DOTTIE, TAKE 2 – Jennifer Jason Leigh really looks like the character she played in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, doesn’t she? Maybe she will make a sequel…
Parker Fans in High Places Dept.
New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman delivered her sixth annual budgetmessage yesterday to the state Legislature, and quoted Dorothy Parker (born in West End, N.J., in 1893). Gov. Whitman announced the $19.2 billion budget plan includes the first installment of $1 billion in tax rebates over five years. She quoted Parker, who once said the most…
More Audio Clips
I added the Parker audio clips, ten selections read by Dottie herself. It was not that hard to teach myself how to encode audio using Real Producer. Look for more audio clips soon, but here are some to get you going. As far as I can tell, these are the only Parker audio clips on…
Special Speakeasies Added to Site
I added a new page called Special Speakeasies. Traipsed over to West 49th Street, and boy, did I look like a tourist! Check it out, the report is all about the great old speakeasies from the 1920s.
Audio Clips Coming Soon
A friend in Denver sent me a cassette of An Informal Hour With Dorothy Parker which I have sought for a long time. I want to put this online as soon as possible. It’s a nice tape, with Parker herself reading more than two dozen selections. It includes “Resume” and “One Perfect Rose” as well…
TV Dottie Coming Soon
Good news Dorothy Parker fans: A small-screen Mrs. Parker is coming soon. Bebe Neuwirth, Lilith from Cheers and Frasier, as well as a star in Chicago and Damn Yankees on Broadway, will portray Dottie. A&E;’s original movie Dash and Lilly is coming out sometime in 1999. Directed by Kathy Bates, it’s the story of the…
New Upper West Side Places Added
I took new photos on West 68th Street, where Dorothy lived as a kid. I was not happy with the first batch, they were too dark. Hopefully in the Spring, I’ll get some nice one of the exteriors when the lighting is better. I also took another of The Dakota, to show where Yoko Ono…
Little Nell and Lady Macbeth
I found a copy of Howard Teichmann’s 1976 biography, Smart Aleck, The Wit, World and Life of Alexander Woollcott. A bargain at $4. Woolcott was one of the founders of the Algonquin Round Table. The book is giving me excellent information for more Parker additions. I found out that Woollcott, after the Round Table disbanded…
Riverside Drive Location
Lynda Engstrom writes to tell me: “There’s a photo plate facing page 236 in “What Fresh Hell Is This?” of Dorothy in 1903 on the steps of the Soldiers and Sailor’s monument …. West 89th Street near Riverside Drive…” When the weather improves, I will get some photos of the park. www.dorothyparker.com
Murphy Daughter Passes Away at 81
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Honoria Murphy Donnelly dies at age 81. Mrs. Donnelly, whose book about her parents, Sara and Gerald Murphy, was published in 1982, died of liver cancer Dec. 22 at a hospice in Palm Beach, Fla. Mrs. Donnelly was described as one of the last links to the generation of writers that included…