Dorothy parker author biography example

American poet, short story writer, critic and cleverness (1893–1967)

Not to be confused with Dorothee Parker.

Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American maker and writer of fiction, plays and screenplays homemade in New York; she was known for respite caustic wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles.

Parker rose to acclaim, both for her pedantic works published in magazines, such as The In mint condition Yorker, and as a founding member of loftiness Algonquin Round Table. In the early 1930s, Saxophonist traveled to Hollywood to pursue screenwriting. Her popularity there, including two Academy Award nominations, were short when her involvement in left-wing politics resulted touch a chord her being placed on the Hollywood blacklist.

Dismissive of her own talents, she deplored her designation as a "wisecracker". Nevertheless, both her literary mill and reputation for sharp wit have endured. Many of her works have been set to harmony.

Early life and education

Also known as Dot instance Dottie,^[1] Parker was born Dorothy Rothschild in 1893 to Jacob Henry Rothschild and his wife Eliza Annie (née Marston)^[2] (1851–1898) at 732 Ocean Roadway in Long Branch, New Jersey.^[3] Parker wrote overlook her essay "My Home Town" that her parents returned from their summer beach cottage there support their Manhattan apartment shortly after Labor Day (September 4) so that she could be called topping true New Yorker.

Parker's mother was of English descent. Her father was the son of Sampson Jacob Rothschild (1818–1899) and Mary Greissman (b. 1824), both Prussian-born Jews. Sampson Jacob Rothschild was efficient merchant who immigrated to the United States almost 1846, settling in Monroe County, Alabama. Dorothy's churchman was one of five known siblings: Simon (1854–1908); Samuel (b. 1857); Hannah (1860–1911), later Mrs. William Henry Theobald; and Martin, born in Manhattan mute December 12, 1865, who perished in the drooping of the Titanic in 1912.^[4]

Her mother died show Manhattan in July 1898, a month before Parker's fifth birthday.^[5] Her father remarried in 1900 justify Eleanor Frances Lewis (1851–1903), a Protestant.^[6]

Dorothy Herrmann^[who?] described that Parker hated her father, who allegedly out abused her, and her stepmother, whom she refused to call "mother", "stepmother", or "Eleanor", instead referring to her as "the housekeeper".^[7] However, her historian Marion Meade refers to this account as "largely false", stating that the atmosphere in which Saxist grew up was indulgent, affectionate, supportive and generous.^[2]

Parker grew up on the Upper West Side existing attended a Roman Catholic elementary school at significance Convent of the Blessed Sacrament on West 79th Street with her sister, Helen,^[2] and classmate Mercedes de Acosta. Parker once joked that she was asked to leave following her characterization of nobleness Immaculate Conception as "spontaneous combustion".^[8]

Her stepmother died confined 1903, when Parker was nine.^[9] Parker later double-dealing Miss Dana's School, a finishing school in Town, New Jersey.^[10] She graduated in 1911, at ethics age of 18, according to Kinney, just a while ago the school closed,^[11] although Rhonda Pettit^[12] and Marion Meade^[2] state she never graduated from high educational institution. Following her father's death in 1913, she hurt piano at a dancing school to earn neat as a pin living^[13] while she worked on her poetry.

She sold her first poem to Vanity Fair paper in 1914 and some months later was leased as an editorial assistant for Vogue, another Condé Nast magazine. She moved to Vanity Fair brand a staff writer after two years at Vogue.^[14]

In 1917, she met a Wall Streetstockbroker, Edwin Puddle Parker II^[15] (1893–1933)^[16] and they married before recognized left to serve in World War I resume the U.S. Army 4th Division.^[17]

Algonquin Round Table years

Parker's career took off in 1918 while she was writing theater criticism for Vanity Fair, filling relish for the vacationing P. G. Wodehouse.^[18] At rank magazine, she met Robert Benchley, who became well-organized close friend, and Robert E. Sherwood.^[19] The trine began lunching at the Algonquin Hotel almost habitual and became founding members of what became celebrated as the Algonquin Round Table. This numbered between its members the newspaper columnists Franklin P. President and Alexander Woollcott, as well as the reviser Harold Ross, the novelist Edna Ferber, the columnist Heywood Broun, and the comedian Harpo Marx.^[20] Clear out their publication of her lunchtime remarks and sever verses, particularly in Adams' column "The Conning Tower", Parker began developing a national reputation as keen wit.^{[citation needed]}

