The Last Days of Dorothy Parker Read Online Free PDF Page B

her own skin. Leaning toward a strategy of moral outrage, she continued: “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.” Rauh rewrote her statement but omitted the troublesome admission of party membership and dispatched it to the committee on May 19, 1952. Lilly, meanwhile, had her hair freshly colored and bought a lovely silk dress, a black-and-brown-checked Balmain.
    Two days later, at 11 A.M. , she presented herself at the Old House Office Building wearing the Balmain with a black hat and carrying a handkerchief. Her stomach in knots, but appearing cool, Rauh at her side, she was sworn in and cautiously began responding to the committee’s questions.
    What studios had she worked for? What was she doing in 1937?
    To these routine inquiries she kept her answers concise. Rauh had warned her not to make a spectacle of herself, no strutting and posturing, specifically, to refrain from jokes or express belligerence, like some previous witnesses had done, to their regret. Then the committee members got down to business: Had she ever met Martin Berkeley? She must refuse to answer, she said. Berkeley’s testimony was read aloud. At this point, Joseph Rauh distributed copies of her statement of conscience to the committee, to be read into the record, and also passed out copies to the press gallery. The committee continued to concentrate on Martin Berkeley. Did she attend the meeting at his house? She declined to answer.
    There was more. Questions followed questions until, finally, came the sixty-four-dollar question: Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? Like so many others before her, she refused to incriminate herself and invoked the Fifth Amendment. After one hour and seven minutes, she was surprised when they suddenly excused her. Now what?
    Tense, she sat waiting for the next question. It was a badly run operation. “ Get up ,” Rauh whispered in her ear. She must leave the building immediately, walking swiftly without running, and speaking to no one. Interviews or a press conference would make more trouble for herself.
    That same afternoon on the plane back to New York, she broke down and vomited, she would remember. Regrettably, she had been forced to take the Fifth, but she had not named names, and that was a victory of sorts. An even bigger surprise was getting off without being prosecuted. Did her sex save her?
    Although Martin Berkeley swore Dottie was present at the organization meeting of the Hollywood Communist Party, HUAC failed to subpoena her. Neither did they bother to call Alan Campbell, who was viewed by the government as nothing more than a bystander and thus not worth questioning. Several years earlier, Dottie had divorced Alan who remained in England after the war because of another woman. By the time he made his way home in 1946, tail between his legs, she rejected the possibility of reconciliation. Nothing remained of either their marriage or their professional collaboration, and Alan would not share her Oscar nomination for Smash-Up .
    Living without Alan proved more difficult than expected, and so in 1950 she took an unusual step, one that horrified Lilly. “Her husband was a pip-squeak, but she saw fit to remarry him.” 61 The decision was, in some respects, predictable, a case of not being able to live together or apart. The ceremony took place in Hollywood, where Alan was trying to get work at the studios. Mainly, he scraped out a living from income as one of the original investors in the musical South Pacific , directed by his friend Joshua Logan. Lilly’s skepticism turned out to be realistic because the second marriage didn’t work either. Dottie quietly retreated to New York after just a few months and moved into the Volney, a residence hotel on East Seventy-fourth