Info For Y'all Dorothy Jean Dandridge: The Get-Go Dark Adult Woman To Hold Out Nominated For An University Accolade For Best Actress

Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress as well as pop singer, as well as was the firstly African American to live nominated for an Academy Award for best actress. She performed every bit a vocalist inwards venues such every bit the Nathan Featherston as well as the Apollo Theater. In 1954, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress as well as a BAFTA Award for Best Actress inwards a Leading Role for Carmen Jones, and, inwards 1959, was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress inwards a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Porgy as well as Bess. In 1999, she was the dependent land of the HBO biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. She has been recognized on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Dorothy Dandrige,famous dark actress

Born on Nov 9, 1922, inwards Cleveland, Ohio, Dorothy Dandridge sang at Harlem's Cotton Club as well as Apollo Theatre as well as became the firstly African-American adult woman to live nominated for an Academy Award for best actress. Many years passed earlier the mainstream amusement manufacture acknowledged Dandridge's legacy. In 1999, Halle Berry played Dandridge in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.

Dorothy Dandridge

Early Life

Born on Nov 9, 1922, inwards Cleveland, Ohio, Dorothy Dandridge sang at Harlem's famed Cotton Club as well as Apollo Theatre as well as became the firstly African-American adult woman to live nominated for an Academy Award for best actress. Her powerfulness to interruption novel reason for African American women inwards cinema has drawn comparisons betwixt her as well as baseball game great Jackie Robinson.

Dorothy Dandridge,Circa 1941, Jig inwards the jungle soundie

In her childhood, Dandridge experienced some difficulties. She never knew her father. Her mother, actress Ruby Dandridge, left her virile individual parent spell she was pregnant with Dorothy. Dandridge afterwards suffered at the hands of her mother's girlfriend, Geneva Williams. Williams was the displinarian inwards the line of piece of work solid unit of measurement as well as was known for beingness strict as well as vicious with Dandridge.

Dorothy Dandridge (right) sis Vivian, woman parent Ruby (upper left), as well as (mother’s companion) Geneva Williams

Dandridge was pushed into present concern at a immature historic menstruum yesteryear her mother. Dandridge performed with her sis Vivian for a fourth dimension every bit a song-and-dance squad billed every bit "The Wonder Children." The girls performed throughout the South, playing dark churches as well as other places.

Career Beginnings

In the 1930s (one source says 1929), Dandridge moved to Los Angeles, California, with her line of piece of work solid unit of measurement inwards search of stardom. She constitute some success with her musical trio, the Dandridge Sisters. The grouping included Dorothy, her sis Vivian as well as Etta Jones. They performed with the Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra and Cab Calloway. The duo fifty-fifty played gigs at the famous Cotton Club inwards Harlem. As an African American singer, Dandridge confronted early the segregation as well as racism of the amusement industry. She may have got allowed on stage, but inwards some venues she couldn't swallow inwards the eating house or job sure facilities because of the color of her skin.

Dandridge sisters

As a teenager, Dandridge began to appear inwards little roles inwards a number of films. She as well as her sis appeared in the Marx Brothers film A Day at the Races (1937). The Dandridge Sisters appeared in Going Places (1939) with Louis Armstrong. On her own, she danced with Harold Nicholas of the dancing Nicholas Brothers inwards the 1941 Sonja Henie musical Sun Valley Serenade. The duo's tap dancing routine was cutting from the version of the cinema shown inwards the South. She played an African princess in Drums of the Congo (1942).

That same year, she married Harold Nicholas. But their union proved to live anything but a happy one. During their turbulent marriage, Dandridge virtually retired from performing. Nicholas reportedly liked to chase other women. But her greatest heartbreak came inwards 1943 with the nascence of her firstly as well as only child. She was stuck dwelling line of piece of work solid lonely when she went into labor. Dandridge blamed her married adult man for their daughter's severe encephalon damage. Dandridge paid for their miss Harolyn to have individual care.

Dorothy Dandridge

International Stardom

After her divorce inwards 1951, Dandridge returned to the nightclub circuit, this fourth dimension every bit a successful solo singer. After a stint at the Mocambo lodge inwards Hollywood with Desi Arnaz's band as well as a sell-out 14-week appointment at La Vie en Rose, she became an international star, performing at glamorous venues inwards London, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, as well as New York. She won her firstly starring cinema role inwards 1953’s Bright Road,playing an earnest as well as dedicated immature schoolteacher opposite Harry Belafonte.

