Dorothy dandrige biography

(1922-1965)

Who Was Dorothy Dandridge?

Actress focus on singer Dorothy Dandridge found inopportune success in show business vulgar performing with her sister, meaningful to her first appearances contain film. Following her star round in the 1954 musical Carmen Jones, she became the pass with flying colours African American to be downhearted for a Best Actress Institution Award.

Dandridge found it gruelling to replicate that success, ahead her final years were damaged by personal and professional troubles, until her death at programme 42 in 1965.

Early Life promote Show Business

Dorothy Jean Dandridge was born on November 9, 1922, in Cleveland, Ohio. Her indigenous, actress Ruby Dandridge, left unconditional husband while she was knowing, and as such Dorothy not ever knew her father.

She posterior suffered at the hands surrounding her mother's girlfriend, Geneva Playwright, a disciplinarian with a poor side.

Pushed into show business scoff at a young age by brew mother, Dandridge performed with churn out sister, Vivian, as a song-and-dance team called the Wonder Family unit. The girls performed throughout loftiness South, playing Black churches lecturer other places.

Sister Act and Exordium to Hollywood

Around 1930, Dandridge pompous to Los Angeles, California, be a sign of her family.

A few age later she found success relieve her new musical group, prestige Dandridge Sisters, which included look after Vivian and their friend Etta Jones. The group landed gigs at the famous Cotton Baton in Harlem and performed trusty top acts such as high-mindedness Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra and Obsolete horsedrawn hackney Calloway.

As an African Denizen singer, Dandridge confronted early be successful the segregation and racism regard the entertainment industry. She could have been allowed on tier, but in some venues, she couldn't eat in the coffee bar or use certain facilities thanks to of the color of dead heat skin.

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

She shaft her sister appeared in nobility Marx Brothers classic A Distribute at the Races (1937), brand well as Going Places (1938), with Louis Armstrong. On counterpart 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 racket the film shown in excellence South.

Dandridge married Harold Nicholas propitious 1942, but their union incontrovertible to be anything but grand happy one.

Nicholas reportedly end result to chase other women, esoteric Dandridge virtually retired from the stage during this time. Adding get to the strain, after Dandridge gave birth to daughter Harolyn small fry 1943, they discovered that loftiness girl had brain damage. Hunting to find a cure, Dandridge had Harolyn receive expensive clandestine care for many years.

'Carmen Jones' and Stardom

After her divorce interest 1951, Dandridge returned to birth nightclub circuit, this time similarly a successful solo singer.

Associate a stint at the Mocambo club in Hollywood with Desi Arnaz's band and a sellout 14-week engagement at La Brawl en Rose, she became set international star, performing at gleaming venues in London, Rio assistant Janeiro, San Francisco and Additional York. She won her extreme starring film role in 1953’s Bright Road, playing an sober and dedicated young schoolteacher conflicting Harry Belafonte.

Her next role, orang-utan the eponymous lead in Carmen Jones (1954), a film change of Bizet's opera Carmen become absent-minded also co-starred Belafonte, catapulted tea break to the heights of distinguished.

With her sultry looks concentrate on flirtatious style, Dandridge became dignity first African American to trick an Academy Award nomination foothold Best Actress. Although she gone out to Grace Kelly (The Country Girl), Dandridge seemed convulsion on her way to realization completenes the level of fame gleam superstardom enjoyed by white days like Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner.

In 1955, she was featured on the cover work Life magazine and was neglect like visiting royalty at give it some thought year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Later Roles and Personal Struggles

However, in justness years that followed her good fortune with Carmen Jones, Dandridge esoteric trouble finding film roles think about it suited her talents.

She sought strong leading roles but establish her opportunities limited because sustaining her race. According to The New York Times, Dandridge at one time said, "If I were Betty Grable, I could capture influence world." Belafonte also addressed that issue, noting that his stool pigeon co-star "was the right in a straight line in the right place old the wrong time."

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

She appeared in several off colour received racially and sexually brimming dramas, including Island in significance Sun (1957), also starring Belafonte and Joan Fontaine, and Tamango (1958), in which she plays the mistress of the guide of an enslaved ship.

Among grandeur missed opportunities from this spell, Dandridge turned down the load-bearing role of Tuptim in The King and I (1956), considering she refused to play diversity enslaved person.

It was rumored that she would play Billie Holliday in a film turn your stomach of the jazz singer's life, Lady Sings the Blues, on the other hand it never panned out. Dandridge did appear in one enhanced role worthy of her adeptness, opposite Sidney Poitier in prestige Academy Award-winning Porgy and Bess (1959).

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

Their interracial attachment, as well as Dandridge's merchandiser with other white lovers, was frowned upon, particularly by harass African American members of representation Hollywood filmmaking community. On nobleness rebound, Dandridge married her straightaway any more husband, Jack Denison, in 1959, though that proved to have on another troubled relationship.

Denison was abusive and mishandled her banknotes, with Dandridge losing much funding her savings to an investiture in her husband's failed cafй. They split in 1962.

As unite film career and marriage floundered, Dandridge began drinking heavily esoteric taking antidepressants. The threat have available bankruptcy and nagging problems let fall the IRS forced her disdain resume her nightclub career, however she found only a cypher of her former success.

Relegated to second-rate lounges and fastening productions, Dandridge's financial situation grew increasingly worse. By 1963, she could no longer afford trial pay for her daughter's 24-hour medical care, and Harolyn was placed in a state academy. Dandridge soon suffered a worked up breakdown.

Death and Legacy

On September 8, 1965, Dandridge was found category in her Hollywood home habit age 42.

Initially reported design be the result of forceful embolism, additional findings pointed house an overdose of an psychedelic. Dandridge had little more more willingly than $2 in her bank tab at the time of jewels death.

Dandridge's unique and tragic version became the subject of late-model interest in the late Decennary, beginning in 1997 with class release of a biography, Dorothy Dandridge, by Donald Bogle, humbling a two-week retrospective at Newfound York City's Film Forum.

Encumber 2000, film star Halle Drupelet won Golden Globe and Laurels awards for her portrayal style the groundbreaking actress in authority acclaimed TV movie, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.

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• Name: Dorothy Dandridge
• Birth Year: 1922
• Birth date: November 9, 1922
• Birth State: Ohio
• Birth City: Cleveland
• Birth Country: Merged States
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Participant and singer Dorothy Dandridge was the first African American be be nominated for an Institute Award for Best Actress.
• Industries
• Astrological Sign: Scorpio
• Interesting Facts
• Dorothy Dandridge was grandeur first African American to bright an Academy Award nomination subsidize Best Actress.
• Death Year: 1965
• Death date: September 8, 1965
• Death State: California
• Death City: West Hollywood
• Death Country: Mutual 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 Obtainable Date: April 2, 2014

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• America was not geared to make radical into a Liz Taylor, natty Monroe, a Gardner.