Parker, Dorothy

PARKER, DOROTHY (1898–1967). For all of her adult life, Dorothy Parker was involved with leftist political causes, ranging from antiracism to antifascism to the struggle against the Cold War assault on civil liberties. Her efforts in the 1920s, when she was at the outset of her creative life, focused on political prisoners. In 1927 she was arrested in Boston for leading a protest march against the impending execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. She spent the twelve days before the execution raising money for a full-page appeal in the New York Times. Years later, while in Europe, she devoted energies to support for the imprisoned Tom Mooney and the defense of the Scottsboro defendants.

A highly skilled reviewer, short story writer, and essayist, Parker moved to Hollywood in 1933 to collaborate with her new husband, screenwriter Alan Campbell. Although they earned fifteen screen credits, including an Academy Award, she found the work pretentious. Parker began to devote increasing energy to the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and the Screen Writers Guild, prompting Samuel Goldwyn to refuse to renew her contract. After traveling to Spain, she wrote an essay for the New Masses and wrote several short stories about Spain. She also chaired the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee. With Helen Keller and Carl Sandburg, she organized the project Rescue Ship to transport Loyalist veterans held in French detention camps to asylum in Mexico. She also headed the Spanish Children’s Relief.

Divorced in 1945, unsuccessful in an adaptation of several Broadway plays, and drinking heavily, she roused herself to fearlessly support victims of the blacklist. At dinners and rallies for organizations such as the American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born, the Jefferson School, and the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, she was always a feature attraction. Remarried to Alan Campbell in 1956 but still blacklisted, she returned to Hollywood to work on a Marilyn Monroe project that failed to materialize. She lived in difficult economic circumstances until a fatal heart attack in 1967. In her will, Dorothy Parker left her small estate and her copyrights to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Calhoun, Randall. Dorothy Parker: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1993.

Fitzpatrick, Kevin C. A Journey into Dorothy Parker’s New York. Berkeley, CA: Roaring Forties Press, 2005.

Keats, John. You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970.

Meade, Marion. Dorothy Parker. What Fresh Hell is This? New York: Villard, 1988.

Dorothy Parker. Writings. Internet Archive.