Dorothy Parker, the inimitable American journalist, author, Jazz-Age high priestess and poet who was known for her acid
wit , was born on August 22 1894.
She was born Dororthy Rothchild in West End, New Jersey, to a German Jewish father,Jacob Henry Rothschild and a Sottish mother.Annie Eliza (Maston) Rothschild. Her mother died less than a year later. Dorothy had an unhappy childhood and later accused her father of being physically abusive. According to John Keats, the author of You Might as Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker (1971): "She regarded her father as a monster. She was terrified of him. She could never speak of her father without horror. She was treated like a remittance child, if not like a child brought up in an orphanage administered by psychopaths. If the household held no love for her, neither did it have a place for her, for there was nothing she could do in the house. In the 1890s, the daughters of affluent families were most certainly not instructed in the domestic arts... She was taught that it was polite to be on time; dinner was at six thirty, and if Dorothy was not there, seen but not heard, precisely at six thirty, her father would hammer her wrists with a spoon."
Parkers father was also a capitalist titan in the garment industry with a great propensity for lying and mistreating his workers, who only two years after her mothers death married Eleanor Frances Lewis. Eleanor Frances Lewis. She did not get on with her stepmother either, in fact she despised her her and refused to call her anything but “the housekeeper."Her stepmother died in 1903. To add to this sad childhood, Dorothy's brother was a passenger on the RMS Titanic and was killed when the ship sank in 1912. The tragedies continued when her father died on December 28, 1913. Dorothy suffered from the effects of all of this, often finding it hard to form solid bonds with people. These events also played a role in her battle with alcoholism.
She was born Dororthy Rothchild in West End, New Jersey, to a German Jewish father,Jacob Henry Rothschild and a Sottish mother.Annie Eliza (Maston) Rothschild. Her mother died less than a year later. Dorothy had an unhappy childhood and later accused her father of being physically abusive. According to John Keats, the author of You Might as Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker (1971): "She regarded her father as a monster. She was terrified of him. She could never speak of her father without horror. She was treated like a remittance child, if not like a child brought up in an orphanage administered by psychopaths. If the household held no love for her, neither did it have a place for her, for there was nothing she could do in the house. In the 1890s, the daughters of affluent families were most certainly not instructed in the domestic arts... She was taught that it was polite to be on time; dinner was at six thirty, and if Dorothy was not there, seen but not heard, precisely at six thirty, her father would hammer her wrists with a spoon."
Parkers father was also a capitalist titan in the garment industry with a great propensity for lying and mistreating his workers, who only two years after her mothers death married Eleanor Frances Lewis. Eleanor Frances Lewis. She did not get on with her stepmother either, in fact she despised her her and refused to call her anything but “the housekeeper."Her stepmother died in 1903. To add to this sad childhood, Dorothy's brother was a passenger on the RMS Titanic and was killed when the ship sank in 1912. The tragedies continued when her father died on December 28, 1913. Dorothy suffered from the effects of all of this, often finding it hard to form solid bonds with people. These events also played a role in her battle with alcoholism.
Details about
Parker's education are sketchy. Although Dorothy was Jewish she attended a Catholic boarding school, the Blessed Sacrament Academy, a finishing school
known as Miss Dana's in Morristown, New Jersey, But she never received a high school diploma;and left under unexplained circumstances, her knowledge was acquired through her
voracious reading. She later claimed she was "fired" for insisting that "the immaculate Conception was a product of spontaneous combustion."
Parker made her early living by playing the piano at a dance school. At night, she worked on her verse.Parker sold her first poem, “Any Porch," to Vanity Fair in 1914. It satirizes the babble of upper-class ladies. She was hired a few months later by sister magazine Vogue as an editorial assistant, writing captions for fashion layouts. She moved to Vanity Fair, where she was made drama critic.
At this time she became part of that ultimate in-crowd, the legendary informal literary luncheon club that met almost daily at the Algonquin Hotel that became known as the Algonquin Round Table. It got the name the "Vicious Circle" because of the number of cutting remarks made by its members and their habit of engaging in sharp-tongued banter and for their sharp criticism of local characters . It's members included Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx, George S Kaufman, and Edna Ferber. Often they would include each other’s quotes in their own writing.