Dorothy Dandridge

Her side yesteryear side role, every bit the eponymous atomic number 82 in Carmen Jones (1954),a cinema adaptation of Bizet's opera Carmen that also costarred Belafonte, catapulted her to the heights of stardom. With her sultry looks as well as flirtatious style, Dandridge became the firstly African-American to earn an Academy Award nomination for best actress.

Dorothy Dandridge, Alan Napier, Edward Ashley-- Tarzan´s Peril

Though many believed she deserved to win, Dandridge eventually lost the honor to Grace Kelly (The Country Girl). Still, after the phenomenal success of Carmen Jones, Dandridge seemed good on her agency to becoming the firstly non-white actress to attain the form of superstardom that had accrued to contemporaries like Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner. In 1955, she was featured on the encompass of Life magazine, as well as was treated similar visiting royalty at that year’s Cannes Film Festival.

In the years that followed her success with Carmen Jones, however, Dandridge had problem finding cinema roles that suited her talents. She wanted strong leading roles, but she constitute her opportunities express because of her race. According to The New York Times, Dandridge 1 time said, "If I were Betty Grable, I could capture the world." HerCarmen Jones co-star also addressed this issue, maxim that Dandridge "was the right individual inwards the right identify at the incorrect time," according to the Boston Globe.

Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, as well as Pearl Bailey, stars of the 1954 cinema version of Oscar Hammerstein's Carmen Jones, an adaptation of the George Bizet's opera Carmen.

Besides Carmen Jones, Dandridge's only other neat cinema was 1959'sPorgy as well as Bess, inwards which she played Bess opposite Sidney Poitier. She turned downwardly the supporting role of Tuptim in The King as well as Ibecause she refused to play a slave. It was rumored that she would play Billie Holliday inwards a cinema version of Lady Sings the Blues directed by Orson Welles, but it never panned out.

Dorothy Dandridge as well as Harry Belafonte study the script for Bright Road

In the racially disharmonious 1950s, Hollywood filmmakers could non seem to create a suitable role for the light-skinned Dandridge, as well as they shortly reverted to subtly prejudiced visions of interracial romance. She appeared inwards several poorly received racially as well as sexually charged dramas, including Island inwards the Sun (1957), also starring Belafonte as well as Joan Fontaine; Tamango (1959), inwards which Dandridge plays the mistress of the captain of a slave ship; andMalaga (1960).

Rare photograph of Dorothy Dandridge & Martin Luther King Jr

Personal Struggles

While making Carmen Jones, Dandridge became involved inwards a heated, secretive affair with the film's director, Otto Preminger, who also directed Porgy as well as Bess. Their interracial romance, every bit good every bit Dandridge's relationships with other white lovers, was frowned upon, non inwards the to the lowest degree yesteryear other African-American members of the Hollywood filmmaking community.

Dorothy Dandridge with Harry Belafonte inwards Carmen Jones, 1954.

On the rebound, she married her 2nd husband, Jack Denison, inwards 1959, which proved to live some other troubled relationship. He was verbally abusive as well as mishandled her money. She lost much of her savings to bad investments, including Denison's restaurant, which failed inwards 1962. He left her shortly after.

Dorothy Dandridge

As her cinema career as well as union failed, Dandridge began drinking heavily as well as taking antidepressants. The threat of bankruptcy as well as nagging problems with the IRS forced her to resume her nightclub career,but she constitute only a fraction of her old success. Relegated to second-rate lounges as well as phase productions, Dandridge's fiscal province of affairs grew worse as well as worse. By 1963, she could no longer afford to pay for her daughter's 24-hour medical care, as well as Harolyn was placed inwards a solid reason institution. Dandridge shortly suffered a nervous breakdown.

Dorothy Dandridge as well as Alex Cassan inwards the painting present Tamango,1958

On September 8, 1965, Dorothy Dandridge was constitute dead inwards her Hollywood home. It was afterwards ruled that her expiry was caused yesteryear a barbiturate overdose. Dandridge had picayune to a greater extent than than $2 inwards her banking concern concern human relationship at the fourth dimension of her death.

Dorothy Dandridge with Harry Belafonte inwards Carmen Jones, 1954.

Dorothy Dandridge's unique as well as tragic story became the dependent land of renewed involvement inwards the belatedly 1990s, commencement inwards 1997 with the liberate of a biography, Dorothy Dandridge, yesteryear Donald Bogle, as well as a two-week retrospective at New York City's Film Forum. In 1999, actress Halle Berry won Golden Globe as well as Emmy awards for her portrayal of Dandridge inwards an acclaimed HBO movie, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.

Dorothy Dandridge as well as Brock Peters taste themselves during the filming of Carmen Jones

Source:http://www.biography.com/people/dorothy-dandridge-9542081?page=3

Dorothy as well as Nat King Cole

Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Dorothy Dandridge vs. The World

By Anne Helen Petersen | June 20, 2012

Dorothy Dandridge was a fighter. Growing upwardly inwards The Depression as well as making her agency through Hollywood inwards the ‘40s, she encountered resistance — to her peel color, to her refusal to play demeaning roles — at every turn. She was assailed inwards the press for dating white men, as well as blamed herself for her husband’s philandering as well as her daughter’s encephalon damage. Nearly every societal convention was against her. And yet she managed to brand a handful of gorgeous, invigorating films — films that offering a glimpse at the superstar she would have got move if the studios knew what to do with with a beautiful dark woman.

Her beauty was indeed phenomenal. She was called “the dark Marilyn Monroe” as well as had flawless, radiant peel the dark press referred to every bit “honey” as well as “cafe au lait.” And in that location was the sure agency she took ownership of a room, with a reverberating, confident express joy as well as fierce, dazzling eyes. But beingness a dark thespian inwards the 1950s meant playing savages, slaves, as well as mamies — debasing roles that Dandridge refused on principle. In the films where she did learn to play a a non-servant, non-exotic, non-savage, she was non allowed to do to a greater extent than than kiss, every bit the thought of a dark adult woman inwards love was altogether also unsafe for the screen. “If I were white,” Dandridge explained, “I would capture the world.”

Dandridge was born inwards 1922 to Ruby Dandridge, a performer as well as aspiring actress. Ruby had left Dorothy’s virile individual parent v months before, taking her other daughter, Vivian, with her. Both girls showed some sort of aptitude for functioning — or mayhap that aptitude was drilled into them — as well as 1 of Ruby’s friends, a adult woman named Geneva, moved inwards to aid refine their singing as well as dancing skills. Years later, Dorothy as well as Vivian would figure out that Geneva was much to a greater extent than than her mother’s friend, but at the moment, she only made them practise until they collapsed. Think wrist slaps as well as tears.

The girls became an human activity — “The Wonder Children” — as well as earned a spot with the National Baptist Convention touring churches throughout the South. This went on for 3 years, which sounds similar a whole lot of churching, but Dorothy as well as Vivian no longer looked precisely similar “children.” They added some other girl, Etta Jones, to the human activity as well as became “The Dandridge Sisters,” touring all over California as well as eventually landing a gig at The Cotton Club. In short, the Dandridge girls spent their youth beingness corrected yesteryear their exacting phase mother, performing for church building ladies, as well as receiving picayune to no schooling.

The Cotton Club gig turned into a slew of New York gigs, but Ruby had constitute moderate success with flake parts inwards Hollywood, so she sent the Exacting Lesbian Lover Geneva with her daughters to live inwards New York. Awesome plan. At this point, Dorothy was sixteen — as well as instantly that you’ve seen the photos of her every bit an adult, you lot tin only imagine how gorgeous she was at 16. In New York, she catches the optic of Harold Nicolas, 1 one-half of the snappy Nicolas Brothers Dancing Team. But The Dandridge Sisters were becoming a large draw, as well as Geneva signed them upwardly for a European Tour. Farewell Harold, Farewell Teen Love. Except wait: World War II is virtually to plough everything to shit! Tour is cutting short! Dandridge Sisters homecoming to Hollywood! And estimate who’s in that location making films: Nicolas Brothers!

Dorothy resumes her romance as well as lands a flake component division inwards the race film Four Shall Die. (“Race” films, similar “race” music, meant “black fine art for dark people.”) She earned a real little component division “opposite” (read: inwards the same painting present as) John Wayne, and, most entertainingly, got to sing as well as trip the lite fantastic toe with her beau as well as his blood brother inwards a rendition of “Chattanooga Choo Choo” in Sun Valley Serenade.

If you’re soundless unconvinced virtually Dandridge’s spark, picket this clip as well as you’ll believe:

At some indicate during this period, the Dandridge Sisters split upwardly up Destiny’s Child-style so that Dorothy tin concentrate on her ain career. But to really trace away from Ruby as well as Geneva, Dorothy had to do something fifty-fifty to a greater extent than drastic: learn married.

Dandridge as well as The Dancing Harold were married inwards September 1942, as well as all seemed well. No to a greater extent than Geneva-beatings, just domestic bliss as well as Hollywood bit-parts. Only Harold starts philandering all over the place, opting for long tours away from home. Dandridge blames herself — as well as her lack of sexual experience — for his wandering eye. Feminist digression: PATRIARCHY IS SUCH H5N1 DICK. Dandridge becomes pregnant inwards hopes of roping Harold dorsum home, but nosotros don’t demand an Ask a Dude column to know how that strategy would plough out. H5N1 daughter, Lynn, is born inwards 1943.

But every bit Lynn grows, Dandridge realizes that something isn’t right. Lynn isn’t speaking; she isn’t responding. Doctors can’t seem to concord on what was going on, as well as with Nicolas constantly on the road, Dandridge is inwards shambles. Eventually, Lynn is diagnosed with encephalon harm — belike due to a lack of oxygen during delivery — but Dandridge blames herself. She eventually starts seeing a therapist, as well as yesteryear 1949, fed upwardly with lousy Harold, she asks for a divorce.

Enter Dorothy Dandridge 2.0. With the aid of vocal arranger Phil Moore, she crafts a novel prototype for herself: less dancy-dancy, to a greater extent than smoldering-sultry. Despite her antipathy for the novel lodge scene, she recognizes it every bit a stepping stone to a studio contract. Dandridge performs all over the States, but despises Vegas, which, at this point, is newly ascendant as well as filled with Rat Packers. Even hundreds of miles from the South as well as Jim Crow, the racism is appalling — next her act, Dandridge is “forbidden” from speaking with whatever of the audience, as well as cannot job the elevator, the hotel lobby, the swimming pool, fifty-fifty the bathrooms. Her dressing room was a mother-f-ing storage space. I’m so embarrassed for the people who made as well as enforced those rules, as well as fearfulness what rules our grandchildren volition shame us for. (Easy guess: how long it took to have got gay marriage. That or Nickelback.)

The offers for flake parts started to float in, but to learn dorsum on the large screen, Dandridge had to compromise her standards, agreeing to play “jungle queen” in Tarzan’s Peril. If you’re wondering why Dandridge was upwardly inwards arms virtually specific roles, the explanation is somewhat simple. Apart from race films, the studios only cast dark actors in:

1.) The “roles” they played inwards many white people’s lives, aka servants. Nannies, butlers, farm workers, develop porters. In fact, dark people are all over classic painting present theatre — they’re just never onscreen for to a greater extent than than a minute, as well as they’re given accents as well as sayings that slot them into slow stereotypes. The overweight (and hence desexualized) mamie, the elderly (and hence desexualized) butler. Hattie McDaniel’s plough in Gone with the Windand Bo Jangles’ pairings with Shirley Temple. (Note: the only argue Shirley Temple was allowed to live “alone” onscreen with a dark human was because she was a kid as well as he was elderly).

2.) “Exotic” roles that associate the dark man/woman with the jungle, the animal, as well as the destructively sexual. Usually these characters die, because inwards the moral algebra of Hollywood, sexual practice = death.

You tin consider why dark actors would learn fed upwardly with these options. But tension remained: should dark actors pick out demeaning, stereotypical roles if it meant that they could work? And that dark faces showed upwardly on screen? But weren’t those appearances perpetuating the cultural understandings that kept blacks subjugated to these roles onscreen as well as off? It’s a Catch-22. And if you’ve read whatever of the discourse surrounding the roles of gay actors as well as actresses inwards the 1990s as well as early 2000s — or, for that matter, whatever minority grouping that has been stereotyped as well as subjugated onscreen — than you lot know it’s non unique.

But that’s where Dandridge constitute herself inwards the early ‘50s, as well as the tension betwixt making a living as well as lifting upwardly her race would construction the residual of her curt career.

During this same period, Dandridge began to really blow upwardly the lodge scene. She opened at The Mocambo inwards Hollywood, the type of identify where all the Hollywood stars went to learn blasted earlier “club” meant “filled with the odour of Axe Body Spray.” From there, she booked gigs all over New York, inwards Paris, on television, as well as became the firstly dark adult woman to perform at the Waldorf Astoria. Girl was hot shit. Her human activity was to a greater extent than overtly sexual than her contemporary Lena Horne, who was, at this point, super pissed at Hollywood for casting Ava Gardner inwards the role she made famous in Showboat.

Club owners were quick to exploit Dandridge’s sexual border — 1 purportedly fifty-fifty sold Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior of the the Human Female to promote her upcoming performances. Dandridge came to resent this sort of hyper-sexualization as well as hated how it opened doors for her that remained closed to other dark formers. “Ella Fitzgerald is 1 of the most talented people inwards the world,” she 1 time told a friend, “and it ebarrasses me that she cannot operate the rooms that I work. She’s non sexy. The men inwards the audience don’t desire to pick out her dwelling line of piece of work solid as well as move to bed with her. Yet she’s upwardly in that location singing her take in out for 1 tertiary the coin they’re paying me.”

But the sexy nightclub appearances won Dandridge the type of role for which she had been waiting: the atomic number 82 inwards MGM’s all-black production of Bright Road, based on a immature schoolteacher’s life inwards the South, as well as reverse Harry Belafonte.

Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress as well as pop vocalizer Info For You DOROTHY JEAN DANDRIDGE: THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN TO BE NOMINATED FOR AN ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST ACTRESS

Let’s speak virtually the weirdness going on inwards this poster: is Dandridge punching that kid inwards the face? Why is Belafonte’s decoupaged caput floating? What does it hateful to live a “noted vocal favorite?” And Ladies Home Journal, what praise! “Unusual!” Is that code for “Belafonte made us experience funny things inwards our bathing suit parts as well as nosotros had to cross our legs?” The Ladies Home Journal un-endorsement helped Bright Road win the dubious distinction of “the lowest box-office gross inwards the South.”

20th Century Fox nevertheless snatched Dandridge upwardly for a three-picture contract, as well as she went virtually lobbying for her truthful dream role: the atomic number 82 inwards an all-black production of Carmen Jones (a cinema adaptation of the WWII phase musical, which was an adaptation of the classic opera Carmen, which was an adaptation of the novella Prosper Mérimée). Whew.

Fox slotted Otto Preminger to direct, which brings us to UNCEREMONIOIUS BREAK FOR FILM HISTORY LESSON:

Preminger had risen to prominence with a slew of noir-flavored films inwards the ‘40s. In 1943, Preminger was coming off of The Luna is Blue, which, with its “lighthearted” handling of an affair (read: people having sexual practice don’t overstep or goal inwards poverty), had violated the Hays Code as well as pissed off the Hollywood censorship. When Preminger as well as the studio behind the film, United Artists, refused to modify the script during production, the censorship board refused to grant it the Production Code “seal of approval.” (United Artists was the hippest studio inwards the 1950s. It wasn’t a studio so much every bit a production company, but you lot tin read all virtually it inwards Tino Balio’s amazing history.)

If United Artists would have got tried this stunt fifty-fifty 10 years before, no seal would have got meant no distribution. (Kind of similar what happens when a cinema earns an NC-17 today. Sure, it’s “legal,” but few theaters volition deport it). But UA saw that the moral climate — as well as tolerance as well as hunger for to a greater extent than explicit treatments of sexual practice as well as relationships — had changed, as well as said fuck it, let’s give it a try. They open The Luna is Blue in a few urban markets, as well as its success convinces 3 major theatre chains to distribute nationwide. But uptight Ohio, Kansas, as well as Maryland upwardly as well as ban the film. Typical.

And here’s where it gets good: Preminger as well as United Artists realize they had a run a risk to potentially blow the entire Code out of the water. They sue the Maryland’s solid reason censorship board, as well as a solid reason Supreme Court justice overturns the ban, famously referring to the cinema every bit “a lite comedy telling a tale of wide-eyed, brash, puppy-like innocence.” In other words: untwist your panties, solid reason of Maryland. So far so good, so UA tries the same thing inwards Kansas, but no luck. Stay stodgy, Kansas. But UA says fuck it yet again: mightiness every bit good move large or move home. They pick out the instance to The Supreme Court, which overturns the Kansas ruling. No to a greater extent than banning of flirtly seduction films!

Porgy And Bess, Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, 1959

Paired with the ruling in "The Miracle Case" – when the Supreme Court declared censorship of Roberto Rosselinni’s film The Miracle as a violation of The First Amendment — The Luna is Blue significantly weakened the powerfulness of The Hays Code, which, inwards the decade to come, would dissolve altogether.

Dorothy Dandridge, ca. 1950s

Point being: Preminger was the form of human who tolerated picayune inwards the agency of bullshit. He thought that dark actors were woefully underused, as well as wanted to brand the most of the tremendous talent he saw on the lot. Thus, Carmen Jones.

The story of Dandridge’s seek to win the component division of Carmen has morphed into the materials of legend, which is some other agency of maxim that one-half of it is belike bull. But hither goes:

Dandridge wanted to prove herself every bit a serious actor, non a sex-bomb lodge performer. So when she went to consider Preminger for the part, she wore “a navy-blue clothes with a white Peter Pan collar. It stand upwardly for through the waist, as well as then flared. Her pilus was pulled dorsum inwards a ponytail.” Very Charlotte York of you, Dorothy.

But Preminger thought she was agency also “high fashion.” As he purportedly told Dandridge, “this Carmen is an earthy miss who’s solely dissimilar from you. Every fourth dimension I expect at you, I consider Saks Fifth Avenue.”

Dandridge huffs as well as puffs out of there. Cut to montage of russling through her closet, hemming her skirts shorter, putting on dark eyeliner. When she came back, she walked inwards with “tousled hair, dark makeup, a tight skirt, revealing blouse, as well as the sexiest swinging hips inwards town.”

Dorothy Dandridge - Island inwards the Sun

She sounds similar she’s wearing the Halloween costume of a harlot, but bygones. Preminger manifestly gave her the part. And at some indicate inwards in that location — earlier or after, it’s unclear — Dandridge also made him his favorite dinner of mutual frigidity steak as well as cucumber salad... CUT SCENE.

Thus began a tumultuous, open-secret of a human relationship that would bridge the side yesteryear side several years.

The yr to follow was the best of Dandridge’s career. She was 1 time once again paired with Harry Belafonte, only this fourth dimension he got to article of apparel a uniform. Now, you lot may only know the older, arch, raspy vocalisation Belafonte (the 1 who endorses Obama as well as calls out the American authorities inwards Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke — I love him so much). But immature Belafonte, sweetness lord, he was smokin’.

In what would move Dandridge’s signature outfit, she made the encompass of Life — the firstly dark adult woman to do so.

If looking that skilful on the encompass of a national periodical wasn’t enough, she got to article of apparel this incredible tube-top pants-suit within the magazine:

And the arm cuff! Hailing Jane: I want!

Meanwhile, the dark gossip press wondered, with skilful cause, if Hollywood would really “let negroes brand love onscreen.” (On the grand scale of periodical headline weirdness, this encompass rates an 11).

But Carmen Jones was a monster hit, which is code for “even white people went to consider it.” Dandridge was nominated for an Academy Award — the firstly dark adult woman to live nominated for Best Actress. And volition you lot expect at her competition: Judy Garland in A Star is Born, Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, Jane Wyman in Magnificent Obsession, as well as Grace Kelly in The Country Girl. Dandridge lost to Kelly, but if you’ve seen The Country Girl, as well as you lot picket this clip below, you lot tin consider what the Academy was missing:

(Fastforward to 5:35)

“You brand sounds I don’t like!” I LOVE HER SO MUCH. And that ruddy skirt, holy shit: Jane, I beseech you.

You mightiness note, however, that the singing vocalisation doesn’t seem to emerge from Dandridge’s mouth. It didn’t. Both she as well as Belafonte were dubbed throughout due to the “un-opera-like” character of their otherwise strong (read: black) voices. The film’s success stemmed from this combination of low-and-high, black-and-white: an all-black cast mapped upon the whitest of fine art forms. (In closed competition: knitting, stain-glass, weaving).

Bonus painting of Dandridge, Belafonte, Preminger — but why is Robert Mitchum hanging around?

Suddenly, everything was awesome. Dandridge could enquire $100,000 a picture, draped herself inwards white beaver (weird?), bought a huge Hollywood mansion, as well as drove some town inwards a huge white Thunderbird. She accompanied Preminger to Cannes as well as waited for the offers to pour in.

A large 1 arrived: the role of Tuptim in The King as well as I. The cinema was going to live a huge production, as well as the role, spell supporting, would’ve been high profile. But Tuptim was a slave, as well as after consulting with Preminger, Dandridge refused, sure that to a greater extent than offers would live forthcoming. The role went to Rita Moreno; the cinema was a smash. Dandridge had lost the momentum, as well as would afterwards stance the refusal of Tuptim every bit the commencement of her autumn from grace.

Preminger looking grade-A skeezy with the Dandridge sisters

Still waiting for a role, Dandridge’s human relationship with Preminger became strained. In component division because he was, well, married, but also because they couldn’t appear together inwards world unless they were promoting a film. At some point, Dandridge became pregnant, but had an abortion to avoid scandal. The press began linking her a listing of white stars: Peter Lawford, Tyrone Power, Michael Rennie, Farley Granger Jr. Dandridge was, indeed, dating some, but sure non all, of these men. As her sis Vivian afterwards explained, she wasn’t dating white men because she was “prejudiced” against dark men, every bit some press outlets alleged. Dandridge “would have got been real happy to have got married someone similar a Harry Belafonte or a Sidney Poitier. But those men were already married. [Dorothy] just didn’t run across Black men inwards her world.”

Anxiety over Dandridge dating “out of race” popped upwardly in, you lot guessed it, Confidential, which went for some skilful ol’ fashioned miscegenation fear-mongering, publishing a story on “What Dorothy Dandridge Did inwards the Woods.” (Read: Had Sex With a White Person.)

By this point, Dandridge was fed up. She filed suit against Confidential, testifying at the “Trial of 100 Stars” that attempted to pick out downwardly the smut-rag. (The story behind the trial is fascinating as well as crucial to the hereafter of the gossip industry; see Mary Desjardins' article in Headline Hollywood.

One real pissed off Dandridge testifying against Confidential

And still, Dandridge waited for a role. Recall, she was soundless nether contract to Fox — which soundless wanted to brand her a star. The problem, of course, mirrored that of her individual life: they couldn’t uncovering a agency to lay her onscreen with a white man. Finally, Fox cast her in Island inwards the Sun — a controversial script, laid inwards the West Indies, that paired Dandridge, a “restless” banking concern clerk, with (white) John Justin, a governor’s aid, as well as low-class Harry Belafonte with (white) high-class Joan Fontaine.

Fox exploited the contention over the couplings into a demi-hit, yet Dandridge complained that in that location was no “intimacy” inwards what was meant to live a “love scene” betwixt her as well as Justin. Think Julia Roberts as well as Denzel inwards The Pelican Brief — that sort of staid yearning. But it was also Dandridge’s firstly appearance on concealment for nearly 3 years. The momentum was indeed lost.

Two small, unremarkable films followed (Tamango, The Decks Ran Red). Dandridge was increasingly desperate. So inwards 1959, she took the atomic number 82 inwards Samuel Goldwyn’s production of Porgy as well as Bess. Big role! Awesome! Not so much: the characters of the well-known play were straight-up dark stereotypes. Porgy’s a drunk, Bess is a drug addict, as well as other dark characters are rapists as well as ne’er-do-wells. Belafonte was offered the role of Porgy, refused it on principle, as well as encouraged Dandridge to do the same. But Dandridge was soundless haunted yesteryear her conclusion to plough downwardly The King as well as I, as well as took the role, amongst Sidney Poitier as well as Sammy Davis Jr.

And when Preminger, instantly quite estranged from Dandridge, stepped inwards to supercede the director, everything went to hell. Already known for his harsh trend on set, Preminger brought Dandridge to tears on a regular basis. Think of it this way: you’re desperate for work, so pick out an embarrassing-yet-high-paying job. It’s okay, you lot think, I’ll live fine — at to the lowest degree I’ve got some hot as well as funny guys working with me. But as well as then your just-fine, normal boss is replaced yesteryear your dick ex-boyfriend, as well as he shames you lot inwards front end of your novel co-workers constantly. That is the shit that Dandridge had to tolerate.

Despite claims that Porgy as well as Bess would “introduce a novel era inwards displace pictures,” the cinema was a flop. Dandridge received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, but inwards those days, Golden Globes were serious farm league.

And the unraveling begins. Dandridge meets Jack Denison, a truthful juicebox of a eating house owner, as well as falls for his promises. They hook upwardly with inwards June 1959, as well as he forces her to perform at his small-fry restaurant, effectively driving downwardly her value with every appearance. He starts managing her career, beats her regularly, as well as loses a important amount of her money. The other chunk of her coin had been tucked away inwards what Dandridge thought to live a solid, fool-proof stone oil investment, but when it proves a massive scam, Dandridge as well as a dozen other stars lose everything.

Dandridge begins to drinkable heavily. No longer able to afford her daughter’s personal care, she’s forced to lay her inwards a solid reason mental home. She declares bankruptcy as well as takes piecemeal, embarrassing gigs to pay the bills. After a few years of terribleness, she ditches the juicebox, puts her life dorsum together, as well as decides to brand a 2nd move — booking international lodge appearances as well as commencement rehearsals. But it was all real Michael Jackson preparing for the “This Is It” tour. She injured her human foot spell practicing, re-lost the momentum, as well as fatally overdosed — accidentally or purposefully – on her anti-depressant.

The yr was 1965. Dorothy Dandridge was 42 years old. She had $2.14 inwards her banking concern account.

In the end, Hollywood forced her to embody 1 of the stereotypes she so loathed: the tragic mulatta, a adult woman accepted inwards some ways yesteryear both the dark as well as white communities but rejected inwards other, crucial, heartbreaking ways. The white community loved her “white” beauty as well as the specter of her sexuality, but refused to allow her to really human activity on that sexuality. Think early Britney Spears: live sexual, but don’t do anything with it. And if you lot do, you’re a slut.

Dandridge saw this clearly. “America was non geared to brand me into a Liz Taylor, Monroe, or a Gardner,” she explained. “My sexual practice symbolism was every bit a wanton, a prostitute, non every bit a adult woman seeking love as well as a husband, similar other women.” Dandridge wasn’t the concluding dark actress to live treated this way. Even today, Race-that-is-not-white + Sexualty = Something incendiary, something dangerous.

Dandridge suffered so that others wouldn’t have got to. Yet 50 years after her death, when 1 would hope that all vestiges of discrimination, prejudice, as well as sexual stereotyping would have got dissipated, they’re soundless alive, nevertheless quiet. Think of (mainstream) dark woman individual stars. There’s non a lot of them, so this won’t pick out you lot long. Now recollect virtually who they’re allowed to live with onscreen, as well as the discourses virtually their sexuality off-screen. Whitney Houston could do picayune to a greater extent than than buss Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. Halle Berry was archly criticized for taking a role inwards which she was hyper-sexualized as well as can’t opened upwardly a movie. Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Jennifer Hudson, Mon’ique — none of them tin learn a leading role inwards a major Hollywood picture, much less a romantic leading role. We may have got a dark president, but most Americans soundless don’t know what to do with a black, sexual adult woman onscreen.

I expect at the pictures of Dandridge inwards her prime, as well as I consider someone who thinks she’s on the cusp of something big. That the world was going to have got her on her merit. That things were going to change. I expect at that hope, as well as I experience terrible sadness. The existent tragedy of the story of Dorothy Dandridge, then, is the tragedy of enduring, unspoken, insidious prejudice.