Parker & It's A Wonderful Life?

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram had this nugget of info connecting Mrs. Parker with the cinema legend of George Bailey & Clarence the angel:

On Dec. 20, 1946, Frank Capra's film It's a Wonderful Life has a preview showing in New York before going on to flop at the box office. World-class wit and cynic Dorothy Parker did script-doctoring on the film, but it's hard to detect her hand in the sweet, some say syrupy, result.

And I came across this in the Chicago Sun-Times:

Among the uncredited writers who worked on the screenplay were Dorothy Parker, Dalton Trumbo and Clifford Odets.

Did anyone ever hear of Mrs. Parker working on this classic? It's not in any books I've come across. It does seem hard to imagine that she worked on the famous Jimmy Stewart holiday staple. Watch closer when it's on TV this holiday season?

Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Wednesday, December 17, 2003 at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments

Auction Silliness Continues

Something happens when people jump onto eBay -- they lose their minds. I am talking about the recent activity in signed Dorothy Parker books and letters. The archives have stories of past auctions over the past 5 years. The gallery lists some samples of Mrs. Parker's signatures. But a recent auction takes the cake.

An unknown buyer paid $500 for a signed copy of "After Such Pleasures" -- one of her many best-of compilations (Viking Press, NY, 1934). Copies of this book and other compilations come up monthly on eBay. But how this was valued at $500.00 is beyond reason. Perhaps because it was inscribed, and possibly owned by, B-movie actress Esther Muir.

There's a current auction runing on eBay right now for what is purported to be Mrs. Parker's signature. Unless she was drunk when she signed it, it doesn't look anything like the real McCoy.

Auctions of rare books and autographs happen all the time. Last month, I went to one at the William Doyle Galleries here in New York. A letter signed by Queen Victoria went for $100. Yes, that's correct: a hundred bucks. So how anyone can value a common signature like Mrs. Parker's, one that is about 70 years old, 5 times more than the former queen of England...

Any comments about auctions you've taken part of?

Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 at 6:26 PM | Permalink | Comments

Hollywood Ending

What do Dorothy Parker and Spiderman have in common? Michael F. Hoover. He's the Emmy winning (for Children of Dune) special effects wiz in Hollywood, who named his company after the Garden of Allah, where Mrs. Parker, Robert Benchley and Scott Fitzgerald used to hang their hats (and their hangovers).

Michael was cool enough to take time out from working on Spiderman 2 to shoot pix for our page on the Garden of Allah. His company, Garden of Allah Digital Visual Effects, is well-known in Hollywood and he's worked on loads of movies. His site has the best online history of the old place we've seen.

All of our Los Angeles pix were sent in by Angelenos -- thanks so much for that. Mrs. Parker's years in La-La Land weren't the happiest, but we have some amazing places to visit there that are attached to her life.

Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Monday, December 08, 2003 at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

Benchley's Best Top 10 List

Just in time for the holidays, we got a message from David Trumbull from The Robert Benchley Society in Cambridge.

The Robert Benchley Society announces a "top ten" list of humorous holiday readings.
The list includes two pieces by Mr. Benchley along with eight other humor authors.
Members of the Robert Benchley Society suggested readings for the list. Each piece
is short and can typically be read in 30 minutes or less. All are excellent pieces
to read aloud to friends and family at holiday gatherings.

No. 7 is by Mrs. Parker's pal, James Thurber, "Joyeux Noël, Mr. Durning" -- with Benchley himself charting twice on the list ala Letterman. A great effort from a great bunch of people!

BOSTON, November 22, 2004 -- The Robert Benchley Society announces its second annual "Top Ten Holiday Reading List."

http://www.robertbenchley.org/christmas_reading_04.htm

The list includes two pieces by Mr. Benchley along with current authors David Sedaris, Tom Lehrer, and Christopher Jennison. The list also includes classic humorists Stephen Leacock, Don Marquis, S. J. Perelman, Daymon Runyon, and Jean Shepherd.