Dorothy and her colleaques were effectively realised in the 1994 film "Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle" in which Jason Leigh brilliantly portrayed the eccentrically garnered depressed, alcoholic writer and poet and received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.
Dorothy Parker with members of the Algonquin Round Table.
In her mid-twenties, Dorothy married a man named Edwin Pond Parker II, and was only too happy to rid herself of the Rothchild name. She dealt with strong feelings about her Jewish heritage, most of them negative because of the raging anti- Semitism of the time. She said that she married to escape her name. However, the marriage did not last long. The couple was separated when Edwin Parker was sent to fight during World War 1.Edwin was seriously injured after only a few months of service. This in injury, along with the pains and memories of the war, led Edwin to a life long addiction to alcohol and morphine. The relationship was not a positive one, and it ended in divorce. But Dorothy would never revert back to her maiden name. She kept the last name of Parker for the rest of her life, even when she married again. When she was asked if there was a Mr. Parker, she casually responded: "There used to be."
In 1926, Parker published her first book of poetry, Enough Rope, which became a bestseller, selling 47,000 copies.Her other collections include Sunset Gun (1928) and Death and Taxes (1931). Parker’s poetry is marked by cleverness but also by the deep depression that plagued her. Focusing on power dynamics, especially those involving gender, her poetry, sometimes dismissed by critics as “light” or “flapper” verse and panned as "frivolous little ditties.” but nevertheless still managed to pull apart the fabric of American society. During the 1920s and early 1930s, she also published several books of short stories.
A Dream lies Dead - Dorothy Parker
Parker made her early living by playing the piano at a dance school. At night, she worked on her verse.Parker sold her first poem, “Any Porch," to Vanity Fair in 1914. It satirizes the babble of upper-class ladies. She was hired a few months later by sister magazine Vogue as an editorial assistant, writing captions for fashion layouts. She moved to Vanity Fair, where she was made drama critic.
At this time she became part of that ultimate in-crowd, the legendary informal literary luncheon club that met almost daily at the Algonquin Hotel that became known as the Algonquin Round Table. It got the name the "Vicious Circle" because of the number of cutting remarks made by its members and their habit of engaging in sharp-tongued banter and for their sharp criticism of local characters . It's members included Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx, George S Kaufman, and Edna Ferber. Often they would include each other’s quotes in their own writing.
Dorothy and her colleaques were effectively realised in the 1994 film "Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle" in which Jason Leigh brilliantly portrayed the eccentrically garnered depressed, alcoholic writer and poet and received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.
Dorothy Parker with members of the Algonquin Round Table.
In her mid-twenties, Dorothy married a man named Edwin Pond Parker II, and was only too happy to rid herself of the Rothchild name. She dealt with strong feelings about her Jewish heritage, most of them negative because of the raging anti- Semitism of the time. She said that she married to escape her name. However, the marriage did not last long. The couple was separated when Edwin Parker was sent to fight during World War 1.Edwin was seriously injured after only a few months of service. This in injury, along with the pains and memories of the war, led Edwin to a life long addiction to alcohol and morphine. The relationship was not a positive one, and it ended in divorce. But Dorothy would never revert back to her maiden name. She kept the last name of Parker for the rest of her life, even when she married again. When she was asked if there was a Mr. Parker, she casually responded: "There used to be."
In 1926, Parker published her first book of poetry, Enough Rope, which became a bestseller, selling 47,000 copies.Her other collections include Sunset Gun (1928) and Death and Taxes (1931). Parker’s poetry is marked by cleverness but also by the deep depression that plagued her. Focusing on power dynamics, especially those involving gender, her poetry, sometimes dismissed by critics as “light” or “flapper” verse and panned as "frivolous little ditties.” but nevertheless still managed to pull apart the fabric of American society. During the 1920s and early 1930s, she also published several books of short stories.
The prevailing attitude toward Parker’s work as frivolous changed when one of her stories was published in the New Yorker. After
that, her work became a staple in the magazine, with frequent stories
and a regular book review column, Constant Reader, where she became well known for her intellectual commentary, as well as a acerbic acid tonque, and the bravado,scathing wit and sarcasm of her
writings, though these were a veneer for insecurity and loneliness.The high
life of early 20th-century Manhattan in which she cast her most of her
stories, mingled with hints of alcoholism, depression, and difficulties
in love relationships that her characters struggled with.