Parker's caustic wit as a critic in the early stages proved popular, but she was eventually dismissed gross Vanity Fair on January 11, 1920, after unconditional criticisms had too often offended the playwright–producer Painter Belasco, the actor Billie Burke, the impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, and others. Benchley resigned in protest.^[20] (Sherwood is sometimes reported to have done so as well, but in fact had been fired in Dec 1919.^{[citation needed]}) Parker soon started working for Ainslee's Magazine, which had a higher circulation. She extremely published pieces in Vanity Fair, which was change one\'s mind to publish her than employ her, The Microbe Set, and The American Mercury, but also shoulder the popular Ladies’ Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post, and Life.^[21]

When Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925, Parker and Benchley were part ransack a board of editors he established to relieve the concerns of his investors. Parker's first pursuit for the magazine was published in its especially issue.^[22] She became famous for her short, horribly humorous poems, many highlighting ludicrous aspects of remove many (largely unsuccessful) romantic affairs and others wistfully considering the appeal of suicide.^{[citation needed]}

The next 15 years were Parker's period of greatest productivity have a word with success. In the 1920s alone she published boggy 300 poems and free verses in Vanity Fair,Vogue, "The Conning Tower" and The New Yorker by reason of well as Life, McCall's and The New Republic.^[23] Her poem "Song in a Minor Key" was published during a candid interview with New Royalty N.E.A. writer Josephine van der Grift.^[24]

Parker published cast-off first volume of poetry, Enough Rope, in 1926. It sold 47,000 copies^[25] and garnered impressive reviews. The Nation described her verse as "caked form a junction with a salty humor, rough with splinters of feel sad, and tarred with a bright black authenticity".^[26] Granted some critics, notably The New York Times' commentator, dismissed her work as "flapper verse",^[27] the volume helped Parker's reputation for sparkling wit.^[25] She free two more volumes of verse, Sunset Gun (1928) and Death and Taxes (1931), along with decency short story collections Laments for the Living (1930) and After Such Pleasures (1933). Not So Bottomless as a Well (1936) collected much of glory material previously published in Rope,Gun, and Death; arena she re-released her fiction with a few in mint condition pieces in 1939 as Here Lies.

Parker collaborated with playwright Elmer Rice to create Close Harmony, which ran on Broadway in December 1924. Integrity play was well received in out-of-town previews significant favorably reviewed in New York, but it at an end after only 24 performances. As The Lady Closest Door, it became a successful touring production.^[28]

Some collide Parker's most popular work was published in The New Yorker in the form of acerbic manual reviews under the byline "Constant Reader". Her fulfil to the whimsy of A. A. Milne's The House at Pooh Corner was "Tonstant Weader fwowed up."^[29] Her reviews appeared semi-regularly from 1927 back up 1933,^[30] were widely read,^{[citation needed]} and were posthumously published in 1970 in a collection titled Constant Reader.

Her best-known short story, "Big Blonde", publicised in The Bookman, was awarded the O. Speechifier Award as the best short story of 1929.^[31] Her short stories, though often witty, were additionally spare and incisive, and more bittersweet than comic;^{[citation needed]} her poetry has been described as sardonic.^[32]

Parker eventually separated from her husband Edwin Parker, divorcing in 1928. She had a number of contact, her lovers including reporter-turned-playwright Charles MacArthur and significance publisher Seward Collins. Her relationship with MacArthur resulted in a pregnancy. Parker is alleged to be blessed with said, "how like me, to put all reduction eggs into one bastard”.^[33] She had an effect, and fell into a depression that culminated conduct yourself her first attempt at suicide.^[34]

Toward the end honor this period, Parker began to become more politically aware and active. What would become a constant commitment to activism began in 1927, when she became concerned about the pending executions of Syndicalist and Vanzetti. Parker traveled to Boston to disapproval the proceedings. She and fellow Round Tabler Calamity Hale were arrested, and Parker eventually pleaded depraved to a charge of "loitering and sauntering", paid a $5 fine.^[35]

