Outdated Hollywood starlet, Dorothy Dandridge, may do all of it. Dandridge was a drop-dead beautiful triple risk, making historical past when she grew to become the primary African-American to be nominated for the Finest Actress Academy Award.
Dandridge started her profession dancing together with her sister, Vivian, as “The Marvel Youngsters.” The group, renamed “The Dandridge Sisters” in 1934, performed well-liked New York golf equipment, The Cotton Membership and The Apollo, and made small on-screen appearances in a number of movies.
Dandridge landed minor movie roles within the Forties and continued to carry out as a singer at nightclubs. In 1951, Dandridge started to choose up momentum performing reside, making a rave opening at Hollywood’s Mocombo nightclub (the most important opening in its historical past). Dandridge returned to the Mocombo in 1952 and caught the eye of a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer agent who prompt Dandridge be forged as a membership singer within the 1953 movie, Stays to be Seen. Later that yr, Dandridge landed her first starring function in Vibrant Highway with Harry Belafonte.
It was Dandridge’s function within the all-black musical movie adaptation of Oscar Hammerstein’s Broadway present, Carmen Jones, that earned her an Academy Award Nomination for Finest Actress. After the success of the movie (and her Oscar nomination), Dandridge’s star skyrocketed, and he or she signed a three-movie cope with twentieth Century Fox.
In 1955, Dandridge carried out on the prestigious Empire Room in New York’s Waldorf-Astoria lodge, turning into the primary black performer to play there and opening the door for quite a few different black artists, reminiscent of Lena Horne and Depend Basie.
Dandridge continued to behave and carry out by means of the Fifties, however in 1965, together with her profession starting to dwindle, Dandridge handed away after by accident overdosing on the antidepressant, Tofranil.
1999, Halle Berry portrayed Dandridge within the biopic, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, incomes Berry an Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG Award, and when Berry grew to become the primary African-American to win the Finest Actress Academy Award in 2001 (for Monster’s Ball), she devoted it to Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, and Diahann Carroll.