Parker herself had a series of unsuccessful love affairs. The most intense of these, with writer Charles MacArthur, ended in pregnancy, abortion, and a suicide attempt. A second suicide attempt would follow in 1925. Her emotional dependence on men who didn't love her, but were willing to use her for their own career advantage.
For Parker, the Roaring Twenties were loud indeed. She lived a reckless, turbulent life, chronically mismanaging her financial affairs,drinking excessively, "I'm not a writer with a drinking problem, " she’d joke, "I'm a drinker with a writing problem." She was often contemplating suicide, and twice she attempted suicide (once following an abortion), and she became pregnant at 42 only to miscarry a few months later. ‘What fresh hell is this?’ she wondered in one famous poem.In another sad, witty rumination about the various distasteful ways to take one’s own life, she concluded that, after all, ‘You might as well live."
Parker put references to alcohol in many of her stories and poems; when she moved to Hollywood her 1930s screenplays often featured cocktails and protagonists clinking glasses.One of her best short stories was Big Blonde, which was first published in 1929. The protagonist is a woman in her 30’s named Hazel Morse. Like Parker, Morse is an alcoholic. After her husband leaves her, she attempts suicide by overdosing on Veronal, which was used as a sedative during that era.
Her maid finds her completely unconscious, calls the doctor, and Hazel Morse survives. When she fully realizes that she is not dead, she asks the maid to pour them both a drink.
Before Morse takes a shot of her whiskey, she stares into the glass and thinks, Maybe, when you had been knocked cold for a few days, your very first drink would give you a lift. Maybe whiskey would be her friend again.
This story is somewhat autobiographical and gives us a clear picture of Parker’s alcoholism and depression. Hazel Morse reached the depths of despair that many alcoholics achieve when the booze stops working, but they still can’t stop drinking and are unable live with or without alcohol.
And its pretty apparent that Morse drinks because she is depressed, which often is the case with many alcoholics.
Hiram Beer who worked as she and her second husbands gardener, chauffeur and carpenter was amazed at the vast amount of alcohol the couple consumed. He said Parker drank Manhattans and Campbell, Scotch on the rocks, and when not this, they shared pitchers of Martinis:
"They'd bring it in by the cases, and both of them used to run around with drinks in their hands even when there was no company there. When they had people there, they had people who felt they had to drink just because they were there, and that's what there was to do. They'd all get up past noon, and after their lunch, or breakfast as it might have been, they'd start drinking until late at night."
It was Dorothy who invented the quip "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker" which was probably the most quoted line of the 1920's. Her wit was at her zenith when asked if she had heard that notoriously quiet President Calvin Coolidge had died, she replied "How could they tell." And when she and one Clare Booth Luce were both entering a theater for the premier of a new play, Clare stepped back and gestured for Dorothy to enter first, with a caustic "Age before beauty." Dorothy stepped ahead of her, turned around and replied "Pearls before the swine." like so many funny folk, and a woman of gloomy depths, she used her sharp tonque to keep people at a distance.
Parker was accused of disloyal attacks on women, of writing for a male audience, of projecting a female rather than a feminist view of the world. So-called second wave feminists were more interested, and began to portray Parker’s humour as a kind of social protest against patriarchal convention. Her stories feature female characters trying to square exhilarating new choices with the enduring constraints of societal expectation. Some of her heroines are lovelorn, suicidal alcoholics but others are undeniably strong characters. Temporarily untethered by the hedonistic ‘20s, their lives embrace contradictions and challenges only too familiar to 21st Century women.
Parker’s stories also deal with questions of family, race, war and economic inequality, and it wasn’t just on the page that these themes interested her. Ironically, while the hectic turmoil of her private life is a tale well-thumbed, her public life has been forgotten. The woman who has been known as one of America’s greatest wits, was, in fact, also a great defender of and advocate for a just society. Not surprisingly, her work and life take a decidedly political turn in the 1930s. As the stock market crash of 1929 brought the Jazz Age to a close, two trends emerged: a number of writers left New York for screenwriting work in Hollywood; and writers, artists, and other intellectuals began to seek socialist solutions to the problems raised by capitalism, which had culminated in the Great Depression. Added to this mix was the increasing fascism in Europe and the Spanish Civil War. Parker participated in both trends.
