Dorothy Parker Biography and List of Works

American short story writer, poet, and critic, a legendary figure in the New York literary scene. Parker was especially famous for her instant wit and cruel humour. She also wrote sketches and short stories, many of them published in The New Yorker.

COMMENT
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.

Parker was born in West End, New Jersey, to a Jewish father and Scottish mother. Her mother died when she was a baby. She was educated at a convent and moved to New York City. She wrote during the day and earned money at night playing the piano in a dancing school. In 1916 she sold some of her poetry to the editor of Vogue, and was given an editorial position on the magazine. From 1917 to 1920 she worked as a critic for Vanity Fair, and with two other writers, Robert Benchley and Robert Sherwood, formed the nucleus of the Algonquin Round Table, an informal luncheon club held at New York City's Algonquin Hotel. Other members included Ring Lardner and James Thurber. Parker was usually the only woman in the group.

Between the years 1927 and 1933 Parker wrote book reviews for The New Yorker. Her works continued to appear in the magazine at irregular intervals until 1955. In 1926 Parker's first collection of poems was published, ENOUGH ROPE, which contains the often-quoted 'Resumé,' on suicide, "Gas smells awful; / You might as well live", and 'News Item,' "Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses." It became a bestseller and was followed by SUNSET GUNS (1928) and DEATH AND TAXES (1931), which were collected in COLLECTED POEMS: NOT SO DEEP AS A WELL (1936). Her works in verse are sardonic, usually dry, elegant commentaries on departing or departed love. Parker's short stories, which were collected in AFTER SUCH PLEASURES (1932) and HERE LIES (1939), illustrate a deep knowledge and understanding of human nature. Among her best-known short stories are 'A Big Blonde' and 'A Telephone Call.'

During the 1920s she had extra-marital affairs, drank heavily and attempted suicide three times, but still maintained the high quality of her texts. In the 1930s Parker worked as a screenwriter in collaboration with her second husband. Among their work was the film A STAR IS BORN (1937). She reported on the Spanish Civil War, and collaborated on several plays. She worked on Hitchcock's film Saboteur (1940) with Peter Vierter and Joan Harris. Her contribution is mainly visible in some of the bizarre details of the circus the hero (Robert Cummings) takes refuge in, with its squabbling Siamese twins, its bearded lady in curlers and a malevolent dwarf who acts and dresses a bit like Hitler.

In the 1940s Parker was blacklisted for supporting radical causes. She suffered from depression for most of her life, and she died alone on June 7, 1967 in the New York hotel that had become her final home. She left her estate to civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe."
(from Enough Rope, 1926)

For further reading: Dorothy Parker, Revised by Arthur F. Kinney (1998); The Rhetoric of Rage by Sondra Melzer (1997); Dorothy Parker by Randall Calhoun (1992); Women of the Twenties by George H. Douglas (1989); Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is This? By Marion Meade (1987); The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker by Leslie Frewin (1986) - Note: Film Mrs.Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994), depicts the life of Dorothy Parker and his friends around the famous Algonquin Round Table. Directed by Alan Rudolph, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Campbell Scott, Matthew Broderick. - American writers in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s: James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, John Fante, Daniel Fuchs, Horace McCoy, Clifford Odets, Maxwell Anderson, Dorothy Parker, John Don Passos, Theodore Dreiser, Dashiell Hammett, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Films (as screenwriter in collaboration):

ENOUGH ROPE, (1926)
HERE IS MY HEART, (1934)