Search

Back to top

Search Constraints

Start Over You searched for: Collection Alan Campbell and Dorothy Parker Collection, [1930]-1949 (majority within 1938-1946) Remove constraint Collection: Alan Campbell and Dorothy Parker Collection, [1930]-1949 (majority within 1938-1946)
Number of results to display per page
View results as:

Search Results

Collection

Alan Campbell and Dorothy Parker Collection, [1930]-1949 (majority within 1938-1946)

2 boxes, 1.25 linear feet

Alan Campbell , American actor and screenwriter, wrote, with his wife Dorothy Parker, screenplays for Hollywood studios during the 1930s. The collection contains the correspondence and writings of Alan Campbell and Dorothy Parker. Included is World War II correspondence, scripts, screenplays, fragments of several short stories, a play, as well as typescripts of pieces by some of Campbell and Parker's contemporaries.

The Alan Campbell and Dorothy Parker Collection consists of four series, Correspondence, Financial Papers, Writings and Miscellaneous. The Collection contains correspondence and writings of Alan Campbell and Dorothy Parker. Included is correspondence from Campbell to Parker, written during World War II; several letters from Zeppo Marx; and a few letters from Leland Hayward and Rosalie Stewart, with many references to other celebrities. Also included is a portion of the Campbell-Parker collaboration on the screenplay A Star is Born, written with Robert Carson. Campbell’s writings include the script for Told to the Children while Parker is represented by fragments of several short stories and her play The Coast of Illyria. The collection also includes typescripts of pieces written by contemporaries of Campbell and Parker, including Stephen Vincent Benét, Elliott Nugent, John O’Hara, Robert Penn Warren, and Sagittarius (aka Olga Katzin).

Folder

Correspondence

The Correspondence series is primarily comprised of letters written by Alan Campbell to Dorothy Parker during his military service in World War II. The letters, though obviously composed with the military censor in mind, are highly descriptive and evocative of war time experience. Campbell describes his daily activities as well as those of his troops. He also portrays the social worlds of London and Paris, and mentions other writers involved in the war effort such as Major Theodore Giesel (Dr. Seuss). A few of these letters include photographs, which have been housed in envelopes and left with the accompanying letter for the purpose of continuity.

The collection contains no replies to any of Campbell's World War II letters. In all of these letters, Campbell writes fondly of his desire for a continuing relationship with Parker, even though the two divorced within several months of his return home from the service in 1946. It is possible that the correspondence was weeded at some point, to eliminate signs of strife. There are also a number of letters Campbell sent to Parker from Hollywood, presumably while she was either at their country home in Pennsylvania or in New York City. These letters discuss the Hollywood social circle and his script writing. There are also three letters to other recipients: Hiram Beer, the groundskeeper of their Pennsylvania home; the Packard Motor Car Company, complaining of Campbell’s purchase of a “lemon;” and to an unidentified woman named Peggy.

The sub-series Incoming Correspondence is less extensive, but includes letters from Rosalie Stewart, Leland Hayward and Zeppo Marx, all of whom acted as agents for the Parker/Campbell writing team. There is also a small group of letters from Paul Streger to Campbell and Parker, and a letter from Mrs.Edward Warburg, inviting Dorothy Parker to attend a function where Eleanor Roosevelt was to be present.