Dale Carnegie, whose book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was one of the world's most phenomenal bestsellers, died yesterday at his home, 27 Wendover Road, Forest Hills, Queens. He had been ill for some time. He would have been 67 years old on Nov. 24. Mr. Carnegie was born in poverty on a Missouri farm, but found that a silver tongue could be more useful than a silver spoon in winning wealth and fame. While a student at State Teachers College, Warrensburg, Mo., he had to live at home because he was too poor to pay $1 a day for room and board. When he found he could not compete with the campus athletes for popularity, he took to public speaking. He felt this activity would cure his feeling of inferiority. After graduation in 1908, Mr. Carnegie failed at several jobs before he started to earn a living here in 1912 as a teacher of public speaking in classes at the Young Men's Christian Association. By the time "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was published in 1936, Mr. Carnegie had become one of the country's leading teachers of public speaking. "How to Win Friends and Influence People," originally published by Simon & Schuster at $2, was an immediate success. It rose rapidly in the best-seller lists and made its author known wherever books are read. A spokesman for Simon & Schuster said yesterday that the book has sold 4,844,938 copies, of which 1,420,938 were in the hard-cover edition. It has had fifty-two printings in the paperback edition, while the regular edition has just gone through its seventy-first printing. From last March to last September, more than 20,000 copies of the hardcover edition were sold. It has been translated into twenty-nine languages and was said by the spokesman to be second only to the Bible in nonfiction sales. A review of the book in The New York Times of Feb. 14, 1937, said in effect that Mr. Carnegie's prescription for success was to smile and be friendly, not to argue or find fault and never to tell another person he was wrong. The review observed that there was "a subtle cynicism" in this approach, but that the book offered some "simple sound, practical common sense." Mr. Carnegie was born in Maryville, Mo., the second son of James William and Amanda Elizabeth Carnegie. After the family moved to Warrensburg, Dale Carnegie found he had an aptitude for reciting, and while in high school joined the debating team. He became so impressed with the style of a speaker at a Chautauqua lecture that he decided to emulate him. It is said he practiced recitations on the horse he rode to and from college. Mr. Carnegie later became a salesman at Alliance, Neb., for the International Correspondence Schools, and for the meat-packing concern of Armour & Co. By 1911, when he had saved $500, an acquaintance persuaded him to become an actor. He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and later played the part of Dr. Hartley in a road show of "Polly and the Circus." This experience turned him from the theatre. His career as a teacher of public speaking started soon thereafter. After a year and a half of Army service at Camp Upton on Long Island in World War I, Mr. Carnegie became business manager for Lowell Thomas, who was on a lecture tour. After the tour, Mr. Carnegie continued his teaching of public speaking. Mr. Carnegie's first marriage ended in divorce in 1931. On Nov. 5, 1944, at Tulsa, Okla., he married Mrs. Dorothy Price Vanderpool, who also had been divorced. Mrs. Carnegie later helped her husband to establish special courses for women. Since 1953, the headquarters for all the Carnegie courses have been in a converted five-story brownstone at 22 West Fifty-fifth Street. A spokesman there yesterday said that in the last forty years 450,000 persons had taken Mr. Carnegie's courses. They are conducted in 750 cities in this country and in fifteen foreign countries under licenses issued by Dale Carnegie Publishers, Inc. About 50,000 persons a year enroll in these courses all over the world, the spokesman said. Among the other books written by Mr. Carnegie were "Lincoln the Unknown" (1932); "Little Known Facts About Well Known People" (1934); "Five Minute Biographies" (1937); "Biographical Roundup" (1945), and "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" (1948). Mr. Carnegie's advice for successful living might be summed up in two of his maxims: "Forget yourself; do things for others," and "Cooperate with the inevitable." In addition to his wife, Mr. Carnegie leaves a daughter, Donna Dale, who will be 4 years old next month. Mrs. Carnegie also has a daughter, Rosemary, by her previous marriage.