Doris Parker, 77, widow of Charlie Parker
T.E. Goodell
Doris Parker, widow of the jazz saxophonist Charlie (Bird) Parker, who
used his memory to fight drug addiction, died on Monday in Manhattan.
She was 77 and lived in Manhattan.
She died of respiratory failure, said a friend, Sarah Morgan.
Mrs. Parker was the third wife of Charlie Parker, the bebop innovator,
who died in 1955 at 34, his life cut short by alcohol and drug use.
They were married in 1948 and separated in 1950. (Parker considered Chan
Parker, who died last year, his fourth wife, but a spokesman for his
estate said they were not legally married.)
Doris June Sydnor Parker was born on Aug. 16, 1922, in Rock Island,
Ill. She came to New York at 22.
At six feet tall, she became a striking figure as a hat-check girl at
the Three Deuces, a West 52nd Street nightclub, where she met Charlie
Parker in 1945. They began living together in 1946.
When Parker, a heroin addict since his teenage years, spent six months
in a California mental hospital in 1947, she moved to Los Angeles to
visit and care for him. They were married in 1948 in Tijuana, Mexico,
while Parker was on a West Coast tour with the Jazz at the Philharmonic
concert series.
After his death, Mrs. Parker worked for 25 years as a secretary for
Columbia University. She also had a long career as a community activist,
working with groups like the Northwest Central Park Multiblock
Association and the Federation of West Side Block
Associations.
She also founded the Charlie Parker record label.
In 1989, she organized the first Evening with Friends of Charlie
Parker. These benefits, at which associates of her husband like Max
Roach and Dizzy Gillespie performed without pay, became annual events to
raise money for Veritas, a drug rehabilitation program on the Upper West
Side.
"Maybe,' Mrs. Parker said of her husband in 1993, "he'll be remembered
as not just the most famous junkie of his time."
No immediate family members survive.
seddy
"T.E. Goodell" <tgoo...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000119194321...@ng-fo1.aol.com...
Felix Badde
radioacti...@gmail.com
I realize it's odd and inconsequential, but I wonder--"worry" is too strong a word--about these things.
BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
A Friend
> Which raises this question: when a fellow dies who's been married say, five
> times, are those surviving ex-wives each considered widows too, or only the
> final one? And if he divorced HER too and thus died single, is even Wife #5
> a widow, strictly speaking?
whose ex-husband is dead. She is only a widow if she is married when
the husband dies."
https://www.quora.com/If-a-divorced-spouse-dies-can-the-remaining-ex-spo
use-be-considered-a-widow-er
radioacti...@gmail.com
STYBLE/Florida
Thomas Joseph
> Which raises this question: when a fellow dies who's been married say, five times, are those surviving ex-wives each considered widows too, or only the final one? And if he divorced HER too and thus died single, is even Wife #5 a widow, strictly speaking?
>
> I realize it's odd and inconsequential, but I wonder--"worry" is too strong a word--about these things.
have gathered for the reading. "How much, how much?", was all they
could say. The will is read and says if any of the 3 want the money
bad enough they will have to fight for it. Not one on one either. All
at once. A bash for the cash. To to death by the way.
The report on the death of Davis's wife was interesting only
because it's interesting how the chain works, how being related
to someone, even through marriage, makes a person a celebrity
somehow. Like so what if Miles Davis's wife died? Sounds like
she's playing her cards. That's it these days, starting a foundation
or other "non profit" that benefits no one but the people behind it.
As for the wives - 5 of them in your scenario - I think the one to
marry the guy first deserves the most cash because she was
the first to take the chance. She opened the doors for others.
She paved the way. She was a pioneer. Give the bitch da money.
Thomas Joseph
an island' thing. I knew a guy who died last week who was
friends with a guy who knew the second cousin of a guy
who knew a guy who went to school with a guy who later
played in the band of the artist formerly known as prince.
What I want to know is where do I fit into all of this and
when do I get my share? Sure, I'm far down on the chain
of sorrow. Those who knew the great man personally
deserve more, of course. I am not seeking to compete
with them, only to receive proper compensation for the
sorrow and pain caused by my friend's death.