Born Dorothy Rothschild on August 22, 1893, in Long Branch, New Jersey, this American writer grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Her parents were of different faiths; her father Jewish and her mother Protestant. To further compound and confound matters, she attended the Catholic Blessed Sacrament Convent School. Her formal education ended at the age of thirteen. Dorothy suffered many losses very early in her life: her mother died at age four, her stepmother at nine and her Uncle Martin went down on the Titanic in 1912. In 1913 her father also died, leaving her almost bereft of family.
In 1917 she began working for “Vanity Fair Magazine” and the next year she met and married Edwin Pond Parker III, a Wall Street broker. World War One parted the newly joined couple who were later divorced. While working for “Vanity Fair,” Dorothy found her creative niche writing theatrical criticism and her career skyrocketed. She also met fellow writers and life-long friend Robert Benchley and Robert E. Sherwood while working at the magazine. This became the period of the Algonquin Round Table where all the sodden literatis met for lunch and drinks. Many other notables, including Alexander Woollcott, Harold Ross, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edna Ferber and others soon joined them.
The mid 1920s and 1930s were productive times for Dorothy who published during this span seven volumes of short stories and poetry. These included: “Enough Rope,” “Sunset Gun,” Laments For The Living,” “Death and Taxes,” “After Such Pleasures,” and “Not So Deep As A Well.” Her best known story was “The Big Blonde,” which received the O’Henry Award as the most outstanding story of 1929. She married three times (twice to actor Alan Campbell).
Her later life was turbulent, cloudy and erratic due to her problems with alcohol. She died of a heart attack on June 7, 1967, bequeathing her estate to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. foundation.
What are some of YOUR favorite Dorothy Parker writings? Please share.