Meade - Dorothy parker: what fresh hell is this?

Table of Contents

Marion Meade has written a widely acclaimed biography, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and a novel entitled Stealing Heaven: The Love Story of Heloise and Abelard. She lives in Manhattan.

Since Dorothy Parker herself left no correspondence, manuscripts, memorabilia, or private papers of any kind, I have had to reconstruct her life by talking to those who knew her and by retrieving material from various institutions, attics, trunks, and the personal files of people who considered her letters worth preserving.

Throughout her life she was secretive about her origins and gave the impression that she had no family ties whatsoever, even though her close relationship with her sister, Helen, lasted a lifetime. This biography was written with the cooperation of Lel Droste Iveson, Dorothy Parkers niece, who generously shared with me memories of her aunt and details of the familys history, as well as Parkers childhood letters, verse, and a scrapbookphoto album compiled over the course of many years. She has my deepest gratitude. I also would like to thank other members of the family who have been of tremendous help to me: Joan Grossman, Robert Iveson, Marge Droste, and Nancy Arcaro. Special thanks to Susan Cotton for the loan of the album.

Roy Eichel, the only surviving member of Alan Campbells family, offered me photographs, reminiscences spanning nine decades, and the hospitality of his home. His wonderful cooperation was altogether a biographers dream.

Many persons have contributed to this biography. They shared their recollections in interviews, telephone conversations, and letters; they took considerable trouble to locate photographs and correspondence, search for sheet music, draw maps, conduct tours of their homes, prepare meals, and guide me to sources I might otherwise have not known about. Without their generous assistance this book would not exist. To all of them I am greatly indebted:

Timothy Adams, Charles Addams, Stella Adler, Louisa Alger, Vera Allen, Bill Allyn, Roger Angell, Andrew Anspach, Patricia Arno, Louis Auchincloss, Julian Bach, Don Bachardy, Lisa Bain, Shirley Booth Baker, Fredericka Barbour, Margaret Barker, Vita Barsky, Charles Baskerville, Lois Battle, Saul Bellow, Nathaniel Benchley, Leonard Bernstein, Rebecca Bernstien, Paul Bonner, Jr., Gardner Botsford, Clement Brace, Frederic Bradlee, Fanny Brennan, Heywood Hale Broun, Joseph Bryan III, John Carlyle, Lester Cole, Dorothy Commins, Marc Connelly, Norman Corwin, Malcolm Cowley, Alyce Cusson, John Davies, Helen Walker Day, Sylvia Statt DeBaun, Lucinda Dietz, Harvey Deneroff, Helen Deutsch, Eric Devine, Rita Devine, Honoria and William Donnelly.

Anne Edelman, Henry Ephron, Arpad Fekete, Leslie Fiedler, Ben Finney, Moe Fishman, Nina Foch, Sally Foster, Pie Friendly, Arnold Gates, Bernard Geis, Martha Gellhorn, Brendan Gill, Margalo Gillmore, Ruth Goetz, Frances Goodrich, Milton Greenstein, Thomas Guinzburg, Albert Hackett, Emily Hahn, Curtis Harnack, Harold Hayes, Sig Herzig, Rust Hills, Henry Beetle Hough, Ian Hunter, Mary M. James, Gordon G. Jones.

E. J. Kahn, Jr., Virginia Rice Kahn, Eleanor Kairalla, Donald Klopfer, Howard Koch, Don Koll, Parker Ladd, Ring Lardner, Jr., Geraldine Leder, Queenie Leonard, Clara Lester, Miranda and Ralph Levy, Phebe Ann Lewis, Michael Loeb, Joshua Logan, William Lord, Nancy Macdonald, Gertrude Macy, Bob Magner, Chris Marconi, Sister Miriam Martin, Samuel Marx, Bruce Mason, Walter Matthau, Vera Maxwell, William Maxwell, Mary McDonald, Laura McLaughlin, Mickey Medinz, Paul Millard, J. Clifford Miller, Jr., Alice Leone Moats, Betty Moodie, Dr. Christopher Morren, Wright Morris, Cathy Morrow, Kate Mostel, Lewis Mumford, Alice Lee Myers.

