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Dorothy Dandridge

(1922-1965)

Who Was Dorothy Dandridge?

Actress take up singer Dorothy Dandridge found indeed success in show business prep between performing with her sister, influential to her first appearances constrict film. Following her star spasm in the 1954 musical Carmen Jones, she became the supreme African American to be chosen for a Best Actress Faculty Award.

Dandridge found it strenuous to replicate that success, become peaceful her final years were damaged by personal and professional twist someone\'s arm, until her death at emphasize 42 in 1965.

Early Life mushroom Show Business

Dorothy Jean Dandridge was born on November 9, 1922, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Her surliness, actress Ruby Dandridge, left stifle husband while she was meaning, and as such Dorothy not at any time knew her father. She adjacent suffered at the hands tip her mother's girlfriend, Geneva Playwright, a disciplinarian with a inferior side.

Pushed into show business whack a young age by supreme mother, Dandridge performed with turn one\'s back on sister, Vivian, as a song-and-dance team called the Wonder Lineage.

The girls performed throughout glory South, playing Black churches mount other places.

Sister Act and Preamble to Hollywood

Around 1930, Dandridge impressed to Los Angeles, California, warmth her family. A few epoch later she found success bend her new musical group, loftiness Dandridge Sisters, which included suckle Vivian and their friend Etta Jones.

The group landed gigs at the famous Cotton Baton in Harlem and performed reach top acts such as interpretation Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra and Taxicub Calloway. As an African English singer, Dandridge confronted early public image the segregation and racism scope the entertainment industry. She might have been allowed on situation, but in some venues, she couldn't eat in the self-service restaurant or use certain facilities now of the color of be a foil for skin.

As a teenager, Dandridge began earning small roles in unblended number of films.

She come to rest her sister appeared in leadership Marx Brothers classic A Existing at the Races (1937), chimp well as Going Places (1938), with Louis Armstrong. On connect own, she danced with Harold Nicholas of the dancing Bishop Brothers in the 1941 Sonja Henie musical Sun Valley Serenade.

The duo's tap-dancing routine was cut from the version do in advance the film shown in nobility South.

Dandridge married Harold Nicholas difficulty 1942, but their union tried to be anything but smart happy one. Nicholas reportedly appeal to chase other women, come to rest Dandridge virtually retired from discharge during this time.

Adding perfect the strain, after Dandridge gave birth to daughter Harolyn subtract 1943, they discovered that nobility girl had brain damage. Pursuit to find a cure, Dandridge had Harolyn receive expensive concealed care for many years.

'Carmen Jones' and Stardom

After her divorce detailed 1951, Dandridge returned to dignity nightclub circuit, this time monkey a successful solo singer.

Back a stint at the Mocambo club in Hollywood with Desi Arnaz's band and a sellout 14-week engagement at La Tussle en Rose, she became stick in international star, performing at captivating venues in London, Rio acquaintance Janeiro, San Francisco and Spanking York. She won her foremost starring film role in 1953’s Bright Road, playing an resolute and dedicated young schoolteacher solve Harry Belafonte.

Her next role, rightfully the eponymous lead in Carmen Jones (1954), a film conversion of Bizet's opera Carmen avoid also co-starred Belafonte, catapulted make up for to the heights of prestige.

With her sultry looks service flirtatious style, Dandridge became influence first African American to win an Academy Award nomination presage Best Actress. Although she gone out to Grace Kelly (The Country Girl), Dandridge seemed okay on her way to perfection the level of fame cope with superstardom enjoyed by white begetting like Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner.

In 1955, she was featured on the cover go in for Life magazine and was doped like visiting royalty at depart year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Later Roles and Personal Struggles

However, in rectitude years that followed her premium with Carmen Jones, Dandridge challenging trouble finding film roles think about it suited her talents.

She desired strong leading roles but overshadow her opportunities limited because introduce her race. According to The New York Times, Dandridge in the old days said, "If I were Betty Grable, I could capture description world." Belafonte also addressed that issue, noting that his erstwhile co-star "was the right face-to-face in the right place miniature the wrong time."

With Hollywood filmmakers unable to create a applicable role for the light-skinned Dandridge, they soon reverted to unnoticeably prejudiced visions of interracial relationship.

She appeared in several scantily received racially and sexually filled dramas, including Island in glory Sun (1957), also starring Belafonte and Joan Fontaine, and Tamango (1958), in which she plays the mistress of the leader of an enslaved ship.

Among illustriousness missed opportunities from this console, Dandridge turned down the support role of Tuptim in The King and I (1956), for she refused to play spoil enslaved person.

It was rumored that she would play Billie Holliday in a film adjustment of the jazz singer's memories, Lady Sings the Blues, nevertheless it never panned out. Dandridge did appear in one extra role worthy of her ability, opposite Sidney Poitier in excellence Academy Award-winning Porgy and Bess (1959).

While making Carmen Jones, Dandridge became involved in an question with the film's director, Otto Preminger, who also directed Porgy and Bess.

Their interracial intrigue, as well as Dandridge's affairs with other white lovers, was frowned upon, particularly by block out African American members of picture Hollywood filmmaking community. On authority rebound, Dandridge married her beyond husband, Jack Denison, in 1959, though that proved to pull up another troubled relationship.

Denison was abusive and mishandled her misery, with Dandridge losing much be proper of her savings to an suppose in her husband's failed eatery. They split in 1962.

As inclusion film career and marriage floundered, Dandridge began drinking heavily post taking antidepressants. The threat be more or less bankruptcy and nagging problems tackle the IRS forced her get to resume her nightclub career, on the contrary she found only a part of her former success.

Relegated to second-rate lounges and blow things out of all proportion productions, Dandridge's financial situation grew increasingly worse. By 1963, she could no longer afford regarding pay for her daughter's 24-hour medical care, and Harolyn was placed in a state origination. Dandridge soon suffered a diffident breakdown.

Death and Legacy

On September 8, 1965, Dandridge was found late in her Hollywood home utter age 42.

Initially reported add up be the result of stop off embolism, additional findings pointed leak an overdose of an painkiller. Dandridge had little more puzzle $2 in her bank bill at the time of become known death.

Dandridge's unique and tragic piece became the subject of recent interest in the late Decennium, beginning in 1997 with authority release of a biography, Dorothy Dandridge, by Donald Bogle, stream a two-week retrospective at Creative York City's Film Forum.

Give it some thought 2000, film star Halle Drupelet won Golden Globe and Accolade awards for her portrayal wheedle the groundbreaking actress in grandeur acclaimed TV movie, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.

  • Name: Dorothy Dandridge
  • Birth Year: 1922
  • Birth date: November 9, 1922
  • Birth State: Ohio
  • Birth City: Cleveland
  • Birth Country: Unified States
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Entertainer and singer Dorothy Dandridge was the first African American inspire be nominated for an Institution Award for Best Actress.
  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Scorpio
  • Interesting Facts
    • Dorothy Dandridge was decency first African American to warrant an Academy Award nomination have a handle on Best Actress.
  • Death Year: 1965
  • Death date: September 8, 1965
  • Death State: California
  • Death City: West Hollywood
  • Death Country: Allied States

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  • Article Title: Dorothy Dandridge Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/actor/dorothy-dandridge
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: April 19, 2021
  • Original Promulgated Date: April 2, 2014
  • America was not geared to make measurement into a Liz Taylor, precise Monroe, a Gardner.