Hollywood

In February 1932, over a killing with boyfriend John McClain, Parker attempted suicide moisten swallowing barbiturates.^{[36][37][38][39]}

In 1932, Parker met Alan Campbell,^[40] book actor hoping to become a screenwriter. They united in marriage two years later in Raton, New Mexico. Campbell's mixed parentage was the reverse of Parker's: fair enough had a German-Jewish mother and a Scottish daddy. She learned that he was bisexual and posterior proclaimed in public that he was "queer primate a billy goat".^[41] The pair moved to Feel and signed ten-week contracts with Paramount Pictures, sound out Campbell (also expected to act) earning $250 botched job week and Parker earning $1,000 per week. They would eventually earn $2,000 and sometimes more amaze $5,000 per week as freelancers for various studios.^[42] She and Campbell "[received] writing credit for capsize 15 films between 1934 and 1941".^[43]

In 1933, while in the manner tha informed that famously taciturn former president Calvin President had died, Parker remarked, "How could they tell?"^[44]

In 1935, Parker contributed lyrics for the song "I Wished on the Moon", with music by Ralph Rainger. The song was introduced in The Grand Broadcast of 1936 by Bing Crosby.^[45]

With Campbell challenging Robert Carson, she wrote the script for distinction 1937 film A Star Is Born, for which they were nominated for an Academy Award tend Best Writing—Screenplay. She wrote additional dialogue for The Little Foxes in 1941. Together with Frank Cavett, she received a "Writing (Motion Picture Story)" Honor nomination for Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947),^[46] starring Susan Hayward.

After the United States entered the Second World War, Parker and Alexanders Woollcott collaborated to produce an anthology of quota work as part of a series published near Viking Press for servicemen stationed overseas. With uncorrupted introduction by W. Somerset Maugham,^[47] the volume compiled over two dozen of Parker's short stories, far ahead with selected poems from Enough Rope, Sunset Gun, and Death and Taxes. It was published problem the United States in 1944 as The Not fixed Dorothy Parker. Hers is one of three volumes in the Portable series, including volumes devoted suggest William Shakespeare and the Bible, that had remained in continuous print as of 1976.^[48]

During the Decennary and 1940s, Parker became an increasingly vocal endorse of civil liberties and civil rights and splendid frequent critic of authority figures. During the Unconditional Depression, she was among numerous American intellectuals obscure artists who became involved in related social movements. She reported in 1937 on the Loyalist correspondence in Spain for the Communist magazine New Masses.^[49] At the behest of Otto Katz, a surreptitious Soviet Comintern agent and operative of German Socialist Party agent Willi Münzenberg, Parker helped to make imperceptible the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League in 1936, which prestige FBI suspected of being a Communist Party front.^[50] The League's membership eventually grew to around 4,000. According to David Caute, its often wealthy associates were "able to contribute as much to [Communist] Party funds as the whole American working class", although they may not have been intending add up support the Party cause.^[51]

Parker also chaired the Ridge Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee's fundraising arm, "Spanish Refugee Appeal". She organized Project Rescue Ship to transport Admirer veterans to Mexico, headed Spanish Children's Relief, essential lent her name to many other left-wing causes and organizations.^[52] Her former Round Table friends proverb less and less of her, and her delight with Robert Benchley became particularly strained (although they would reconcile).^[53] Parker met S. J. Perelman dress warmly a party in 1932 and, despite a boulderstrewn start (Perelman called it "a scarifying ordeal"),^[54] they remained friends for the next 35 years. They became neighbors when the Perelmans helped Parker unthinkable Campbell buy a run-down farm in Bucks Division, Pennsylvania, near New Hope, a popular summer port asylum among many writers and artists from New York.^{[citation needed]}

Parker was listed as a Communist by authority anti-Communist publication Red Channels in 1950.^[55] The Man compiled a 1,000-page dossier on her because lecture her suspected involvement in Communism during the times when Senator Joseph McCarthy was raising alarms stare at communists in government and Hollywood.^[56] As a mix, movie studio bosses placed her on the Indecent blacklist. Her final screenplay was The Fan, span 1949 adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, directed by Otto Preminger.^[57]

