The Improbable Journey of Dorothy Parker’s Ashes
Dorothy Parker signed her last will and testament in 1965, with her friend Pauline Kraft signing as a witness. The signing occurred in her small suite at the Volley Hotel in Manhattan.
Dorothy’s husband had passed and she had no heirs, so she had “spent months mulling what to do with her estate.” Much if her estate was made up of future royalties and licensing fees for her literary work, which was “substantial.”
Dorothy Parker wrote for both Vogue and Vanity Fair in her younger years. She then wrote for the New Yorker. Dorothy was also part of the writing duo of the 1937 screenplay of “A Star Is Born”
Dorothy Parker was also an activist during the civil-rights era. In 1965, when writing her will, she explained that she wanted to be cremated and “that her entire estate be left to Martin Luther King, Jr., then thirty-six, whom she had never met.”
Following Dorothy’s passing, Lillian Hellman was named “executrix” of the estate, but became enraged when she realized she had not been left any money. “Out of spite, Hellman ordered all of Parker’s effects to be thrown away, including her papers, books, clothes, and keepsakes. She also disobeyed Parker’s wishes for a quiet cremation and organized a public memorial at a funeral home on the Upper East Side.”
Parker was cremated but no one ever came to claim the ashes so they sat on a shelf for years and then was placed in a filing cabinet in her prior attorney’s office. Her attorney had retired but O’Dwyer, who had taken over decided to have a little get together with some of Dorothy’s friends to help decide what should be done with her ashes.
“On August 22nd, Dorothy’s birthday, her ashes were brought to Woodlawn for her reburial, where Hazel Dukes, 88, former president of the N.A.A.C.P. attended along with others.
See Laurie Gwen Shapiro, The Improbable Journey of Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, The New Yorker, September 4, 2020.
Special thanks to Laura Galvan (Attorney, San Antonio, Texas) for bringing this article to my attention.