The three would lunch
regularly at the Algonquin Hotel and as their group grew (members included
Alexander Woollcott, Harold Ross, Edna Ferber, and George S. Kaufman) so did their fame, and they were soon dubbed the Algonquin Round Table. Mrs. Parker’s acerbic comments and witty
bon mots (Asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence: “You can lead a horticulture,
but you can't make her think.”) made their way into
fellow diner Franklin Pierce Adams’ popular newspaper column “The Coning Tower,”
and Mrs. Parker became famous as the woman who said clever things.
This reputation
would come to haunt Mrs. Parker who was no frivolous flapper but an intelligent
woman who wanted to be a good writer. Writing did not come easy to her. "I can't write five words but that I change
seven," she once said. Writer’s block would cripple her for months at a
time and her own insecurity in her writing didn’t help either. “Dear
God, please make me stop writing like a woman.”
And it must not be
forgotten than when Harold Ross began a new magazine in 1925 called The New
Yorker, Mrs. Parker was one of its first contributors (Responding to Harold
Ross' question of why she wasn’t in the office: "Someone else was using the pencil."). The
contributions Mrs. Parker made in those early days helped to shape what would
become arguably the most important literary magazine in America.
In addition to
writing poems, short stories, criticism, and plays, Mrs. Parker also wrote
screenplays in Hollywood with husband number 2 and 3, Alan Campbell. Her screen
credits include A Star is Born (1937) (for which she earned an Academy Award
nomination) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur (1942).
She was also a
political activist. In 1927 she was arrested in Boston for protesting the scheduled execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.
Her support of left-wing causes would eventually get her blacklisted in Hollywood in the 1950s. When
she died on 7 June 1967, she left her estate to Martin Luther King. After his
assassination, the money reverted to the NAACP. Today, her ashes are buried on the
grounds of their Baltimore headquarters.
Yet with all her
fame, Mrs. Parker never seemed to find true happiness. Her marriages were unsuccessful
(she probably received more happiness from her beloved dogs than from any of
the men in her life). She attempted suicide multiple times and had a drinking
problem. And she always had doubts about her writing.
But for me, she is
an inspiration. Her fierce determination to succeed as a writer, her
fearlessness in telling the truth, the fact that she didn’t try and hide her
intelligence, her sentimentality and love of dogs, all of these things, I
believe, are qualities to be admired.
So happy birthday
Mrs. Parker. I shall be toasting your memory today.
Want to read some of Mrs. Parker's writing? Get yourself a copy of The Portable Dorothy Parker. For more information on her life, check out Marian Meade's Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? or become a member of The Dorothy Parker Society.
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