Starting down Memory Lane with Dorothy Parker
Aug 20th, 2007 by Paul Moor
On August 22d 114 years ago, the Rothschild couple who lived in New York but had a summer cottage at 732 Ocean Avenue in the New Jersey village of Long Branch became parents there of a baby girl they named Dorothy. In due time she married a gentleman named Parker, and in the years after that she created a unique niche in literary history for the brilliant and versatile writer Dorothy Parker. A chance reminder of this 114th birthday has galvanized me into reserving Wednesday to write about the Dorothy Parker I had the rare luck to know in New York the end of the 1940s, thus finally getting around to at least starting a mini-memoir of the woman I myself came to know, for abundant evidence has long convinced me that in addition to the rare privilege of having had her as a friend at all, I had the even rarer privilege of knowing a human being at quite considerable variance from the stereotype caustic, saber-tongued Dorothy Parker almost everyone else except me seems to have known. I believe I could write even an entire short book about my Dorothy, for memories of precious time spent in her unique company have remained permanently indelible – but at least whatever I do manage to write here will serve as a start, a foundation. I just hope nothing between now and Wednesday will deter me yet once again.
