Born Dorothy Rothschild August 22, 1893

Grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan

Attended Roman Catholic elementary school at the Convent of the Blessed Sacrament

Was asked to leave following her characterization of the Immaculate Conception as "spontaneous combustion"

Played piano at a dancing school to earn a living

Sold her first poem to Vanity Fair magazine in 1914

In the 1920s alone published some 300 poems and free verses

Short story, "Big Blonde", published in The Bookman magazine, awarded the O. Henry Award as the best short story of 1929

Co-wrote wrote the script for the 1937 film A Star is Born

During 1930s and 1940s, became a vocal advocate for civil liberties and civil rights causes

Reported on the Loyalist cause in Spain for New Masses magazine in 1937

Helped to found the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League in 1936

Served as chair of the Joint Anti-Fascist Rescue Committee.

Organized Project Rescue Ship to transport Loyalist veterans to Mexico

Headed Spanish Children's Relief

Listed as a Communist by the publication Red Channels in 1950

FBI compiled a 1,000-page dossier on her during the McCarthy era.

Placed on the Hollywood blacklist by the movie studio bosses.

Died of a heart attack at the age of 73 in 1967.

In will, bequeathed her estate to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. foundation.

Following King's death, her estate was passed on to the NAACP.

Her ashes remained unclaimed in her attorney Paul O'Dwyer's filing cabinet, for 17 years

Dorothy Parker RIP


SELECTED POEMS

Theory
Into love and out again, 

Thus I went, and thus I go. 

Spare your voice, and hold your pen-

Well and bitterly I know 

All the songs were ever sung, 

All the words were ever said;

Could it be, when I was young, 

Some one dropped me on my head?

Philosophy
If I should labor through daylight and dark, 

Consecrate, valorous, serious, true, 

Then on the world I may blazon my mark; 

And what if I don't, and what if I do?

Fighting Words
Say my love is easy had,
Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad-
Still behold me at your side.

Say I'm neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue-
Still you have my heart to wear.

But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man!

Bohemia
Authors and actors and artists and such
Never know nothing, and never know much.
Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney
Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney.
Playwrights and poets and such horses' necks
Start off from anywhere, end up at sex.
Diarists, critics, and similar roe
Never say nothing, and never say no.
People Who Do Things exceed my endurance;
God, for a man that solicits insurance!

The Flaw in Paganism
Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)

The Veteran
When I was young and bold and strong,
Oh, right was right, and wrong was wrong!
My plume on high, my flag unfurled,
I rode away to right the world.
"Come out, you dogs, and fight!" said I,
And wept there was but once to die.

But I am old; and good and bad
Are woven in a crazy plaid.
I sit and say, "The world is so;
And he is wise who lets it go.
A battle lost, a battle won-
The difference is small, my son."

Inertia rides and riddles me;
The which is called Philosophy.