Dorothy Parker in Hollywood

Dorothy Parker is remembered as a wise-cracking New Yorker, Jazz Age critic and writer, and member of the acerbic Algonquin Round Table. Perhaps readers also know her as the author of best-selling collections of lacerating poems and wrenching short stories. What has been largely forgotten, Crowther (Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz, 2021) attests, is Parker's long, successful, if painfully tumultuous career in Hollywood. In this briskly detailed, fluently insightful, and dramatically reorienting biography, Crowther chronicles the education of young, mischievous Dorothy Rothschild, her initiation as a writer at Vogue, and her quickly finding a better fit for her brainy and nimble irreverence at Vanity Fair. Her first marriage to heavy drinker and WWI veteran Edwin Pond Parker II dissolved. Crowther illuminates how Parker's second and third (!) marriages to Alan Campbell were key to her Hollywood life. She also tracks down the screenplays Parker, "one of the highest paid writers out there" and an Oscar nominee, contributed to, uncredited and credited, and traces her considerable influence. Self-satirizing, self-sabotaging, and sometimes cruel, Parker mixed hard work with hard-drinking; suicide attempts; passions for dogs, fashion, and knitting; epic restlessness; and social-justice activism that instigated an enormous FBI file and led to her blacklisting. True-blue Parker left her estate to the NAACP. An eye-opening reclamation and appreciation.

A sympathetic account of the legendary writer, social activist, and mordant wit. Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was one of the most quotable writers of the 20th century. Though her witty remarks are perhaps better remembered than her literary achievements, she published several acclaimed collections of short stories and poems. Early in her career as aVanity Fair writer and theater critic, she gained fame as a founding member of the infamous Algonquin Round Table. This fame helped fuel Parker's dual ascent as author and celebrity. While more often associated with New York, she spent considerable time in Hollywood as a screenwriter. In this latest biography, Crowther, author ofThe Haunted Reader and Sylvia Plath, explores the substance of these years. Much of Parker's screenwriting was uncredited, yet she earned two Oscar nominations, including for the originalA Star Is Born (1937). This period also sparked her active involvement in civil rights issues, which continued through her final years. Crowther traces Parker's tumultuous marriages, love affairs, and the spiraling course of her erratic personal life, marred by lengthy bouts of alcoholism, suicide attempts, and a reputation for mean-spirited conduct. Parker's life has been well documented, notably in Marion Meade'sDorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? (1987). Crowther seeks to provide an updated clinical examination of how shattering experiences, especially Parker's two miscarriages, likely exacerbated her volatile behavior and potentially stunted greater literary productivity. Though credible, the author fails to deeply examine whether Parker may in fact have grappled with serious undiagnosed mental health issues. Parker was undeniably talented and charismatic, yet the story of her long, staggering decline and her unrelenting self-destructive excesses can wear thin. Crowther's relatively succinct portrait benefits from its comparable brevity to previous volumes on Parker's life. An ambitious, thoughtfully researched portrait of an often brilliant yet irascible talent. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.