Dorothy Dandridge

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Author(s):

Donald Bogle

Label: Amistad
Publisher(s):

Amistad

Studio: Amistad
Manufacturer: Amistad
Binding: Hardcover
List Price: $27.95

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Dorothy Dandridge -- like Marilyn and Liz--was a dream goddess of the fifties. All audiences ever had to do was take one look at her --in a nightclub, on television, or in the movies -- and they were hooked. She was unforgettable, Hollywood's first full-fledged African American movie star.

This definitive biography -- exhaustively researched -- presents the panoramic dimensions of this extraordinary and ultimately tragic life. Talented from the start, Dorothy Dandridge began her career as a little girt in Cleveland in an act that her mother Ruby, an actress and comedienne, created for her and her sister Vivian. By the time she reached her teens, she was working in such Hollywood movies as Going Places with Louis Armstrong and A Day at the Races with the Marx Brothers. She also appeared at New York's Cotton Club in a trio called The Dandridge Sisters, but soon went solo, determined to make a name for herself. She became one of the most dazzling and sensational nightclub performers around, all the white breaking down racial barriers by integrating some of America's hottest venues.

But she wanted more. Movie stardom was her dream. And she got it. Dandridge broke through the glass ceiling of Tinseltown to win an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress for her lead role in Otto Preminger's Carmen Jones. Other films such as Porgy and Bess, Island in the Sun, and Tamango would follow and the media would take notice. In an industry that was content to use Black women as comic mammy figures, Dorothy Dandridge emerged as a leading lady, a cultural icon, and a sizzling sex symbol.

She seemed to have everything: glamour, wealth, romance and success. But the reality was fraught with contradiction and illusion. She became a dramatic actress unable to secure dramatic roles. While she had many gifts to offer, Hollywood would not be the taker.

As her professional frustrations grew, so did her personal demons. After two unhappy marriages -- her first to the great dancer Harold Nicholas -- a string of unfulfilling, love affairs, and the haunting tragedy of her daughter Lynn, she found herself emotionally and financially -- bankrupt. She ultimately lost all hope and was found dead from an overdose of antidepressant pills at the age of 42.

Drawing on extensive research and unique interviews with Dorothy Dandridge's friends and associates, her directors and confidantes, film historian Donald Bogle captures the real-life drama of Dandridge's turbulent life; but he does so much more.This biography documents the story of a troubled but strong family of women and vividly recreates Dandridge's relationships with an array of personalities such as Otto Preminger, Sammy Davis Jr., Pearl Bailey, Harry Belafonte, Diahann Carroll, Peter Lawford, Ava Gardner, and many more. Always at the center though is Dorothy Dandridge, magnetic and compelling.

Donald Bogle -- better than anyone else -- goes beyond the surface of one woman's seemingly charmed life to reveal the many textured layers of her strength and vulnerability, her joy and her pain, her trials and her triumphs.

Amazon.com Review

Donald Bogle was almost single-handedly responsible for reviving interest in historic black film with his seminal work, Toms, Coons, Mammies, Mulattoes, and Bucks. Here, in his new biography, he turns his gaze on Dorothy Dandrige, a bronze goddess of the silver screen. Stunningly beautiful and enormously talented, Dandridge had the misfortune to practice her craft at a time when Hollywood trafficked only in black stereotypes. She starred in several films--among them Carmen Jones, an adaptation of Bizet's Carmen, and the musical Porgy and Bess. But because there were few black male romantic leads, and Hollywood could not conceive of pairing her with a white actor, Dandridge's career languished. In 1965, she was found dead in her apartment of a drug overdose. Bogle's excellent book brings Dandrige and her times to life again, portraying this remarkable woman in all her strength and fragility.

Customer Reviews

No, Dorothy, this isn't Kansas anymore

An enlightened bio of a regretably glossed-over star. This book is, however, about more than just Dorothy---it reveals much about the history of Hollywood in general, and black entertainers in particular. Read it definitely for the story of this beautiful, talented woman, but read it also for TinselTown info you won't find thus condensed anywhere else.

Dorthy Dandridge - human, superstar, human

I checked this book out from the library for Black History Month. I felled in love with the story that I chose to buy it in order to finish reading her life's story. I was able to relate to her life on many levels. She was an oscar nominated woman, she was a great performer/singer, as well as known for her acting skills. She, too, experience the same concerns that many of us face today. She was insecure about her talent at times & suffered great anxieties. She found it difficult to find love which offered her security that many women today experience. She was a pioneer & champion for african americans rights. I have told many that I was impressed with the fact that she was a superstar dealing with real issues that many of us assume that only happens to the little folks. I love Dorthy Dandridge & I will treasure this book always.