Parker herself had a series of unsuccessful love affairs. The most intense of these, with writer Charles MacArthur, ended in pregnancy, abortion, and a suicide attempt. A second suicide attempt would follow in 1925. Her emotional dependence on men who didn't love her, but were willing to use her for their own career advantage.
For Parker, the Roaring Twenties were loud indeed. She lived a reckless, turbulent life, chronically mismanaging her financial affairs,drinking excessively, "I'm not a writer with a drinking problem, " she’d joke, "I'm a drinker with a writing problem." She was often contemplating suicide, and twice she attempted suicide (once following an abortion), and she became pregnant at 42 only to miscarry a few months later. ‘What fresh hell is this?’ she wondered in one famous poem.In another sad, witty rumination about the various distasteful ways to take one’s own life, she concluded that, after all, ‘You might as well live."
Parker put references to alcohol in many of her stories and poems; when she moved to Hollywood her 1930s screenplays often featured cocktails and protagonists clinking glasses.One of her best short stories was Big Blonde, which was first published in 1929. The protagonist is a woman in her 30’s named Hazel Morse. Like Parker, Morse is an alcoholic. After her husband leaves her, she attempts suicide by overdosing on Veronal, which was used as a sedative during that era.
Her maid finds her completely unconscious, calls the doctor, and Hazel Morse survives. When she fully realizes that she is not dead, she asks the maid to pour them both a drink.
Before Morse takes a shot of her whiskey, she stares into the glass and thinks, Maybe, when you had been knocked cold for a few days, your very first drink would give you a lift. Maybe whiskey would be her friend again.
This story is somewhat autobiographical and gives us a clear picture of Parker’s alcoholism and depression. Hazel Morse reached the depths of despair that many alcoholics achieve when the booze stops working, but they still can’t stop drinking and are unable live with or without alcohol.
And its pretty apparent that Morse drinks because she is depressed, which often is the case with many alcoholics.
Hiram Beer who worked as she and her second husbands gardener, chauffeur and carpenter was amazed at the vast amount of alcohol the couple consumed. He said Parker drank Manhattans and Campbell, Scotch on the rocks, and when not this, they shared pitchers of Martinis:
"They'd bring it in by the cases, and both of them used to run around with drinks in their hands even when there was no company there. When they had people there, they had people who felt they had to drink just because they were there, and that's what there was to do. They'd all get up past noon, and after their lunch, or breakfast as it might have been, they'd start drinking until late at night."
It was Dorothy who invented the quip "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker" which was probably the most quoted line of the 1920's. Her wit was at her zenith when asked if she had heard that notoriously quiet President Calvin Coolidge had died, she replied "How could they tell." And when she and one Clare Booth Luce were both entering a theater for the premier of a new play, Clare stepped back and gestured for Dorothy to enter first, with a caustic "Age before beauty." Dorothy stepped ahead of her, turned around and replied "Pearls before the swine." like so many funny folk, and a woman of gloomy depths, she used her sharp tonque to keep people at a distance.
Parker was accused of disloyal attacks on women, of writing for a male audience, of projecting a female rather than a feminist view of the world. So-called second wave feminists were more interested, and began to portray Parker’s humour as a kind of social protest against patriarchal convention. Her stories feature female characters trying to square exhilarating new choices with the enduring constraints of societal expectation. Some of her heroines are lovelorn, suicidal alcoholics but others are undeniably strong characters. Temporarily untethered by the hedonistic ‘20s, their lives embrace contradictions and challenges only too familiar to 21st Century women.
