n The dame hailed as the wittiest woman in America was a complicated character. The multi- layered Parker was a revolving door of lacerating wit, vulnerable drunk, champion socialite, and self-destructive writer. One facet stuck when Parker died aged 73 in a squalid New York hotel room, from a coronary.

n While the wit was still being stung, Parker managed to pack in a tumultuous personal life. Surviving two suicide attempts, one abortion, and one miscarriage, she outlived two husbands - one of whom she married twice - and still had time for numerous smithereen-smashing heartbreak affairs. This may have contributed to the cynical veneer coating most of her writing concerning the terrain of relationships.

n Dottie Parker wobbled to fame as the leader of a New York literary clique of the 1920s and 1930s. This waspish crowd met at the Round Table in the Algonquin Hotel on West 44th Street, conveniently located across from the New Yorker magazine. Among her Martini-quaffing playmates was long-term pal Robert Benchley, the root of many of her emotional outpourings.

n One contemporary humorist, SJ Perelman, described Parker as a memorable vision: ''Thirty-nine years old and a very toothsome dish, she immediately made every other woman in the assemblage feel dowdy, and for a moment the sound of their teeth gnashing drowned out the buzz of chit-chat''.

n Choice cuts from the scalpel tongue of Parker include the following: ''You can't teach an old dogma new tricks''; ''One more drink and I'll be under the host''; ''Brevity is the soul of lingerie''. Any fool stupid enough to mess with the best was dealt a pithy putdown. Witness the scene when one young airhead starlet let Ms Parker walk ahead of her into a room hissing: ''Age before beauty''. Without missing a beat our woman responded: ''Thank you, my dear. Pearls before swine''. Ouch!

n Dorothy Parker's story Dusk Before Fireworks is featured in the film Women and Men: Three Stories Of Seduction. (C4, 10.00pm)