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Dorothy Parker was a legendary poet, writer, critic, and satirist, defined by her lethal wit and incisive commentary on contemporary America. $$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
Celebrating the birth & legacy of
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“I hate writing, I love having written.” — Dorothy Parker
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Dorothy Parker was a legendary poet, writer, critic, and satirist, defined by her lethal wit and incisive commentary on contemporary America.
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She was born in West End, New Jersey on August 22, 1893. By the time she was five, she had lost her mother; by age 20, she had also lost her father, a garment manufacturer. Growing up in New York City, she never received a high school diploma and supported herself as a pianist until she sold her first poem to the editor of Vogue. After a year of writing captions for the magazine’s fashion photographs, she was offered a position as theatre critic at the illustrious Vanity Fair.
While building a career in criticism, she was a key member of the celebrated Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers including Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman, Alexander Woollcott and Harpo Marx, who met daily for lunch. The group became known for their lively, witty conversation (although Parker would later discount the group as, “just a bunch of loudmouths showing off”).
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“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” — Dorothy Parker
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Dorothy Parker became one of a handful of writers who helped form The New Yorker in 1925. She published some 300 poems in various magazines and in 1926 her first volume of poetry, Enough Rope became a bestseller. Her short stories led to the development of what is now a recognizable genre – The New Yorker short story. Her writing often views the human situation as simultaneously tragic and funny.
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In 1929 she won the O. Henry Award for the best short story of the year with Big Blonde, a compassionate account of an aging party girl.
Her first play, Close Harmony (1924, written with Elmer Rice) was critically well-received, but closed after just 24 performances. Her short stories were adapted into Broadway comedy and musical reviews in After Such Pleasures (1934) and Shoot the Works (1931) and her short story, Here We Are (first published in 1931) was adapted into a one-act play. |
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She eventually moved to Hollywood in 1934 where she worked as a screenwriter on films such as A Star Is Born (with her second husband Alan Campbell and Robert Carson) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay.
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Her second full-length play, Ladies of the Corridor (written with Arnaud D’Usseau) premiered on Broadway in October, 1953 and was directed by Harold Clurman with a cast including Vera Allen, Walter Matthau and Lonny Chapman. A darkly comic play about the oppressed lives of women in the 1950s, Parker said of the work, “It was the only thing I ever did that I was proud of.”
She also co-wrote the lyrics for the musical Candide (1956) with the Book written by her close friend Lillian Hellman with Music by Leonard Bernstein.
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Her personal life was unhappy and she struggled with depression (having tried to commit suicide twice). She self-medicated (she wasn’t a writer with a drinking problem, she’d joke, but a drinker with a writing problem) and she habitually mismanaged her finances. Throughout her life, she increasingly became a vocal advocate of civil liberties and civil rights. Before Parker’s death in 1967 at the age of 73, she bequeathed the bulk of her estate to Martin Luther King, Jr. When Dr. King was assassinated less than a year later, it passed to the NAACP. |
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“Certainly, most of the quotes she’s remembered for come from her verse or her Round Circle quips, but 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.”— By Hephzibah Anderson, BBC
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Learn more about DOROTHY PARKER:
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We will celebrate the birth of Dorothy Parker with a performance of a monologue from one of her works by Actors Co-op company member, Bruce Ladd! These performances will be delivered to you for safe viewing at home, via email. |
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