Much Better Than The Movie

Even though I liked the Telefilm, and thought Halle Berry was the obvious choice to play Miss Dandridge (both were born in Cleveland), I was somewhat disappointed with it, after having read this book first. Dorothy's many trials and heartaches were only lightly touched upon in the film version. This book reads like a well written novel, starting from her early years as a child performer. The physical, verbal, and sexual abuse at the hands of her mother's lesbian lover. The failed marriages, and financial ruin. And most heartbreaking of all, the birth of her extremely mentally challenged daughter. But there are the triumphs also. Like making the cover of Life magazine, and receiving a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for the 1954 film "Carmen Jones." A first for an African-American actress. Unfortunately, the making of this film marked the beginning of an affair with the director Otto Preminger, that would end on a very sour note. Something she apparently never fully recovered from. Even being verbally abused by the same director during the making of "Porgy and Bess."

Another great aspect of this book, is the social background of Black Los Angeles and Hollywood during the '30s, '40s and '50s. And who could ever imagine, Dorothy riding the streets of L.A. with her good friend Louis Armstrong, and him puffing on a marijuana joint? A must read for those interested in the history of Black Hollywood and Tinseltown in general.

I now know everything about her....

I wanted to read about Dorothy's life so this book was a perfect. It has all the details about Dorothy's childhood, her lesbian mother, her failed marriages and romances, her depression, her fantasies, her romantic feelings with Harry Belafonte (hmmm...I knew there was something special between the two....who could blame here???), racism, and abuse. I really feel like I could so relate to her feelings about life. I'm not quite happy myself. Her personality is very much like mine and she's not too different from Marilyn Monroe. It really pisses me off that she had to dealt with racism and movies that were never produced with her in it. I think it was really stupid that they never allow two couples from different race to kiss on the screen. It's just really sad...a really sad period for Dorothy to put up with. It really a shame how her mother Ruby never truly cared about her and let that pschyo Aunt Ma-Ma into her life. What an unfit mother!!! Anyway, I would definately recommend this book to others who are interested in Dorothy's life.

My apologies in advance

I really wanted to like this book, because I've been a Dorothy Dandridge fan long before the HBO movie and am impressed by Donald Bogle's efforts to keep Black Hollywood history alive. However, like a few other reviewers mentioned, I found the pace of this book incredibly slow. This, in part, is actually due to the constant quotes of Dottie's friends- and the anecdotal examples from Bogle which precede or follow them- which quickly become repetitive. In other words, the book is too detailed (yes, it is possible for a biography to contain too much information, especially when an intended point has already been made). The prose, as well, is flat and dull. Dorothy Dandridge was a vivid, glamorous, electric, hot-blooded performer and deserved that type of stylized language to capture her and the slick era she lived in, but the book's words and structuring is very plain and uninspiring. And since her life was immensely bleak, filled with disappointments, humiliations, injustices, and defeats, all of these elements combine to make reading this biography quite painful.

I also felt cheated because of the lack of photographs. Dandridge was one of the most beautiful women of all time yet there are only two really breathtaking portraits of her here, the cover included. I've seen some fabulous ones of her over the years but why they weren't included in this bio- even reduced in size- is beyond me (two full-page pictures of her mom, though-?!). The rest of the Dottie pics are everyday candid shots, many unremarkable (a few- pics with her different men, her last singing performance- are good, though).

I got as far as when Carmen Jones was in the works (about the middle) and just skipped over the Preminger affair, her Oscar nomination, and her second marriage so I could read about the last days of her life, which is surprisingly written with conciseness and left me wanting to know much more. Maybe I'll read the middle someday when I have the patience and will for it. You'd just think that a book about her life would just jump off the pages- a drop-dead-gorgeous entertainer, possible manic depressive, a tragically [disabled] child, marriage to Nicholas brother, an affair with Peter Lawford, Otto Preminger, raised by a lesbian couple, Black superstar in segregated Hollywood, possible suicide... Whoa! Hopefully a book will one day come along that'll do justice to a goddess who should never, ever be forgotten or overlooked.

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