Parker’s stories also deal with questions of family, race, war and economic inequality, and it wasn’t just on the page that these themes interested her. Ironically, while the hectic turmoil of her private life is a tale well-thumbed, her public life has been forgotten. The woman who has been known as one of America’s greatest wits, was, in fact, also a great defender of and advocate for a just society. Not surprisingly, her work and life take a decidedly political turn in the 1930s. As the stock market crash of 1929 brought the Jazz Age to a close, two trends emerged: a number of writers left New York for screenwriting work in Hollywood; and writers, artists, and other intellectuals began to seek socialist solutions to the problems raised by capitalism, which had culminated in the Great Depression. Added to this mix was the increasing fascism in Europe and the Spanish Civil War. Parker participated in both trends.
A major catalyst for her radicalism was
the trial of two Italian immigrants. Nicola Sacco, a shoemaker, and
Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a fish peddler, were anarchists sentenced to death
for the purported murder in 1920 of two men Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli during a robbery. Though both men had solid alibis, they were convicted.
During the several years of appeals, the case became an international
cause célèbre because it was deemed a miscarriage of justice, prejudiced
by anti-immigrant and anti-anarchist sentiment. The judge in the case
was overheard saying, “I’m going to get those anarchist bastards good
and proper.”
In 1927, Dorothy Parker went to Boston
to join marchers, on behalf of Sacco and
Vanzetti. The crowd began chanting at her, “Guinea lover,” “New York
nut,” and “Red scum.”
She was warned that she would be arrested if she didn’t go away in seven minutes. “I don’t mind being arrested,” she said as two policemen grabbed her. What she did mind was getting into the paddy wagon. The police roughly grabbed her arms as she insisted on walking to the station. The angry crowd followed, shouting at her, “Give her six months,” “Hang her!” “Kill her!”
When she was released, she quipped with reporters, “I thought prisoners who were set free got five dollars and suit of clothes.” She raised her sleeves to show them the bruises on her arms, complaining that they didn’t bother to fingerprint her, “but they left me a few of theirs. The big stiffs!”
Despite weeks of protests and a series of reprieves, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair, just after midnight on August 23, 1927.
This experience had a dramatic impact on Parker and she now considered herself a socialist. She claimed that from then on "my heart and soul are with the cause of socialism". Some of her friends in the Algonquin Roundtable, were active in politics, but most of them were indifferent to such issues. Parker later recalled: "Those people at the Round Table didn't know a bloody thing. They thought we were fools to go up and demonstrate for Sacco and Vanzetti." She claimed they were ignorant because "they didn't know and they just didn't think about anything but the theater."
She married her second husband Alan Campbell, in 1934 who was 11 years her junior and shared her Jewish-Gentile heritage. He was reported to be bisexual. Parker said he was “queer as a billy goat." a bisexual writer and former actor, 11 years her junior who shared her Jewish-Gentile heritage. Their marriage was stormy, marked with affairs and increasing alcohol consumption and ended in divorce but they later remarried, bound together in a dance of push and pull that would continue until his death from a drug overdose in 1963.
She moved to Hollywood and wrote or contributed to scripts for thirty-nine films, including A Star Is Born, which they were nominated for a Best Screenplay Academy Award for.They also wrote the screenplay for the Alfred Hitchcock film Saboteur (1942). While in Hollywood, she served on the Motion Picture Artists Committee and the Screen Writers Guild, helped raise money for Loyalist Spain, China, and the Scottsboro defendants, and lent her name to more than thirty fund-raising activities.Parker was a strong supporter of the Popular Front government in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and was a member of the Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee and the Motion Picture Artists Committee to Aid Republican Spain. In October 1937 Parker visited Spain and made a broadcast from Madrid Radio. She also sent back reports on the war, writing two of her war stories, "Soldier's of the Republic" and "Who Might Be Interested," and wrote passionately about the experience in the radical magazine New Masses:
" If you are going to be in an air raid, it’s better for you if it happens at night. Then it’s unreal, like a ballet with the scurrying figures and the great white shafts of the searchlights. But when a raid comes in the daytime, you see little children wild with terror. They don’t cry. Only you see their eyes. I can still see those eyes. After one raid, I saw a great pile of rubble, and on the top of it a broken doll and a dead kitten—ruthless enemies to the fascists.
Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco
She was warned that she would be arrested if she didn’t go away in seven minutes. “I don’t mind being arrested,” she said as two policemen grabbed her. What she did mind was getting into the paddy wagon. The police roughly grabbed her arms as she insisted on walking to the station. The angry crowd followed, shouting at her, “Give her six months,” “Hang her!” “Kill her!”
