Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker, also known as Dot Parker or Dottie Parker, was born Dorothy Rothschild in the West End district of Long Branch, New Jersey, on August 22, 1893. She was an American writer and poet best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles.

Related Topics:
Long Branch, New Jersey - August 22 - 1893 - Writer - Poet - Wit - 20th century

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Her early life was marked by tragedy. She lost her mother when she was five years old and her uncle, Martin Rothschild, went down with the RMS Titanic in 1912. A year later her father passed away.

Related Topics:
RMS ''Titanic'' - 1912

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She was sent by her Catholic stepmother to the Blessed Sacred Convent school in New York, even though Dorothy's father had been Jewish and her mother a Protestant.

Related Topics:
Catholic - Jewish - Protestant

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Parker first sold some poems to Vogue magazine in 1916. She worked there for a short while captioning fashion photographs before beginning her career writing theatre criticism for Vanity Fair. She was initially employed as a stand-in for the vacationing Robert Benchley, and during this time she met and married Edwin Pond Parker II, whom she later divorced. She also had a torrid affair with the publisher Seward Collins. When Harold Ross founded The New Yorker she and Benchley, who became a close friend, joined its staff. Parker contributed many of her greatest short stories to the magazine before pursuing a career as an independent writer of poems and short stories and making a name for herself as an acerbic wit. She married a reputedly (although there is no substantial evidence to this theory) homosexual young writer, Alan Campbell, in 1933, and they divorced after a tempestuous relationship in 1947. They remarried in 1950, remaining together on and off until his death in 1963.

Related Topics:
Vogue - 1916 - Vanity Fair - Robert Benchley - Seward Collins - Harold Ross - The New Yorker - 1933 - 1947 - 1950 - 1963

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Parker was a founding member of the noted Algonquin Round Table in New York. She published seven volumes of short stories and poetry, entitled Enough Rope, Sunset Gun, Laments for the Living, Death and Taxes, After Such Pleasures, Not So Deep as a Well, and Here Lies. After her death, the critic Brendan Gill noted that these titles "amounted to a capsule autobiography." Her most noted story that was published in Bookman Magazine under the title "Big Blonde" was awarded the O. Henry Award as the most outstanding short story of 1929. After she left the staff of the New Yorker she continued to work as a reviewer; her acerbic book reviews, written for the magazine under the pseudonym "Constant Reader" were widely read and later published in a collection under that name. She also worked as a playwright and screenwriter, and was often involved in "polishing" other people's scripts. Amongst a number of screenplays she authored, she co-wrote the script for the 1937 film, A Star Is Born.

Related Topics:
Algonquin Round Table - New York - Bookman Magazine - O. Henry Award - 1929 - Playwright - Screenwriter - A Star Is Born

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Politically liberal, she was named as a communist by the Red Channels publication in 1950 and was investigated by the FBI for her suspected involvement in communism during the McCarthy era. As a result, she was placed on the Hollywood blacklist by the movie studio bosses.

Related Topics:
Communist - Red Channels - FBI - McCarthy - Hollywood blacklist - Movie studio

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Parker became famous for her short, viciously humorous poems, many about the perceived ludicrousness of her many (largely unsuccessful) romantic affairs and others wistfully considering the appeal of suicide. She never considered these poems as her most important works.

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She is also famous for her eminently quotable wisecracks, often about her foil Clare Booth Luce, which were repeated by her literary friends and also appeared liberally throughout her works.

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She attempted suicide several times in her life but ultimately died of a heart attack at the age of 73 in 1967 at the Volney Apartments. In her will, she bequeathed her estate to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. foundation. Following King's death, her estate was passed on to the NAACP.

Related Topics:
Martin Luther King, Jr. - NAACP

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Her life was the subject of the 1987 film Dorothy And Alan At Norma Place and the 1994 film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, in which she was played by Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Related Topics:
1987 - Dorothy And Alan At Norma Place - 1994 - Film - Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle - Jennifer Jason Leigh

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Dorothy Parker's image appeared on a 29¢ U.S. commemorative postage stamp in the Literary Arts series issued August 22, 1992.

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The Oxford English Dictionary attributes the following to Parker: wisecrack, one-night stand.

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