What is the connection between screen goddess Marilyn Monroe, Harvard University, and Mrs. Parker? It seems the doomed actress was also a fan of Dottie.
The Portable Dorothy Parker was among five books owned by Marilyn Monroe that were donated to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. (On Oct. 1, 1999, Radcliffe College and Harvard University officially merged, becoming the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard).
“This just goes to prove that there was more to Marilyn Monroe than the movie star and popular icon. She was also a reader,” Jane Knowles, acting director of the institute’s library, told the Associated Press.
Serious Parker fans know that Dottie was working on the screenplay for Monroe’s last film when the actress died mysteriously in 1962. The books were donated anonymously. All are works of fiction by American women. The other four books are My Antonia and Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers and The Little Disturbances of Man, short stories by Grace Paley. The books were among a collection of Monroe’s personal belongings auctioned in October 1999 for a total of $13.4 million.