Available once again, the definitive biography of the pioneering Black
performer--the first nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award--who
broke new ground in Hollywood and helped transform American society in
the years before Civil Rights movement--a remarkable woman of her time
who also transcended it.
"An ambitious, rigorously researched account of the long-ignored film
star and chanteuse. . . . Bogle has fashioned a resonant history of a
bygone era in Hollywood and passionately documented the contribution of
one of its most dazzling and complex performers."--New York Times Book
Review
In the segregated world of 1950s America, few celebrities were as
talented, beautiful, glamorous, and ultimately influential as Dorothy
Dandridge. Universally admired, she was Hollywood's first full-fledged
Black movie star. Film historian Donald Bogle offers a panoramic
portrait of Dorothy Dandridge's extraordinary and ultimately tragic life
and career, from her early years as a child performer in Cleveland, to
her rise as a nightclub headliner and movie star, to her heartbreaking
death at 42.
Bogle reveals how this exceptionally talented and intensely ambitious
entertainer broke down racial barriers by integrating some of America's
hottest nightclubs and broke through Tinseltown's glass ceiling. Along
with her smash appearances at venues such as Harlem's famed Cotton Club,
Dorothy starred in numerous films, making history with her role in Otto
Preminger's Carmen Jones, playing opposite Harry Belafonte. Her
performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress--the
first Oscar nod for a woman of color.
But Dorothy's wealth, fame, and success masked a reality fraught with
contradiction and illusion. Struggling to find good roles
professionally, uncomfortable with her image as a sex goddess, coping
with the aftermath of two unhappy marriages and a string of unfulfilling
affairs, and overwhelmed with guilt for her disabled daughter, Dorothy
found herself emotionally and financially bankrupt--despair that ended
in her untimely death.
Woven from extensive research and unique interviews, as magnetic as the
woman at its heart, Dorothy Dandridge captures this dazzling
entertainer in all her complexity: her strength and vulnerability, her
joy and her pain, her trials and her triumphs.
