
