Adeline Naiman, Robert Nathan, Anne Noll, Paul ODwyer, Emily Paley, Judith and Lewis Parker, Paul Pascarelli, Kenneth Pitchford, Robert Phelps, Noel Pugh, Ben Rayburn, Dame Flora Robson, Dorothy Rodgers, Helen Rosen, Peg Ross, Robert Rothwell, Yvonne Luff-Roussel.

Allen Saalburg, Joseph Schrank, Lee Schryver, Budd Schulberg, Jim Seligmann, Madeline Sherwood, Frederick Shroyer, Steven Siegel, Stan Silverman, Sisters of Charity, Frances Scott Fitzgerald Smith, Toni Strassman, Shepperd Strudwick, Pete Steffens, Leland Stowe, Bob Tallman, William Targ, Marian Spitzer Thompson, Helen Thurber, Helen Townsend, Lester Trauch, Harriet Walden, James Waters, Robert Weinberg, E. B. White, Robert Whitehead, Elinor Wikler, Richard Wilbur, Meta Carpenter Wilde, Dr. Susan Williamson, Noel Willman, Jeanne Ballot Winham, Mildred Wohlforth, Dana Woodbury, Robert Yaw III, Naomi Yergin, Curt Yeske, Lois Moran Young, Jerome Zerbe.

To the libraries and librarians who helped collect and copy Parkers papers and in other ways assisted me in documenting her life, I am most grateful:

The New York Public Library, the New York Historical Society, Boston University, Columbia University, New York University, Yale University, Library of Congress, University of Southern California, Atlanta University, Queens Public Library, Pennsylvania State University, Walter Hampden-Edwin Booth Theatre Collection and Library, Gettysburg College, Brandeis University, Enoch Pratt Free Library, University of Oregon, University of Michigan, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, University of California, Dallas Public Library, University of Iowa, Green-field Community College, Hamilton College, Harvard University, Princeton University, New York Genealogical and Biographical Library, New York Society Library, Virginia Military Institute, Pacifica Tape Library, Smith College, Indiana University, Temple University, University of Texas, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, University of Chicago, Southern Illinois University, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, State University of New York (Buffalo), University of Virginia, Newberry Library, Cornell University, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, American Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art Film Department, Ninety-second Street Young Mens and Young Womens Hebrew Association, Museum of the City of New York, Virginia Commonwealth University, Samford University, International Ladies Garment Workers Union Archives, Joint Free Public Library of Morristown, N.J., Leo Baeck Institute, State of Alabama Department of Archives and History, and the Mercer Museum.

For providing work space in the Frederick Lewis Allen Memorial Room during the initial stages of my research, I am grateful to the New York Public Library.

Under a Freedom of Information Act request, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released to me more than nine hundred pages of material on Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell over a four-year period.

Several publishing companies offered valuable assistance. I would like to express my appreciation to The Viking Press and W. W. Norton and Company for giving me access to their Dorothy Parker files. The New Yorker and the Saturday Evening Post supplied inventories of her writings that had appeared in their magazines. The library at Cond Nast Publications, Inc., allowed me to spend as many hours as I wished searching bound volumes of Vogue and Vanity Fair for her earliest published work.

A number of writers, editors, and filmmakers were kind enough to offer leads and practical advice or to share information they had gathered for projects of their own: Billy Altman, April Bernard, John Dorr, Bryan Gallagher, John Keats, Nancy Milford, William Nolan, Victor Navasky, Stanley Olson, Aviva Slesin, Caroline Seebohm, and Roy Winnick. Several conversations with Richard Meryman led me to an investigation of alcoholism and two years of attendance at Alanon meetings. James Gaines helpfully loaned tapes he had made with certain individuals (now deceased) for