Dorothy Parker

Introduction

Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker once joked that she married her first husband to escape her name (Rothschild). She was a vibrant and complicated woman who is mainly remembered for her acerbic wit. Parker began her literary career as an editorial assistant for Vogue. While working as a theater critic for Vanity Fair, she became one of the founding members of the Algonquin Round Table, a sharp-tongued group of magazine and newspaper writers. Parker wrote many poems and short stories, but is most famous for her book reviews in The New Yorker known as “Constant Reader.” Parker moved to Hollywood in 1934 and worked on several films, but her vocal support of left-wing causes found her blacklisted. Parker’s personal life was fraught with marriages and affairs, suicide attempts and alcoholism, but in her writing, she is personified cool.

Essential Facts

1. Dorothy Parker was married three times, twice to screenwriter Alan Campbell.
2. Later in life, Parker criticized her once beloved Algonquin comrades, saying they were “just a bunch of loudmouths.”
3. Parker was arrested in Boston in 1927 for protesting against the controversial executions of two men, Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. She was charged with “loitering and sauntering” and fined $5.
4. Dorothy Parker left her estate to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Foundation. In 1988, the NAACP buried her ashes outside its headquarters.
5. Parker has been memorialized on a stamp, in several plays, and in numerous films, including Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and Dash and Lilly.