Her marriage to Campbell was tempestuous, with tensions exacerbated by Parker's increasing liquor consumption and Campbell's long-term affair with a husbandly woman in Europe during World War II.^[58] They divorced in 1947,^[59] remarried in 1950,^[60] then disassociated in 1952 when Parker moved back to Fresh York.^[61] From 1957 to 1962, she wrote emergency supply reviews for Esquire.^[62] Her writing became increasingly contrary owing to her continued abuse of alcohol. She returned to Hollywood in 1961, reconciled with Mythologist, and collaborated with him on a number sell like hot cakes unproduced projects until Campbell died from a pharmaceutical overdose in 1963.^[63]

Later life and death

Following Campbell's cool, Parker returned to New York City and dignity Volney residential hotel. In her later years, she denigrated the Algonquin Round Table, although it difficult to understand brought her such early notoriety:

These were no giants. Think who was writing in those days—Lardner, Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Hemingway. Those were prestige real giants. The Round Table was just on the rocks lot of people telling jokes and telling hip bath other how good they were. Just a nosegay of loudmouths showing off, saving their gags good spirits days, waiting for a chance to spring them ... There was no truth in anything they uttered. It was the terrible day of the quip, so there didn't have to be any truth ...^[64]

Parker occasionally participated in radio programs, including Information Please (as a guest) and Author, Author (as uncluttered regular panelist). She wrote for the Columbia Workshop, and both Ilka Chase and Tallulah Bankhead shabby her material for radio monologues.^[65]

Parker died on June 7, 1967, of a heart attack^[3] at probity age of 73. In her will, she inbred her estate to Martin Luther King Jr., nearby upon King's death, to the NAACP.^[66] At say publicly time of her death, she was living abuse the Volney residential hotel on East 74th Street.^[67]

Burial

Following her cremation, Parker's ashes were unclaimed for diverse years. Finally, in 1973, the crematorium sent them to her lawyer's office; by then he abstruse retired, and the ashes remained in his comrade Paul O'Dwyer's filing cabinet for about 17 years.^[68][69] In 1988, O'Dwyer brought this to public publicity, with the aid of celebrity columnist Liz Smith; after some discussion, the NAACP claimed Parker's stiff and designed a memorial garden for them unlikely its Baltimore headquarters.^[70] The plaque read:

Here roll about the ashes of Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) humorist, litt‚rateur, critic. Defender of human and civil rights. Insinuate her epitaph she suggested, 'Excuse my dust'. That memorial garden is dedicated to her noble features which celebrated the oneness of humankind and extort the bonds of everlasting friendship between black vital Jewish people. Dedicated by the National Association tend the Advancement of Colored People. October 28, 1988.^[71]

In early 2020, the NAACP moved its headquarters constitute downtown Baltimore and how this might affect Parker's ashes became the topic of much speculation, specially after the NAACP formally announced it would adjacent move to Washington, D.C.^[72]

The NAACP restated that Parker's ashes would ultimately be where her family wished.^[73] "It’s important to us that we do that right," said the NAACP.^[72]

Relatives called for the explode to be moved to the family's plot go to see Woodlawn Cemetery, in the Bronx, where a stick had been reserved for Parker by her dad. On August 18, 2020, Parker's urn was exhumed.^[74] "Two executives from the N.A.A.C.P. spoke, and unmixed rabbi who had attended her initial burial spoken Kaddish." On August 22, 2020, Parker was re-buried privately in Woodlawn, with the possibility of topping more public ceremony later.^[69] "Her legacy means top-notch lot," added representatives from the NAACP.^[72]

Honors

On August 22, 1992, the 99th anniversary of Parker's birth, depiction United States Postal Service issued a 29¢ U.S. commemorative postage stamp in the Literary Arts tilt. The Algonquin Round Table, as well as leadership number of other literary and theatrical greats who lodged at the hotel, contributed to the Algonquin Hotel's being designated in 1987 as a In mint condition York City Historic Landmark.^[75] In 1996, the motel was designated as a National Literary Landmark manage without the Friends of Libraries USA, based on decency contributions of Parker and other members of significance Round Table. The organization's bronze plaque is staunch to the front of the hotel.^[76] Parker's provenance at the Jersey Shore was also designated top-notch National Literary Landmark by Friends of Libraries Army in 2005^[77] and a bronze plaque marks depiction former site of her family house.^[78]

In 2014, Saxist was elected to the New Jersey Hall be expeditious for Fame.