When she was released, she quipped with reporters, “I thought prisoners who were set free got five dollars and suit of clothes.” She raised her sleeves to show them the bruises on her arms, complaining that they didn’t bother to fingerprint her, “but they left me a few of theirs. The big stiffs!”
Despite weeks of protests and a series of reprieves, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair, just after midnight on August 23, 1927.
This experience had a dramatic impact on Parker and she now considered herself a socialist. She claimed that from then on "my heart and soul are with the cause of socialism". Some of her friends in the Algonquin Roundtable, were active in politics, but most of them were indifferent to such issues. Parker later recalled: "Those people at the Round Table didn't know a bloody thing. They thought we were fools to go up and demonstrate for Sacco and Vanzetti." She claimed they were ignorant because "they didn't know and they just didn't think about anything but the theater."
She married her second husband Alan Campbell, in 1934 who was 11 years her junior and shared her Jewish-Gentile heritage. He was reported to be bisexual. Parker said he was “queer as a billy goat." a bisexual writer and former actor, 11 years her junior who shared her Jewish-Gentile heritage. Their marriage was stormy, marked with affairs and increasing alcohol consumption and ended in divorce but they later remarried, bound together in a dance of push and pull that would continue until his death from a drug overdose in 1963.
She moved to Hollywood and wrote or contributed to scripts for thirty-nine films, including A Star Is Born, which they were nominated for a Best Screenplay Academy Award for.They also wrote the screenplay for the Alfred Hitchcock film Saboteur (1942). While in Hollywood, she served on the Motion Picture Artists Committee and the Screen Writers Guild, helped raise money for Loyalist Spain, China, and the Scottsboro defendants, and lent her name to more than thirty fund-raising activities.Parker was a strong supporter of the Popular Front government in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and was a member of the Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee and the Motion Picture Artists Committee to Aid Republican Spain. In October 1937 Parker visited Spain and made a broadcast from Madrid Radio. She also sent back reports on the war, writing two of her war stories, "Soldier's of the Republic" and "Who Might Be Interested," and wrote passionately about the experience in the radical magazine New Masses:
" If you are going to be in an air raid, it’s better for you if it happens at night. Then it’s unreal, like a ballet with the scurrying figures and the great white shafts of the searchlights. But when a raid comes in the daytime, you see little children wild with terror. They don’t cry. Only you see their eyes. I can still see those eyes. After one raid, I saw a great pile of rubble, and on the top of it a broken doll and a dead kitten—ruthless enemies to the fascists.
Later she helped Ernest
Hemingway and Lillian Hellman finance the film The Spanish Earth, and served on the
editorial board of Equality, a magazine in support of democratic rights and racial
equality. Her pro-communist sympathies were noted by the F.B.I.; the agency kept a file on
her. She wanted to be a World War II correspondent but was denied a passport. Like many in the 1930s, Dorothy flirted
with Communism, believing it to be the great movement of her era, and was beside herself
with anger at those who did not take the rise of fascism seriously.
“Which is worse the perpetrators of injustice of those who are blind to
it?” she demanded to know.
In 1936 Parker, Campbell and Donald Ogden Stewart met a former Berlin journalist, Otto Katz. He told them about what was happening in Nazi Germany. Stewart recalled that when Katz began to describe the rule of Adolf Hitler "the details of which he had been able to collect only through repeatedly risking his own life, I was proud to be sitting beside him, proud to be on his side in the fight." Stewart and Parker decided to join with a group of people involved in the film industry who were concerned about the growth of fascism in Europe to establish the Hollywood Anti-Nazi Leaque (HANL).
After the war Dorothy gave a blistering speech in New York on behalf of the writers, directors, and actors who refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). She warned, “For heaven’s sake, children, Fascism isn’t coming—it’s here. It’s dreadful. Stop it.”
Despite her resistance, columnist Walter Winchell fingered Dorothy in the 1950s to the FBI. He submitted a fund-raising letter Dorothy had signed on behalf of the Spanish Children’s Milk Fund, which was considered a Communist arm. J. Edgar Hoover, whom Dorothy referred to as “the one who chases men for business and pleasure,” sent two agents to her house. Her dog kept jumping all over them.
