Andrew Eborn with Aline Waites celebrating Dorothy Parker
- 3 years ago
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
Dorothy Parker was born to J. Henry and Elizabeth Rothschild on Aug. 22, 1893, at their summer home in West End, New Jersey. The family cottage was on Ocean Avenue; it burned down before World War I. Dorothy’s mother died in West End when she was four years old.
Growing up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, her childhood was an unhappy one. Both her mother and step-mother died when she was young; her uncle, Martin Rothschild, went down on the Titanic in 1912; and her father died the following year. Young Dorothy attended a Catholic grammar school, then a finishing school in Morristown, NJ. Her formal education abruptly ended when she was 14.
In 1914, Dorothy sold her first poem to Vanity Fair. At age 22, she took an editorial job at Vogue. She continued to write poems for newspapers and magazines, and in 1917 she joined Vanity Fair, taking over for P.G. Wodehouse as drama critic. At the time she was the first female critic on Broadway. That same year she married a stockbroker, Edwin P. Parker. But the marriage was tempestuous, and the couple divorced in 1928.
In 1919, Parker became a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, an informal gathering of writers who lunched at the Algonquin Hotel. The “Vicious Circle” included Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx, George S. Kaufman, Harold Ross, and Edna Ferber, and was known for its scathing wit and intellectual commentary. In 1922, Parker published her first short story, “Such a Pretty Little Picture,” for Smart Set.
When The New Yorker debuted in 1925, Parker was listed on the faux editorial board. Over the years, she contributed poetry, fiction and book reviews as the “Constant Reader.” Parker’s first collection of poetry, Enough Rope, was published in 1926, and was a bestseller. Her two subsequent collections were Sunset Gun in 1928 and Death and Taxes in 1931. Her collected fiction came out in 1930 as Laments for the Living.
During the 1920s, Parker traveled to Europe several times. She befriended Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, socialites Gerald and Sara Murphy, and contributed articles to The New Yorker and Life. While her work was successful and she was well-regarded for her wit and conversational abilities, she suffered from depression and alcoholism and attempted suicide.
In 1929, she won the O. Henry Award for her autobiographical short story “Big Blonde.” She produced short fiction in the early 1930s, and also began writing drama reviews for The New Yorker. In 1934, Parker married actor-writer Alan Campbell in New Mexico; the couple relocated to Los Angeles and became a highly paid screenwriting team.
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10:10 till we do it again
The Andrew Eborn Show on Stella TV
https://stella.tv/aeshow/
© Octopus TV Ltd 2021.
Dorothy Parker was born to J. Henry and Elizabeth Rothschild on Aug. 22, 1893, at their summer home in West End, New Jersey. The family cottage was on Ocean Avenue; it burned down before World War I. Dorothy’s mother died in West End when she was four years old.
Growing up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, her childhood was an unhappy one. Both her mother and step-mother died when she was young; her uncle, Martin Rothschild, went down on the Titanic in 1912; and her father died the following year. Young Dorothy attended a Catholic grammar school, then a finishing school in Morristown, NJ. Her formal education abruptly ended when she was 14.
In 1914, Dorothy sold her first poem to Vanity Fair. At age 22, she took an editorial job at Vogue. She continued to write poems for newspapers and magazines, and in 1917 she joined Vanity Fair, taking over for P.G. Wodehouse as drama critic. At the time she was the first female critic on Broadway. That same year she married a stockbroker, Edwin P. Parker. But the marriage was tempestuous, and the couple divorced in 1928.
In 1919, Parker became a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, an informal gathering of writers who lunched at the Algonquin Hotel. The “Vicious Circle” included Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx, George S. Kaufman, Harold Ross, and Edna Ferber, and was known for its scathing wit and intellectual commentary. In 1922, Parker published her first short story, “Such a Pretty Little Picture,” for Smart Set.
When The New Yorker debuted in 1925, Parker was listed on the faux editorial board. Over the years, she contributed poetry, fiction and book reviews as the “Constant Reader.” Parker’s first collection of poetry, Enough Rope, was published in 1926, and was a bestseller. Her two subsequent collections were Sunset Gun in 1928 and Death and Taxes in 1931. Her collected fiction came out in 1930 as Laments for the Living.
During the 1920s, Parker traveled to Europe several times. She befriended Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, socialites Gerald and Sara Murphy, and contributed articles to The New Yorker and Life. While her work was successful and she was well-regarded for her wit and conversational abilities, she suffered from depression and alcoholism and attempted suicide.
In 1929, she won the O. Henry Award for her autobiographical short story “Big Blonde.” She produced short fiction in the early 1930s, and also began writing drama reviews for The New Yorker. In 1934, Parker married actor-writer Alan Campbell in New Mexico; the couple relocated to Los Angeles and became a highly paid screenwriting team.
Follow @AndrewEborn @OctopusTV @StellaTV4 @MikeReadUK & subscribe to Octopus TV on Youtube to be notified as soon as new videos are released
Subscribe NOW https://www.youtube.com/c/OctopusTV8
10:10 till we do it again
The Andrew Eborn Show on Stella TV
https://stella.tv/aeshow/
© Octopus TV Ltd 2021.