Dandridge, Dorothy

c. November 1923
September 8, 1965

The daughter of a minister and a stage entertainer, the actor and singer Dorothy Dandridge was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was groomed for a stage career by her mother, Ruby Dandridge, who separated from her husband and began touring the country as a performer shortly after Dorothy, her second daughter, was born. While still a child, Dandridge sang, danced, and did comedy skits as part of her mother's show. When their mother settled in Los Angeles, she and her older sister, Vivian—together they had been billed as "The Wonder Kids"—attended school and appeared in bit parts in films, including the Marx Brothers comedy A Day at the Races (1937). During the 1940s, Dorothy and Vivian joined with another young African-American woman, Etta Jones, to form an act called "The Dandridge Sisters," and the three embarked on a tour with the Jimmie Lunceford band. Dandridge met her first husband, Harold Nicholas (of the Nicholas Brothers dancing team), while she was performing at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A brain-damaged daughter, Harolyn, was born to the couple before they divorced.

During this time, Dandridge managed to secure a few minor Hollywood roles, appearing in such films as Drums of the Congo (1942), The Hit Parade of 1943 (1943), Moo Cow Boogie (1943), Atlantic City (1944), Pillow to Post (1946), and Flamingo (1947). The early 1950s witnessed the flowering of her movie career, as she acquired leading roles in the low-budget films Tarzan's Perils, The Harlem Globe-Trotters, and Jungle Queen (all made in 1951). Dandridge, who was exceptionally beautiful, worked actively at cultivating a cosmopolitan, transracial persona, brimming with sexual allure. She also became increasingly well known as a nightclub singer. Indeed, Dandridge's performances at New York's La Vie En Rose in 1952 were in such demand that the club—then on the brink of bankruptcy—was saved from financial collapse. She was one of the first African Americans to perform at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room, and she appeared at such prestigious clubs as Ciro's (Los Angeles), the Cafe de Paris (London), the Copacabana (Rio de Janeiro), and the Chi Chi (Palm Springs).

Dandridge's big break as a motion picture actress came in 1954, when she secured the title role in Otto Preminger's all-black production Carmen Jones, a role for which she became the first black actor to be nominated for an Oscar for a performance a leading role. That she had achieved celebrity stature was evidenced by her appearances on the cover of Life, as well as in feature articles in other national and international magazines. However, three years were to pass before Dandridge made another film, largely because, in racist Hollywood, she was not offered roles commensurate with her talent and beauty, and she felt she could no longer settle for less. Her next film, Island in the Sun (1957), was the first to feature an interracial romance (between Dandridge and white actor John Justin); the film was poorly received, however, as were The Decks Ran Red (1958), Tamango (1959), and Malaga (1962), all of which touched on interracial themes. Although Dandridge won acclaim in 1959 for her portrayal of Bess (opposite Sidney Poitier) in Otto Preminger's film of Porgy and Bess, she received fewer and fewer film and nightclub offers as time passed. After divorcing her second husband, the white restaurant-owner Jack Dennison, she was forced to file for bankruptcy and lost her Hollywood mansion. Her sudden death in 1965 was attributed to an overdose of antidepressants; she was forty-one years old. Dandridge's autobiography, Everything and Nothing, was published posthumously in 1970; in 1977, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. In 1999, a film biography of her life, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, starring Halle Berry, was produced for television by HBO Pictures.

See also Film in the United States; Poitier, Sidney

Bibliography

Bogle, Donald. Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography. New York: Amistad, 1997.

Dandridge, Dorothy, and Earl Conrad. Everything and Nothing: The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1970.

Sylvester Melvin R. "Dorothy Dandridge: The Tragic Life of an Actress Called the Dream Goddess." Available from <http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/african/movies.htm>.

Schoell, William. Heartbreaker: The Dorothy Dandridge Story. Greensboro, N.C.: Avisson Press (Avisson Young Adult Series), 2002.

pamela wilkinson (1996)
Updated bibliography