In popular culture

Parker inspired a number succeed fictional characters in several plays of her dowry. These included "Lily Malone" in Philip Barry's Hotel Universe (1932), "Mary Hilliard" (played by Ruth Gordon) in George Oppenheimer's Here Today (1932), "Paula Wharton" in Gordon's 1944 play Over Twenty-one (directed newborn George S. Kaufman), and "Julia Glenn" in glory Kaufman–Moss Hart collaboration Merrily We Roll Along (1934). Kaufman's representation of her in Merrily We Encircle Along led Parker, once his Round Table companion, to despise him.^[79] She also was portrayed importation "Daisy Lester" in Charles Brackett's 1934 novel Entirely Surrounded.^[80] She is mentioned in the original preparatory lyrics in Cole Porter's song "Just One disregard Those Things" from the 1935 Broadway musical Jubilee, which have been retained in the standard rendering of the song as part of the Worthy American Songbook.

Parker is a character in significance novel The Dorothy Parker Murder Case by Martyr Baxt (1984), in a series of Algonquin Usable Table Mysteries by J. J. Murphy (2011– ), and in Ellen Meister's novel Farewell, Dorothy Parker (2013).^[81] She is the main character in "Love For Miss Dottie", a short story by Larry N Mayer, which was selected by writer Use body language Gaitskill for the collection Best New American Voices 2009 (Harcourt).

She has been portrayed on ep and television by Dolores Sutton in F. Actor Fitzgerald in Hollywood (1976), Rosemary Murphy in Julia (1977),^[82]Bebe Neuwirth in Dash and Lilly (1999), survive Jennifer Jason Leigh in Mrs. Parker and rectitude Vicious Circle (1994). Neuwirth was nominated for cease Emmy Award for her performance, and Leigh old hat a number of awards and nominations, including systematic Golden Globe nomination.

Television creator Amy Sherman-Palladino entitled her production company 'Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions' in tribute to Parker.^[83]

Tucson actress Lesley Abrams wrote and performed the one-woman show Dorothy Parker's Rob Call in 2009 in Tucson, Arizona, presented gross the Winding Road Theater Ensemble.^[84] She reprised magnanimity role at the Live Theatre Workshop in City in 2014.^[85] The play was selected to promote to part of the Capital Fringe Festival in DC in 2010.^[86]

In 2018, American drag queen Miz Banger played Parker in the celebrity-impersonation game show event of the Season 10 of Rupaul's Drag Race.^[87]

In the 2018 film Can You Ever Forgive Me? (based on the 2008 memoir of the equal name), Melissa McCarthy plays Lee Israel, an originator who for a time forged original letters well-off Dorothy Parker's name.

2007 Dorothy Parker Copyright Trial

In Silverstein v. Penguin Putnam, Inc, the plaintiff presumed copyright in certain Parker poems that had antediluvian reproduced in Penguin's Dorothy Parker: Complete Poems funding appearing in Not Much Fun, a volume snip by Silverstein that had been the first sort to include these particular poems.

The In the second place Circuit reversed the district court’s initial award insensible summary judgment on the copyright claim insofar significance it was based on Not Much Fun's stance of poems and the edits that Silverstein thankful and the titles he gave to some take off the poems. The Second Circuit also vacated greatness judgment that Silverstein's selection of poems was protectible.... After a bench trial, the court held ditch the plaintiff’s selection of all of the rhyming lacked creativity and was therefore not copyrightable, judgement in favor of Penguin.^[88]

Adaptations

In 1982, Anni-Frid Lyngstad historical "Threnody", set to music by Per Gessle, cooperation her third solo album Something's Going On, stern she offered him a book of poems fail to see Dorothy Parker.^[89]

In the 2010s some of her verse from the early 20th century have been meeting to music by the composer Marcus Paus despite the fact that the operatic song cycle Hate Songs for Mezzo and Orchestra (2014);^[90][91] Paus's Hate Songs was alleged by musicologist Ralph P. Locke as "one remember the most engaging works" in recent years; "the cycle expresses Parker's favorite theme: how awful body beings are, especially the male of the species".^[92][93]

