June 07
The Anniversary of the Death of
Dorothy Parker
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When her friends first learned that Dorothy
Parker was dead, they immediately suspected suicide instead of the heart
attack that killed her. Dorothy had made some previous abortive
suicide attempts and had wryly commented about the subject in several of her
poems including Resume in which she wrote
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Dorothy Parker's
acerbic wit made her the most quotable member of the Algonquin Round
Table, a glittering mélange
of critics, writers, actors and socialites that were synonymous with New
York sophistication in the 1920s. Dorothy's Roundtable cohorts
included Alex Wolcott, George S. Kaufman, Harold Ross, Robert Benchley
and Harpo Marx. Their wit, unbridled egos, and conversational brilliance
often masked a profound melancholy, loneliness and pathological
dissatisfaction with their lives evidenced in their alcoholism and
frequent states of depression. It was Dorothy who invented the quip "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker" which was probably the most quoted line of the 1920s. Dorothy's wit was at her zenith with: |
When asked if she head heard that Calvin Coolidge had died, she replied "How could they tell."
When Dorothy and Clare Booth
Luce were both entering a theater for the premier of a new play,
Clare stepped back and gestured for Dorothy to enter first with a caustic
"Age before beauty."
Dorothy stepped ahead of her, turned around and replied "Pearls before the
swine."
After Robert Sherwood and Mary
Brandon were married and Mary announced her pregnancy,
Dorothy sent a telegram stating "Congratulations - we all knew you had it in
you."
Although Dorothy was Jewish
she went to a Catholic boarding school and left under unexplained
circumstances. She claim she was "fired" for insisting that "the Immaculate
Conception
was a product of spontaneous combustion."
She named her canary Onan, because he spilled his seed upon the ground.
Alex Wolcott had a summer house
called "Wit's End" where he thrived on entertaining his Roundtable cronies.
At one of his gatherings, he introduced whiskey-based confection which he
called Dorothy Parker's Balls, the inspiration for which came from
her "Candy is dandy" quote and her often "masculine" assertiveness.
Dorothy Parker's Balls
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Ingredients
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3 cups vanilla wafer crumbs 1/2 cup chopped maraschino cherries 1/2 cup chopped pecans 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa dash of salt |
1/2 cup scotch whiskey dash of sweet vermouth 2 cups of confectioner's sugar 3 TB corn syrup |
Instructions
1. Make wafer crumbs by placing vanilla wafers in a food
processor or blender and reduce to fine crumbs.
2. Mix crumbs, cherries, cocoa, pecans, liquor, corn syrup, salt and one cup of confectioners sugar in a food processor or by hands. Form into 1" balls and roll in remaining confectioner's sugar, chill for one hour and serve.