On this day, 22 August, in 1893, Dorothy Parker was born. Miss Parker once said: "Maybe it is only I, but conditions are such these days, that if you use studiously correct grammar, people suspect you of homosexual tendencies."
No Dorothy Parker fans out there?
She also once said "If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be in the least surprised."
I'm a fan. Like the dinner companion of Oscar Wilde, I often (read something of hers and) wish I'd said that. And wouldn't a dinner party with both Parker and Wilde be fascinating?
I'm a big Dorothy Parker fan. There are so many witty quips of hers, we could probably keep a thread going for weeks. Strangely, I don't think I've ever read anything she wrote, however. She is, I believe, pretty well forgotten except for those who enjoy a rapier-like riposte or a brilliant quip. Like the one when someone came into the Algonquin one day and said, "Coolidge is dead!" and she immediately asked, "How can they tell?"
Alas for her, she appointed her literary agent as executor of her estate with instructions that she was to be cremated, but nothing about what then. Her ashes reposed in a file cabinet for about a half a century and I believe they are now somewhere in Baltimore, of all places. (I suppose HLM is smiling somewhere about that.)
These are my two most favorite Dorothy Parker quotations, Father Steve.
The second one seems to be a manifestation of the first.
Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.__________________________________________________________
Dorothy Parker's ashes were interred in 1988 at a specially constructed memorial garden at the national headquarters of the NAACP in Baltimore. One may visit.
My favorite Dorothy Parkerism was her famous pan of a Katherine Hepburn (no less!) stage performance:
"Miss Hepburn ran all the gamut of emotions from A to B."
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.
Any good books out there about D.P. for those of us who enjoy reading these quotes but are otherwise ignorant?
An unmarried NY socialite went to England and promptly had a baby. Miss Parker sent her a cable, saying "Congratulations. We didn't know you had it in you".
My favorite Dorothy Parkerism was her famous pan of a Katherine Hepburn (no less!) stage performance:
"Miss Hepburn ran the entire gamut of emotions from A to B."
There's another zinger, I've been told, in a review of a new Kathryn Hepburn play, eagerly awaited by the multitudes licking their chops waiting to see just what scathing comment might come forth this time.
The review, when it appeared, was long and laboriously detailed, praising all aspects of the production but making no reference at all of KH.
Until the very end, where it concluded, "Miss Hepburn's performance was not up to its usual standard." [wince] - because we know just how abysmal was Dorothy Parker's opinion of Kathryn Hepburn's "usual standard"...
Yes, there's always ways and means. That one was surprisingly subtle for DP!
Something every good reporter learns early - "There's never a need to excoriate a subect... ust quote them accuately, and often"
My keyboard will not print the letter that comes between i and k in the alphabet. Please insert the appropriate letter above. Thank you.http://www.levity.com/corduroy/parker.htm or search for "Dorothy Parker" for many links.
One of Parker's poems :
Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live.
I read that when Dorothy Parker and a rival columnist arrived at a door at the same time the other woman waved Ms. P through first and said "Age before beauty."
The reply as she sailed through the door was "and pearls before swine!"
Any good books out there about D.P. ...?
I suggest Marion Meade's Dorothy Parker, What Fresh Hell Is This? It is available in a reprint paperback.