When one of them asked her, “Have you ever conspired to overthrow the United States government?” “Listen, I can’t even get my dog to stay down. Do I look like someone who could overthrow the government?” Nevertheless, she was blacklisted in Hollywood for much of the rest of her career.
In 1959, Dorothy, along with Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, was a guest on the David Susskind television show, Open End. When Susskind asked what most troubled her about America, she unhesitantly enumerated: injustice, intolerance, stupidity, and segregation—particularly segregation.
Parker was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1959 and was a visiting professor at California State College in Los Angeles in 1963.She had traveled back and forth between Hollywood and New York for many years, but in 1964 returned to New York for the last time.Her dependence on alcohol began to interfere with her work, and although she wrote a few book reviews for Esquire, her position was not guaranteed, and her erratic behavior and lack of interest in deadlines, caused her popularity among editors to decline. Her final years were marred by poor health, bought on by her alcoholism and she distanced herself from her former colleagues of the Algonquin Round Table. living alone with her dog in a hotel room on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the most common response to anything she managed to write was surprise that she was still alive. (It hardly helped that much of her verse flirted so drolly with the idea of doing away with herself.)
In 1936 Parker, Campbell and Donald Ogden Stewart met a former Berlin journalist, Otto Katz. He told them about what was happening in Nazi Germany. Stewart recalled that when Katz began to describe the rule of Adolf Hitler "the details of which he had been able to collect only through repeatedly risking his own life, I was proud to be sitting beside him, proud to be on his side in the fight." Stewart and Parker decided to join with a group of people involved in the film industry who were concerned about the growth of fascism in Europe to establish the Hollywood Anti-Nazi Leaque (HANL).
After the war Dorothy gave a blistering speech in New York on behalf of the writers, directors, and actors who refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). She warned, “For heaven’s sake, children, Fascism isn’t coming—it’s here. It’s dreadful. Stop it.”
Despite her resistance, columnist Walter Winchell fingered Dorothy in the 1950s to the FBI. He submitted a fund-raising letter Dorothy had signed on behalf of the Spanish Children’s Milk Fund, which was considered a Communist arm. J. Edgar Hoover, whom Dorothy referred to as “the one who chases men for business and pleasure,” sent two agents to her house. Her dog kept jumping all over them.
When one of them asked her, “Have you ever conspired to overthrow the United States government?” “Listen, I can’t even get my dog to stay down. Do I look like someone who could overthrow the government?” Nevertheless, she was blacklisted in Hollywood for much of the rest of her career.
In 1959, Dorothy, along with Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, was a guest on the David Susskind television show, Open End. When Susskind asked what most troubled her about America, she unhesitantly enumerated: injustice, intolerance, stupidity, and segregation—particularly segregation.
Parker was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1959 and was a visiting professor at California State College in Los Angeles in 1963.She had traveled back and forth between Hollywood and New York for many years, but in 1964 returned to New York for the last time.Her dependence on alcohol began to interfere with her work, and although she wrote a few book reviews for Esquire, her position was not guaranteed, and her erratic behavior and lack of interest in deadlines, caused her popularity among editors to decline. Her final years were marred by poor health, bought on by her alcoholism and she distanced herself from her former colleagues of the Algonquin Round Table. living alone with her dog in a hotel room on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the most common response to anything she managed to write was surprise that she was still alive. (It hardly helped that much of her verse flirted so drolly with the idea of doing away with herself.)
Dorothy Parker died of a heart-attack, in New Jersey on 22nd August, 1967 at the age of 73. Her remains were cremated two days later.,A firm believer in civil rights, she bequeathed her literary estate to Martin Luther King. Even in death, Parker found a way to support a cause she deeply believed in.
Following King's death in 1968, her estate was passed on to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, ( NAACP), but the decision was contested. With the estate trapped in a bitter fight, Parker's ashes went years without finding a final resting place (they resided for some time in her attorney’s filing cabinet, among other locations). In 1988, more than 20 years after her death, the NAACP created a memorial garden for Parker, where they laid her remains to rest once and for all. A plaque reads:
“ Here lie the ashes of Dorothy Parker (1893 -1967) humorist, writer, critic, Defender of human and civil rights. This memorial garden is dedicated to her noble spirit which celebrated the oneness of humankind and to the bonds of everlasting friendship between black and Jewish people. Dedicated by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. October 28, 1988.”
