Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1530856
B O O K R E V I E W 49 W I N T E R Q 4 I S S U E Parker holds a solid place in the pantheon of 20th century American literature, and Wanamaker's renown is limited to a much smaller group of cognoscenti, each in their own way is legendary. On Wikipedia, he is described as "Marc Norman Wanamaker (born October 1, 1947, in Los Angeles)" who "is the founder of Bison Archives, which manages research on the motion picture industry." Mrs. Parker's entry states, "Dor- othy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet and writer of fiction, plays and screenplays based in New York; she was known for her caustic wisecracks, and eye for 20th-centu- ry urban foibles." Each of these descriptions are understatements. Wanamaker's work is central to preserving how Hollywood looked and worked; Parker's lets readers in on elite American urban life from the 1920s to the early 1940s. A great deal has already been said about Parker. There is a documentary, "The Ten Year Lunch: Wits and Legends of the Algon- quin Round Table" (1984) directed by Aviva Slesin, and a fiction feature, "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle" (1994) directed by Alan Rudolph and starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, about aspects of Dorothy Parker's life. There are many books and essays about her work, which continues to be popular today. "Dorothy Parker in Holly- wood" is, however, the first book-length attempt to dissect Parker's writing for the movies. Wanamaker's personal life has not been profiled, but he is well known to everyone who wants to learn about behind-the-scenes Hollywood history. His Bison Archives collection includes tens of thousands of photographs, many very rare, and is now housed at the Margaret Herrick Library of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. These are distinctly dif- ferent books, but if the reader looks closely, Wanamaker and Bingen offer a visual back- drop for the story Crowther tells. When "talking pictures" took over in the early 1930s, Dorothy Parker was one of the many writers recruited by film studios to meet the needs of sound. Particularly, producers wanted people who could write dialogue, and Parker was noted for her quips and quotes. Her poems and short sto- ries were known for just the sort of snappy one liners and barbed observations that could make a movie worth listening to. Such is the poem "Learning from Experience": By the time you swear you're his, Shivering and sighing. And he vows his passion is Infinite, undying- Lady make a note of this: One of you is lying. She was also known for the devastating verbal barbs she shot at everyone she knew. These became particularly cruel when Parker drank a lot, which was almost daily. She often later regretted the pain her words inflicted, but remorse did not stop her drinking nor her attacks. T h e c u r r e n t b o o k d e t a i l s m a n y o f Parker's drunken episodes in Los Angeles and their ugly day-after consequences. (The book's descriptions of night life at the Coconut Grove of the Ambassador Hotel are mirrored in photographs in "Hollywood Behind the Lens.") Crowther attempts to analyze the reasons Parker drank. These are difficult to ascertain since, other than what can be gleaned from her public writ- ing, there is almost no record of Parker's