The Round Table Goes West

Who was Dorothy Parker?     

She was a writer. She was funny. She had lunch with a group of clever friends at a place called the Algonquin Round Table, just off Times Square in New York. 

For people who know who she was, including me, that was about the extent of our knowledge.    

But there was a lot more, and we can learn about it in Gail Crowther’s fine new book, Dorothy Parker in Hollywood. 

Parker grew up and spent her early adulthood in New York, including her famous time at the Round Table. I always assumed that that period was the high point of her life, but Crowther corrects that notion. Parker and her new husband, screenwriter Alan Campbell, moved to Los Angeles in 1934, when the two of them launched a new career writing screenplays and books.  

In fact, during those years, Parker came to dislike all the questions about the Round Table—it seemed that that was all that people wanted to know about, and she grew sick of it. She and Campbell were doing plenty of writing, much of it behind the scenes. In fact, there were eighteen such projects, enabling them to move into a succession of bigger and nicer homes.   

The pinnacle of their Hollywood work was an Academy-Award-nominated screenplay for the 1937 production of A Star Is Born, starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. 

Parker and Campbell were married for fifteen years, but they weren’t all happy ones. They loved LA but didn’t love all the writing they did. By the time they separated, Parker was ready to move back and try New York once again.  

According to Crowther, she wasn’t any happier than before. Still funny, though.