Kevin C. Fitzpatrick's Blog, page 4
April 1, 2015
Algonquin Hotel Brings Live Jazz to Lobby
The Algonquin Hotel sent us the information about the live music coming to the hotel in May. Here’s the press release:
Live music at The Algonquin has been a long tradition starting in 1939 when the hotel welcomed Vienna-born singer, Greta Keller, and Cy Walter at the piano as the first performers in the hotel’s new supper club. The tradition continued over the years, from Ella Fitzgerald serenading the owners in the lobby in the 50’s, to the Oak Room, which launched the careers of Michael F...
March 8, 2015
April is Algonquin Round Table Month at the New York Public Library
We are really pleased to announce the New York Public Library Mid-Manhattan Branch is going to be celebrating the Algonquin Round Table in April during its popular Story Time for Grown-Ups series. The location is 455 Fifth Avenue, corner of 40th Street.
Love a good story?
Sit back and relax as we read you a story or two.
Stories from the Algonquin Round Table
All readings will take place on the First Floor — Room 101. There is no charge for admission and they are open to the public. The library...
February 15, 2015
Monthly Party Returns Feb. 28 with Dandy Wellington and His Band
Dandy Wellington
The Dorothy Parker Society is honored to be teaming up with Wit’s End for so many years on our joint monthly speakeasy parties. This month, Wit’s End will be celebrating its 6th Anniversary with a huge party, featuring live music from Dandy Wellington and His Band , on Saturday, Feb. 28, at Flute Midtown.Because the Dorothy Parker Society doesn’t have meetings (we have parties), we always look forward to events with Wit’s End. There are four hallmarks of the party: Live hot jaz...
February 1, 2015
Fanny Brice Show at 54 Below Brings 1920s Star Back
I am really excited to learn a member of the Dorothy Parker Society is continuing an amazing project that would tickle Mrs. Parker to know about. Actress-Singer Kimberly Faye Greenberg is bringing her one-woman show Fabulous Fanny: The Songs and Stories of Fanny Brice to 54 Below in Manhattan on February 12, 2015.
When I was editing Dorothy Parker Complete Broadway, 1918-1923, I came across scores of references to Fanny. Mrs. Parker was a big fan of the Ziegfeld Follies, and always gave good...
January 19, 2015
Martin Luther King Day 2015
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Today in the United States it is Martin Luther King Day, of course Dorothy Parker left her estate to him. This morning I created a little social media image, drawing on a line from a March 1921 review that appeared in Ainslee’s. Not long afterwards, I got an IM from someone, saying they “never heard of this one” and was I “sure it was by Dorothy Parker.”Well, Jessica Fletcher, I suggest you read Dorothy Parker Complete Broadway, 1918-1923. It has 150,000 words by Mrs. Parker you’ve...
December 29, 2014
1932 When Dorothy Parker Met Garbo
Greta Garbo
With the publication of The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide (Lyons Press) on Jan. 6, I’m publishing more of my research files online. This interview with Dorothy Parker took place months before her marriage to Alan Campbell, and before she made her second attempt at Hollywood screenwriting in late 1934.This story appeared in the New York World-Telegram on Sept. 15, 1932. The writer, Gunilla Wettergren, was a freelancer visiting from Sweden. In 1937 Wettergren pub...
1933 Dorothy Parker Endorses Fiorello LaGuardia
Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, August 8, 1934. (NYC Parks Dept Photo)
With the publication of The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide (Lyons Press) on Jan. 6, I’m publishing more of my research files online. This is a good one that ties Dorothy Parker to her hometown.In her last months of living in Manhattan before she went West to try Hollywood screenwriting for a second time, Parker was asked to endorse Republican Fiorello LaGuardia and his Fusion Party of independents. LaGuardia w...
December 28, 2014
Dorothy Parker in 1930 News
The SS De Grasse of the French Line.
With my new book The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide (Lyons Press) coming out on Jan. 6, I have been putting some of the research material online.
New York World, Feb. 1, 1930
This brief newspaper report about Dorothy Parker arriving on a steamship in New York Harbor is from the New York World, Feb. 1, 1930. She was returning from Switzerland, where Mrs. Parker had been providing moral support for her dear friends Gerald and Sara Murphy, w...November 10, 2014
Rare 1952 Algonquin Hotel Radio Show Uncovered
Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg were radio pioneers.
While researching my book The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide , I uncovered a lost 1952 radio show recorded inside the Algonquin Hotel, The Tex and Jinx Show. Among the guests are owner Ben Bodne, Broadway librettist Alan Jay Lerner, and screenwriter-author Anita Loos. It’s an amazing time capsule of the hotel, at a time when Harry S. Truman was in the White House, a gallon of gas cost a quarter, and the war in Korea was ra...November 3, 2014
Readings, ceremony, party and film mark Parker’s induction to Hall of Fame, Nov. 13
The Dorothy Parker birthplace in Long Branch, NJ.
LONG BRANCH — She was a media celebrity, decades before they invented the phrase. A hard-partying rehab veteran, back when such things were kept strictly confidential. A crusader for civil rights, in an age when that was considered career suicide. An Oscar nominated screenwriter, back when a serious author simply didn’t socialize with THOSE people.If you’d asked Dorothy Parker to her face, she would have insisted only that she was a true New Yo...
