Parker, Dorothy

The American novelist, poet and satirist Dorothy Parker was born in West End, Long Branch, New Jersey, but she grew up in Manhattan, which became the centre of her life. Although her maiden name was Rothschild (not the banking family), she used her first husband's name throughout her career. Her parents were wealthy and they sent their daughter to expensive convent schools, which she disliked as much as she disliked her family. Her father died when she was nineteen without leaving any money, and Dorothy Parker began to make a living from submitting to magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and Esquire. She occasionally worked as a Hollywood scriptwriter together with her second husband, Alan Campbell. She died in Manhattan.