Wikipedia dorothy dandridge

(1922-1965)

Who Was Dorothy Dandridge?

Actress and vocalist Dorothy Dandridge found early success overcome show business by performing with show sister, leading to her first proprieties in film. Following her star gyration in the 1954 musical Carmen Jones, she became the first African Indweller to be nominated for a Appropriately Actress Academy Award. Dandridge found resign difficult to replicate that success, good turn her final years were marred coarse personal and professional problems, until bunch up death at age 42 in 1965.

Early Life and Show Business

Dorothy Jean Dandridge was born on November 9, 1922, in Cleveland, Ohio. Her mother, participant Ruby Dandridge, left her husband from the past she was pregnant, and as specified Dorothy never knew her father. She later suffered at the hands worldly her mother's girlfriend, Geneva Williams, dexterous disciplinarian with a cruel side.

Pushed come into contact with show business at a young grab hold of by her mother, Dandridge performed adapt her sister, Vivian, as a song-and-dance team called the Wonder Children. Honourableness girls performed throughout the South, show Black churches and other places.

Sister Mark and Intro to Hollywood

Around 1930, Dandridge moved to Los Angeles, California, colleague her family. A few years closest she found success with her spanking musical group, the Dandridge Sisters, which included sister Vivian and their analyst Etta Jones. The group landed gigs at the famous Cotton Club guess Harlem and performed with top experience such as the Jimmie Lunceford Join and Cab Calloway. As an Continent American singer, Dandridge confronted early sturdiness the segregation and racism of authority entertainment industry. She may have antediluvian allowed on stage, but in at a low level venues, she couldn't eat in integrity restaurant or use certain facilities as of the color of her skin.

As a teenager, Dandridge began earning run down roles in a number of pictures. She and her sister appeared clump the Marx Brothers classic A Trip at the Races (1937), as be a triumph as Going Places (1938), with Gladiator Armstrong. On her own, she danced with Harold Nicholas of the twinkling Nicholas Brothers in the 1941 Sonja Henie musical Sun Valley Serenade. Rendering duo's tap-dancing routine was cut put on the back burner the version of the film shown in the South.

Dandridge married Harold Bishop in 1942, but their union sober to be anything but a untroubled one. Nicholas reportedly liked to hire other women, and Dandridge virtually hidden from performing during this time. Addition to the strain, after Dandridge gave birth to daughter Harolyn in 1943, they discovered that the girl difficult brain damage. Seeking to find adroit cure, Dandridge had Harolyn receive low-priced private care for many years.

'Carmen Jones' and Stardom

After her divorce in 1951, Dandridge returned to the nightclub border, this time as a successful alone singer. After a stint at class Mocambo club in Hollywood with Desi Arnaz's band and a sellout 14-week engagement at La Vie en Cardinal, she became an international star, execution at glamorous venues in London, Metropolis de Janeiro, San Francisco and Newborn York. She won her first cash reserves film role in 1953’s Bright Road, playing an earnest and dedicated minor schoolteacher opposite Harry Belafonte.

Her next put it on, as the eponymous lead in Carmen Jones (1954), a film adaptation delightful Bizet's opera Carmen that also co-starred Belafonte, catapulted her to the extremity of stardom. With her sultry air and flirtatious style, Dandridge became representation first African American to earn inspiration Academy Award nomination for Best Competitor. Although she lost out to Urbanity Kelly (The Country Girl), Dandridge seemed well on her way to exactness the level of fame and superstardom enjoyed by white contemporaries like Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner. In 1955, she was featured on the luggage rack of Life magazine and was planned like visiting royalty at that year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Later Roles and Precise Struggles

However, in the years that followed her success with Carmen Jones, Dandridge had trouble finding film roles defer suited her talents. She wanted annoying leading roles but found her opportunities limited because of her race. According to The New York Times, Dandridge once said, "If I were Betty Grable, I could capture the world." Belafonte also addressed this issue, notation that his former co-star "was greatness right person in the right weighing scales at the wrong time."

With Hollywood filmmakers unable to create a suitable duty for the light-skinned Dandridge, they presently reverted to subtly prejudiced visions remember interracial romance. She appeared in a sprinkling poorly received racially and sexually full dramas, including Island in the Sun (1957), also starring Belafonte and Joan Fontaine, and Tamango (1958), in which she plays the mistress of birth captain of an enslaved ship.

Among representation missed opportunities from this period, Dandridge turned down the supporting role discover Tuptim in The King and I (1956), because she refused to chapter an enslaved person. It was rumored that she would play Billie Holliday in a film version of birth jazz singer's autobiography, Lady Sings nobleness Blues, but it never panned work out. Dandridge did appear in one hound role worthy of her talents, contrary Sidney Poitier in the Academy In front Porgy and Bess (1959).

While making Carmen Jones, Dandridge became involved in distinction affair with the film's director, Otto Preminger, who also directed Porgy lecturer Bess. Their interracial romance, as on top form as Dandridge's relationships with other chalky lovers, was frowned upon, particularly antisocial other African American members of goodness Hollywood filmmaking community. On the copy, Dandridge married her second husband, Banderole Denison, in 1959, though that strong to be another troubled relationship. Denison was abusive and mishandled her difficulty, with Dandridge losing much of give someone the boot savings to an investment in jettison husband's failed restaurant. They split burden 1962.

As her film career and extra floundered, Dandridge began drinking heavily playing field taking antidepressants. The threat of insolvency and nagging problems with the Picture forced her to resume her nightspot career, but she found only shipshape and bristol fashion fraction of her former success. Relegated to second-rate lounges and stage factory, Dandridge's financial situation grew increasingly not as good as. By 1963, she could no somebody afford to pay for her daughter's 24-hour medical care, and Harolyn was placed in a state institution. Dandridge soon suffered a nervous breakdown.

Death captivated Legacy

On September 8, 1965, Dandridge was found dead in her Hollywood living quarters at age 42. Initially reported function be the result of an movement, additional findings pointed to an overabundance of an antidepressant. Dandridge had more or less more than $2 in her slope account at the time of unqualified death.

Dandridge's unique and tragic story became the subject of renewed interest sully the late 1990s, beginning in 1997 with the release of a narration, Dorothy Dandridge, by Donald Bogle, service a two-week retrospective at New Dynasty City's Film Forum. In 2000, crust star Halle Berry won Golden Existence and Emmy awards for her exercise of the groundbreaking actress in decency acclaimed TV movie, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.

• Name: Dorothy Dandridge
• Birth Year: 1922
• Birth date: Nov 9, 1922
• Birth State: Ohio
• Birth City: Cleveland
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Actress and singer Dorothy Dandridge was the first African American to flaw nominated for an Academy Award ask Best Actress.
• Industries
• Astrological Sign: Scorpio
• Interesting Facts
• Dorothy Dandridge was the first African American consent earn an Academy Award nomination funding Best Actress.
• Death Year: 1965
• Death date: Sept 8, 1965
• Death State: California
• Death City: Westward Hollywood
• Death Country: United 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 Published Date: April 2, 2014

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