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Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker

In certain New York publishing corridors, Dorothy Parker’s name still conjures up a recognizable brand of arch, razor-sharp humor. Born in New Jersey on August 22, 1893, Parker endured the deaths of both parents at an early age, and went on to support herself through work at Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. A founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, she was infamous for her scathing bon mots and one-liners, writing in a 1933 theater review, for instance, that Katharine Hepburn “runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.” In 1934, she began screenwriting for Hollywood studios, a move that would prove artistically unfulfilling but result in an Academy Award nomination for A Star Is Born (1937) and, eventually, a place on the Hollywood blacklist due to her advocacy of politically left-wing causes. She died in 1967, bequeathing her literary estate to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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