PRO-UNION CARD
Bravo to Alair MacLean and Christine Triano for their article about the political life of Dorothy Parker not portrayed in Alan Rudolph’s film “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle” (Film Clips, Jan. 22).
To most animation artists, Dorothy Parker was our angel of unionism, encouraging, giving support, an “elitist” unashamedly on the side of the average working stiff.
Her address to the meeting of the Disney union artists at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel shortly before their strike in 1941 is still cherished and reprinted.
I do not fault Rudolph’s film for skipping this part of Mrs. Parker’s life in his film. It was probably the best script he could get approved. For all those who believe Hollywood is a den of liberalism, try and get a film about Joe Hill or any pro-union theme made. The union activism of celebrities like John Garfield, Boris Karloff, James Cagney and Groucho Marx are loudly ignored. We’ll see in this year of World War II anniversaries if anyone will bother to note the 50th anniversary of the violent Hollywood strikes of 1945.
MacLean and Triano have done a service to lift the image of Dorothy Parker from dysfunctional drunk to champion of worker and human rights.
TOM SITO
President, Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists, Local 839, IATSE
North Hollywood
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