• Dennis
was born in HOLBROOK, ARIZONA on September 29 and
later graduated from Arizona State University with
a Bachelor of Science degree in Broadcasting. While
at college, Dennis performed in countless stage
shows including a production of the musical Snoopy,
in which his turn as the title character was compared
to “day-old Alpo” by a local theater critic. That
critic is still more than welcome to kiss his furry
cartoon dog ass.
•
Dennis moved to LOS ANGELES after graduating from college
and landed a job as a studio page ushering eager audiences
into tapings for such shows as She’s the Sheriff with
Suzanne Somers. Sometimes he had the unfortunate task
of turning people away from My Sister Sam and that
was a drag, but otherwise it was a fun glamorous gig.
•
A year after moving to Los Angeles, Dennis landed a
job as a singer-dancer-cruise director for Princess
Cruises. He would work for the company for nearly five
years, performing in many musical extravaganzas with
exclamations in their titles. After leaving the company,
he created his own line of cruise-themed greeting cards,
which were sold on ships throughout the world.
•
In 1990, Dennis sold his first story as a writer, CONFESSIONS
OF A BOY TOY WANNABE, a first-person account of his
harrowing dance audition for Madonna’s Blonde Ambition
tour, to Movieline magazine. He’s been writing for
them ever since. When he told Madonna, in a round-table
interview in '95, that if it weren't
for her rejecting him, he wouldn't have a writing career,
she replied, "Good
for you, you took a negative and turned it into a positive." She
wasn't the
least bit British yet.
•
In his 17 years as a journalist, Dennis has written for Hollywood Life, In Style, Us Weekly, TV Guide, Total Film, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Gotham, Hampton's, Out, The Advocate and The Face . He's had Charlize Theron in a bowling alley, Celine Dion in a limo and Carrie Fisher in her own bed. In 2006, he penned the Ashlee Simpson Marie Claire cover where she encouraged teenage girls to love themselves the way they were, the promptly went out and got a nose job. Says Dennis: “I should have known something was up when a team of anesthesiologists showed up at the end of the interview.”
•
In 1995, Dennis began writing a fiction column for
Detour Magazine entitled MISADVENTURES IN THE (213).
Three years later, he turned his columns into a novel
of the same name. In addition to landing on the L.A.
Times bestseller list, the book garnered Dennis appearances
on The Rosie O’Donnell Show and TNT’s Movie Lounge.
The audio version, featuring Kathy Griffin as Dandy
Rio was nominated for an audio book award in 1999.
•
The new millineum saw the release of THE WATER’S FINE,
Dennis’s debut CD as a singer/songwriter. The album,
which represents nearly a decade of collaboration with
producer Norman Arnold, was nominated for a GLAMA Award
and the disc’s single "Shotgun” was the most requested
song at GayBC radio for the first quarter of 2001.
•
Dennis wrote the 2001 INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS, hosted
by John Waters, and realized a lifelong dream of having
a celebrity presenter trash his patter writing abilities
on national television. James Woods did the honors.
•
In 2001. Dennis co-wrote, co-directed, and co-starred
with his friend Jack Plotnick in EVIE HARRIS: SHINING
STAR, a short film about a washed-up Hollywood actress
on a quest to find her star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame. The 13 minute comedy has played at many film
festivals and was a finalist in the 2002 Planet Out
Short Film Awards. Dennis will also be seen in a small
role in the upcoming feature Girls Will Be Girls, again
sharing the screen with the delightfully inappropriate
Evie Harris.
•
Dennis co-wrote the feature script
TESTOSTERONE. Co-written with director David Moreton
(Edge of Seventeen) and based on the book by James
Robert Baker, the darkly comic suspense drama was shown
in Argentina in 2002 and was released in 2004,
with Antonio Sabato Jr., David Sutcliffe, Jennifer
Coolidge and Sonia Braga starring. The writing pair
have also recently finished work on another script,
TOM FOOLERY, a screwball romance in the tradition of
What’s Up Doc.
•
Fall of 2002 saw the release of SCREENING PARTY,
a new book from Alyson Publications about a group of
friends who get together to watch and crack wise about
the movies that have effected our lives, from Jaws
to Pretty Woman to Flashdance to The Sound of Music.
The book was also released as a full cast audio book
featuring Kathy Griffin as the inimitable Dr. Beverly
Beaverman. In 2003, Dennis was nominated for a
Lambda Book Award in the humor category for SCREENING PARTY.
• After successful stage runs in NY and LA, SCREENING PARTY was recently adapted into a TV pilot, executive produced, written by and starring Dennis as “Dennis.” The project co-stars Tony Tripoli, Erin Quill, Ossie Beck, Felix Pire and Nora Burns and was directed by Chil Kong, a friend Dennis recently cheered on as a “booster” on Deal or No Deal to a windfall of $211,000!
• In 2006, Dennis served as a writer on the comedy series LOVESPRING INTERNATIONAL . Alas, his episode about a drug de-muler was deemed too offensive for Lifetime to air but you can get it on itunes. Other TV writing credits include Fox Televison Studios' Life of Leisure , Bravo's All-Star Reality Reunion , The Independent Spirit Awards with John Waters and E!'s Fashion Police with Kathy Griffin.
•
Dennis co-hosts of the pop culture-themed radio show Twist , which is syndicated by Clear Channel's Premier Radio Network. Twist airs weekly on stations throughout the country, including K-BIG 104.3 in LA (Sunday nights at 9PM). Dennis is also a frequent guest host on SiriusOutQ satellite radio where he gets to say certain words he can't say on Twist .
• Dennis is the proud creator and host of The MisMatch Game , a risqué, modern updating of the beloved 70's game show, The Match Game . To date, the show has raised over $60,000 for the LA Gay & Lesbian Center. He also hosts Outfest's Home Video Gong Show and moderates panels at the Sundance Film Festival .
• DIPSHITS, a comedica short film written and directed by Dennis and animated by Sean Nadeau was completed in 2008 and is currently burning up the YouTubes.
• In 2008, Dennis was chosen as one of three winners for the HBO Shout short film competition and was given a grant to direct his script for REUNION, a comedic short about a gay TV decorator who returns to his smalltown high school reunion. The short showed on Cinemax-on-Demand and will air on Logo in 2009.
|