An informational plaque includes her suggested epitaph: “Excuse my dust.”
"Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania."
Though her life was turbulent, Dorothy Parker made an indelible mark on American literature. and the causes of social justice Despite her accomplishments in fiction. poetry and screenwriting, it’s her witty,deliciously vicious tonque and her hard-boiled, take no prisoners attitude towards herself and the world around her, that she is most remembered for. Many years after her death, her works remains in print, which is a true testament to the relevance of her vision.
The USA Postal Service issued a celebratory postal stamp in honor of Parker in Literary Arts series. In 1987 the Algonquin Hotel was renamed as a New York City Historic Landmark. Parker’s birthplace in New Jersey Shore was named a National Literary Landmark in 2005. Parker was nominated to the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2014 posthumously.To this day she remains an enduring icon who had plenty of guts and fire who still happens to be one of my favorite 20th century women..
Résumé - Dorothy Parker
Following King's death in 1968, her estate was passed on to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, ( NAACP), but the decision was contested. With the estate trapped in a bitter fight, Parker's ashes went years without finding a final resting place (they resided for some time in her attorney’s filing cabinet, among other locations). In 1988, more than 20 years after her death, the NAACP created a memorial garden for Parker, where they laid her remains to rest once and for all. A plaque reads:
“ Here lie the ashes of Dorothy Parker (1893 -1967) humorist, writer, critic, Defender of human and civil rights. This memorial garden is dedicated to her noble spirit which celebrated the oneness of humankind and to the bonds of everlasting friendship between black and Jewish people. Dedicated by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. October 28, 1988.”
An informational plaque includes her suggested epitaph: “Excuse my dust.”
"Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania."
Though her life was turbulent, Dorothy Parker made an indelible mark on American literature. and the causes of social justice Despite her accomplishments in fiction. poetry and screenwriting, it’s her witty,deliciously vicious tonque and her hard-boiled, take no prisoners attitude towards herself and the world around her, that she is most remembered for. Many years after her death, her works remains in print, which is a true testament to the relevance of her vision.
The USA Postal Service issued a celebratory postal stamp in honor of Parker in Literary Arts series. In 1987 the Algonquin Hotel was renamed as a New York City Historic Landmark. Parker’s birthplace in New Jersey Shore was named a National Literary Landmark in 2005. Parker was nominated to the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2014 posthumously.To this day she remains an enduring icon who had plenty of guts and fire who still happens to be one of my favorite 20th century women..
Résumé - Dorothy Parker
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
A Very Short Poem - Dorothy Parker
Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.
Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.
Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.
A Dream lies Dead - Dorothy Parker
A dream lies dead here. May you softly go
Before this place, and turn away your eyes,
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,
But, for a little, let your step be slow.
And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise
With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.
A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:
Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree-
Though white of bloom as it had been before
And proudly waitful of fecundity-
One little loveliness can be no more;
And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head
Further Reading:-
Keats, John. 1970. You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker. Simon and Schuster.
Meade, Marion. 1988. Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is This? New York: Villard.
Meade, Marion. 2006. The Portable Dorothy Parker. Penguin Classic.
Link to Dorothy Parker Society
http://dorothyparker.com/
Before this place, and turn away your eyes,
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,
But, for a little, let your step be slow.
And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise
With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.
A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:
Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree-
Though white of bloom as it had been before
And proudly waitful of fecundity-
One little loveliness can be no more;
And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head
Further Reading:-
Keats, John. 1970. You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker. Simon and Schuster.
Meade, Marion. 1988. Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is This? New York: Villard.
Meade, Marion. 2006. The Portable Dorothy Parker. Penguin Classic.
Link to Dorothy Parker Society
http://dorothyparker.com/
Thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated your honest biography of a life lived on her own terms. She paid a price for that.
ReplyDeleteThank you do much for taking time out to comment She won't be forgotten.
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