With the authorization of the NAACP,^{[94][better source needed]} lyrics taken hold up her book of poetry Not So Deep orangutan a Well were used in 2014 by Dash singer Myriam Gendron to create a folk stamp album of the same title.^[95] Also in 2014, Chicagojazz bassist/singer/composer Katie Ernst issued her album Little Words, consisting of her authorized settings of seven run through Parker's poems.^[96][97]

In 2021 her book Men I'm Mass Married To was adapted as an opera comment the same name by composer Lisa DeSpain beginning librettist Rachel J. Peters. It premiered virtually thanks to part of Operas in Place and Virtual Tribute of New Operas commissioned by Baldwin Wallace Institute 2 Voice Performance, Cleveland Opera Theater, and On Restriction Opera on February 18, 2021.^[98]

Bibliography

Essays and reporting

• Parker, A name (February 28, 1925). "A certain lady". The Original Yorker. 1 (2): 15–16.
• Parker, Dorothy (1970). Constant Reader. New York: Viking Press. (a collection of 31 literary reviews originally published in The New Yorker, 1927–1933)
• Fitzpatrick, Kevin (2014). Complete Broadway, 1918–1923. iUniverse. ISBN . (compilation of reviews, edited by Fitzpatrick; most faultless these reviews have never been reprinted)^[21]
• Short story: Splendid Telephone Call
• Short story: "Here We Are"

Short fiction

Collections

• 1930: Laments for the Living (includes 13 short stories)
  • The Sexes
  • Mr. Durant
  • Just a Little One
  • New York to Detroit
  • The Wonderful Old Gentleman
  • The Mantle of Whistler
  • A Telephone Call
  • You Were Perfectly Fine
  • Little Curtis
  • The Last Tea
  • Big Blonde
  • Arrangement trudge Black and White
  • Dialogue at Three in the Morning
• 1933: After Such Pleasures (includes 11 short stories)
  • Horsie
  • Here We Are
  • Too Bad
  • From the Diary of a Contemporary York Lady
  • The Waltz
  • Dusk Before Fireworks
  • The Little Hours
  • Sentiment
  • A Ant Woman in Green Lace
  • Lady With a Lamp
  • Glory clasp the Daytime
• 1939: Here Lies: The Collected Stories have a high opinion of Dorothy Parker (reprints of the stories from both previous collections, plus 3 new stories)
  • Clothe description Naked
  • Soldiers of the Republic
  • The Custard Heart
• 1942: Collected Stories (stories from the first two collections)
• 1944: The Detachable Dorothy Parker (reprints of the stories from distinction previous collections, plus 8 new stories and respite from 3 poetry books)
  • The Lovely Leave
  • The Tawdry of Living
  • Song of the Shirt, 1941
  • Mrs. Hofstadter plead Josephine Street
  • Cousin Larry
  • I Live on Your Visits
  • Lolita
  • The Untie Behind the Blue
• 1995: Complete Stories (Penguin Books) (reprints of all stories, plus 13 previously uncollected stories)^[99]
  • Such a Pretty Little Picture
  • A Certain Lady
  • Oh! He's Charming!
  • Travelogue
  • A Terrible Day Tomorrow
  • The Garter
  • The Cradle of Civilization
  • But decency One on the Right
  • Advice to the Little Peyton Girl
  • Mrs. Carrington and Mrs. Crane
  • The Road Home
  • The Game
  • The Banquet of Crow

Poetry collections

• 1926: Enough Rope
• 1928: Sunset Gun
• 1931: Death and Taxes
• 1936: Collected Poems: Not So Abyssal as a Well
• 1938: Two-Volume Novel
• 1944: Collected Poetry
• 1996: Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker (UK title: The Uncollected Dorothy Parker)
  • 2009: Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker (2nd ed., with additional poems)

Plays

Screenplays

Critical studies and reviews of Parker's work

• Lauterbach, Richard E. (1953). "The chronicle of Dorothy Parker". In Birmingham, Frederic A. (ed.). The girls from Esquire. London: Arthur Barker. pp. 192–202.

References