Known today for some of her wisecracks (including: "I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true";"Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses"; and "[Katherine Hepburn] runs the gamut of emotions from A to B"), Parker was an author, poet, critic and screenwriter. She attended Roman Catholic schools in New York, but her formal education ended at age thirteen. She then played piano at a dancing school to earn a living while writing poetry; her first poem was published in 1914. A founding member, with Robert Benchley and Robert E. Sherwood, of the Algonquin Round Table. Magazines she wrote for included, Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Life, McCall's and The New Republic. She wrote the script for A Star is Born, and was nominated for an Academy Award. Parker's commitment to left-leaning causes began in 1927 with the pending executions of Sacco and Vanzetti. She protested, was briefly arrested, and became a Civil Libertarian. Listed as a Communist, she was placed on the blacklist. On her death, she bequeathed her estate to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Foundation; it later went to NAACP. 

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Revised May 2009
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