Members of the Robert Benchley Society suggested readings for the list. "We hope that people will enjoy these selections," said Robert Benchley Society chairman David Trumbull. Each piece is short and can typically be read in 30 minutes or less. "All are excellent pieces to read aloud to friends and family at holiday gatherings," continued Trumbull. Following each entry is a
brief description and a quotation from the piece. Enjoy!

The Robert Benchley society was founded in Boston in 2003 for the mutual enjoyment and promotion of the writings and motion pictures of American humorist Robert Benchley (1889-1945). The society has members on three continents who range in interest from the serious and scholarly to social and fun.


Robert Benchley Society 2004 Holiday Reading List

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(1) "Bayeux Christmas Presents Early," Robert Benchley

Few holiday images are more deeply branded into the American psyche than that of Christmas in Merry Olde England, which is why Mr. Benchley transports us to France for Christmas A.D. 1066.

"Christmas must have been on all lips framed in probably the worst Norman-French ever heard. Noël, they probably called it. The old oaken bucket that hung in Noël--to put it badly"

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(2)"All Aboard for Christmas," Christopher Jennison

In the spirit of Norman Rockwell and Frank Capra, author Robert Benchley Society Member, Christopher Jennison evokes the enchantment of
bygone Christmases in the era of train travel. There are lots of stories and pictures, mostly dating back to the first half of the twentieth century, including a short piece from Benchley!

"Hurray, hurray! Off to the country for Christmas! Pack up all the warm clothes in the house for you will need them up there where the air is clean and cold. In order to get to East Russet you take the Vermont Central as far as Twitchell's Falls and change there for Torpid River Junction, where a spur line takes you right into Gormley. At Gormley you are met by a buckboard which takes you back to Torpid River Junction again. By this time a train or something has come in which will wait for the local from Beesus. While waiting for this you will have time to send your little boy to school, so that he can finish the third grade."

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(3) "Season's Greetings to Our Friends and Family," David Sedaris

What would Christmas be without David Sedaris? Easter. This pick is from a collection of Christmas stories which can also be found in his
'Barrel Fever' collection.

"Some of you are probably reading this and scratching your heads over the name 'Khe Sahn.' 'That certainly doesn't fit with the rest of the family names,' you're saying to yourself. 'What, did those crazy Dunbars get
themselves a Siamese cat?' You're close."

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(4) "A Chrismas Carol" and other songs, Tom Lehrer

With this entry we stray a bit from our stated theme of holiday readings and suggest a hilarious volume of song parodies. What would a
holiday sing-along be without The Hunting Song, My Home Town, National Brotherhood Week, and The Vatican Rag.

"Angels we have heard on high
Telling us to go and buy"


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(5) "The Barbi Doll Celebrates New Year's Eve," Jean Shepherd

When a GI returns to his Indiana hometown, restless, lonely, and looking for a New Year's Eve date, he steps out with the preacher's
daughter, who is not exactly as he remembers her.

"A giant moth-eaten moosehead hung over the bar, an obscene red balloon extending from its mouth like some grotesque swollen tongue. It bore the
legend HAPPY NEW YEAR ONE AND ALL. The moose wore a fireman's hat."

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(6) "Dancing Dan's Christmas," Damon Runyon

After a few Tom and Jerrys --and then a few more-- an infamous "get-'em-up guy" dons the red suit and beard and doles out a few little trinkets.

"I understand there is some gossip among these citizens because they claim a Santa Claus with such a breath on him as our Santa Claus has is
a little out of line"

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(7) "archie interviews a pharaoh," Don Marquis

Okay, so it's not exactly a holiday reading, but she when suggested it showed at our last event dressed as Dorothy Parker, how could we refuse?
Besides its anti-prohibition message is a tonic to today's new puritanism.

