“Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience.” -- Dorothy Parker, from "The Ladies of the Corridor." And without question, Parker was both a good speaker and an intelligent audience, and more.
Famous for her acerbic wit, sardonic poems, and short stories, Parker was the originator of countless memorable sayings as she wrote for the likes of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Vogue, and was a founding member of the "Algonquin Round Table" group of literati like Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, and Robert Sherwood who met for lunch and repartee at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Parker, who was born Dorothy Rothschild today in 1893 in Long Branch, NJ, also made a mark in Hollywood as a screenwriter with her then-husband Alan Campbell, notably 1937's A Star Is Born, and provided additional dialogue for Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes," before she was blacklisted for her progressive political beliefs (i.e., labor rights and civil rights for African Americans). When she died in 1967, she left her estate to the NAACP.
We can't sign off without recalling some of Parker's classic, often off-color observations, such as:
“Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
“Women and elephants never forget.”
“If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you."
“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
“Brevity is the soul of lingerie.”
And, at her ribald best:
“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host.”
So many more, so little time.....
