Of Jewish-Scottish heritage, Alan Campbell parlayed his good looks and Southern charm into a stage career, beginning with the Eva LeGallienne repertory company. By 1928, Campbell was a Broadway leading man, playing Laurette Taylor's son in The Furies. He began writing humorous articles on a variety of subjects for such tony publications as The New Yorker in the 1930s. This more than anything else brought him to the attention of famed essayist and acerbic wit Dorothy Parker, eleven years his senior. Campbell and Parker were attracted to each other almost immediately, and in 1934 they were wed. In 1933, the year before their marriage, the couple was wooed to Paramount studios with a joint screenwriting salary of $5000 per month. Their collaborative Hollywood efforts included Selznick's A Star is Born (1937) for which they shared an Oscar nomination. The couple was divorced in 1942, whereupon Campbell entered the military. But the spark had not been extinguished, and in 1950 Campbell and Parker remarried; this time, however, the union came to an acrimonious end after a single year. In 1962, the couple once more tried to make a go of their relationship, and incidentally to revive their flagging careers by collaborating on a script for Marilyn Monroe (which, alas, was never filmed). Alan Campbell died of a barbiturate overdose at the age of 59; though the coroner's verdict was "probable suicide," none of Campbell's intimates -- not even Dorothy Parker -- believed that he could ever have hated himself enough to end it all.
by Hal Erickson
biography
