[Eoscstudents] Black History

Mon Feb 19 10:58:21 CST 2007

Good Morning:

Today in the foyer of the Student Union, in front of the East Cafeteria 
- Brenton Duncan, will be showing videos related to Black History.  If 
you have some time please drop by.

Today our spotlight is on:
Dandridge, Dorothy (1922-1965)
Biography
Singer, actress. Born November 9, 1922, in Cleveland, Ohio. Dandridge's 
mother, the actress Ruby Dandridge, urged her two young daughters into 
show business in the 1930s, when they performed as a song-and-dance team 
billed as "The Wonder Children." Dandridge left high school in the late 
1930s and formed the Dandridge Sisters trio with her sister Vivian and 
Etta James. They performed with the Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra and at the 
famous Cotton Club in Harlem, where Dandridge--who had a mixed racial 
heritage--early on confronted the segregation and racism of the 
entertainment industry.

As a teenager, Dandridge began to appear in small roles in a number of 
films, including the Marx Brothers film A Day at the Races (1937) and 
Drums of the Congo (1942). In 1945, she married Harold Nicholas of the 
dancing Nicholas Brothers (with whom she performed in the 1941 Sonja 
Henie musical Sun Valley Serenade); during their turbulent six-year 
marriage, Dandridge virtually retired from performing. A daughter, 
Harolyn, was born with severe brain damage in 1943; as Dandridge was 
unable to raise her herself, she placed the girl in foster care.

After her divorce in 1951, Dandridge returned to the nightclub circuit, 
this time as a successful solo singer. After a stint at the Mocambo club 
in Hollywood with Desi Arnaz's band and a sell-out 14-week engagement at 
La Vie en Rose, she became an international star, performing at 
glamorous venues in London, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, and New York. 
She won her first starring film role in 1953's Bright Road, playing an 
earnest and dedicated young schoolteacher opposite Harry Belafonte.

Her next role, as the eponymous lead in Carmen Jones (1954)--a film 
adaptation of Bizet's opera Carmen that also costarred 
Belafonte--catapulted her to the heights of stardom. With her sultry 
looks and flirtatious style, Dandridge became the first African-American 
to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Though many 
believed she deserved to win, Dandridge eventually lost the award to 
Grace Kelly (The Country Girl). Still, after the phenomenal success of 
Carmen Jones, Dandridge seemed well on her way to becoming the first 
non-white actress to achieve the kind of superstardom that had accrued 
to contemporaries like Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner. In 1955, she was 
featured on the cover of Life magazine, and was treated like visiting 
royalty at that year's Cannes Film Festival.

In the years that followed her success with Carmen Jones, however, 
Dandridge had trouble finding film roles that suited her talents. Her 
only other great film was 1959's Porgy and Bess, in which she played 
Bess opposite Sidney Poitier. She turned down the supporting role of 
Tuptim in The King and I because she refused to play a slave. It was 
rumored that she would play Billie Holliday in a film version of Lady 
Sings the Blues directed by Orson Welles, but it never panned out. In 
the racially disharmonious 1950s, Hollywood filmmakers could not seem to 
create a suitable role for the light-skinned Dandridge, and they soon 
reverted to subtly prejudiced visions of interracial romance. She 
appeared in several poorly received racially and sexually charged 
dramas, including Island in the Sun (1957), co-starring Belafonte and 
Joan Fontaine, Tamango (1959)--in which she played the mistress of the 
captain of a slave ship--and Malaga (1960).

While making Carmen Jones, Dandridge became involved in a heated, 
secretive affair with the film's director, Otto Preminger, who also 
directed Porgy and Bess. Their interracial romance, as well as 
Dandridge's relationships with other white lovers, was frowned upon, not 
in the least by other African-American members of the Hollywood 
filmmaking community. She married her second husband, Jack Denison, in 
1959, and lost the majority of her savings when his restaurant failed in 
1962. He left her soon after.

As her film career and marriage failed, Dandridge began drinking heavily 
and taking antidepressants. The threat of bankruptcy and nagging 
problems with the IRS forced her to resume her nightclub career, but she 
found only a fraction of her former success. Relegated to second-rate 
lounges and stage productions, Dandridge's financial situation grew 
worse and worse. By 1963, she could no longer 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. On September 
8, 1965, she was found dead in her Hollywood home, an apparent suicide 
from a drug overdose.

Her unique and tragic story became the subject of renewed interest in 
the late 1990s, beginning in 1997 with the release of a biography, 
Dorothy Dandridge, by Donald Bogle, and a two-week retrospective at New 
York City's Film Forum. In 1999, the actress Halle Berry won a Golden 
Globe for her portrayal of Dandridge in an acclaimed HBO movie, 
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.

Until Tomorrow....

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