"on what are you brooding
with such a wistful
wishfulness
there in the silences
confide in me
my perial pretzel
says i

i brood on beer
my scampering whiffle snoot
on beer says he"


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(8) "Hold that Christmas Tiger!", S. J. Perelman

The Martha Stewart of his day, minus the felony convictions, this master of absurd gives his Christmas party decorating advice in the manner
of the trendy fashion magazines of the 1940s.

"I kissed my newsagent goodbye and set out to read the Christmas party suggestions in Mademoiselle, Vogue, and House & garden. "Dip tips of twisted cotton strips in India ink and trim your tree entirely in 'ermine tails'," said one. "Well, what do we do next?" I can hear a Mr. Kapustin asking his wife. Mrs. Kapustin peers uncertainly at her copy of Mademoiselle. "Tip dips of twisted crotton sips' " -- she begins. "No, wait a minute. 'Sip dips of cristed totton tips.' " Obviously, such an enterprise can only end in disaster"

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(9) "The Errors of Santa Claus," Stephen Leacock

As legal scholar C. K. Allen said in his essay Oh, Mr. Leacock!, "The are certain things which are too sacred to every Englishman to be lightly
joked about; among them the pious peace, the beautific beauty, of a Christmas afternoon." Oh well, Mr. Leacock is, after all, a Canadian
humorist.

"And upstairs Grandfather was drinking whiskey and playing the Jew's harp. And so Christmas, just as it always does, turned out all right
after all"

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(10) "Editha's Christmas Burglar," Robert Benchley

Christmas is, of course, about the children. But that doesn't have to ruin it for the rest of us.

"Of course, it might be that the old folks had been right all along and that there really was a Santa Claus after all, but Editha dismissed this supposition at once. The old folks had never been right before and what chance was there of their starting in to be right now, at their age?"


--30--


DAVID TRUMBULL
Boston, Mass.

"One of these days I have got to go and see a doctor about my cigarette smoking. I am slowly but surely losing the knack."
--Robert Benchley

Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on Saturday, December 06, 2003 at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

New Parker book for 2004

Great news for all Dorothy Parker fans: author Marion Meade has a new book coming out May 18, 2004 about our favorite person. Meade wrote the definitive and best Parker biography Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is This? in 1987.

Now she goes back to the well one more time for Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: Writers Running Wild in the Twenties. This book features not only Parker, but 3 of her contemporaries: Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Edna Ferber.

Ms. Meade was kind enough to send us some information from the publisher:

Marion Meade recreates the aura of excitement, romance, and promise of the 1920s, a decade celebrated for cultural innovation — the birth of jazz, the beginning of modernism — and social and sexual liberation, bringing to light, as well, the anxiety and despair that lurked beneath the nonstop partying and outrageous, unconventional behavior. The literary heroines in BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN did what they wanted, said what they thought. They drank gallons of cocktails and knew how to have fun in New York, the Rivera, and Hollywood, where they met and played with all the people worth knowing. They kicked open the door for twentieth-century female writers and set a new model for every woman trying to juggle the serious issues of economic independence, political power, and sexual freedom.

In a style and tone that perfectly captures the jazzy rhythms and tragic sense of impending doom that defined the era, Meade tells the individual stories of Parker, Fitzgerald, Millay, and Ferber, traces the intersections of their lives, and describes the men — including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund Wilson, Harold Ross, and Robert Benchley — who influenced them, loved them, and sometimes betrayed them. She describes their social and literary triumphs (Parker’s Round Table witticisms appeared almost daily in the newspapers and Ferber won a Pulitzer Prize for So Big) and writes movingly of the penances they paid: the crumbled love affairs, abortions, depression, lost beauty, nervous breakdowns, and finally, overdoses and even madness.

A vibrant mixture of literary scholarship, social history, and gossip, BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN is a rich evocation of a period that continues to intrigue and captivate readers.

The book information: Hardcover, publisher Nan A. Talese, ISBN 0-385-50242-7, release date 05/18/2004, 304 pages.

We are very excited about another new Parker book for the bookshelves; stay tuned to the site for more information.

Posted by Kevin Fitzpatrick on at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments