Dorothy Dandridge

by

Caroline Streeter

• LAST MODIFIED: 22 November 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190280024-0142

Introduction

Dorothy Dandridge (b. 1922–d. 1965) is a crucial representative figure, a historical touchstone that ensures the continual presence of Black women in the lexicon of Hollywood. In 1955, she became the first African American nominated for an Academy Award in a leading role (Best Actress, Carmen Jones, 1954). The all-Black musical, Oscar Hammerstein II’s riff on Georges Bizet’s 19th-century opera Carmen, was a breakthrough hit, and it made Dandridge an international movie star. A decade passed before Sidney Poitier crossed the color line to claim Hollywood’s most prestigious recognition (Best Actor, Lilies of the Field, 1963; awarded 1964). And it took nearly a half century for Halle Berry to achieve the milestone for African American women (Best Actress, Monster’s Ball, 2001; awarded 2002). In fact, Berry remained the only woman of color in Academy history to win an award in a leading role until 2023, when Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian American woman to be so honored (Everything Everywhere All at Once, 2022; awarded 2023). Carmen Jones catapulted Dorothy Dandridge to an unprecedented position—a Black woman poised to enter Hollywood’s pantheon of leading ladies. Dandridge possessed the requisite qualities of beauty, charisma, and competent acting ability. More importantly, she triggered the worshipful desire inspired by the screen goddess. It was no accident Dandridge rose to that rarefied position; she was ambitious and driven. An entertainer from childhood on, Dandridge sang and danced her way through virtually every performance mode available to African Americans in the first half of the twentieth century. As an adult, Dandridge poured her energy into acting; in the 1950s she was one among few African Americans among a cohort attending classes at the Actor’s Laboratory—an institution considered radical because it admitted Black students. Dandridge’s Actor’s Lab peers included Ava Gardner and Marilyn Monroe (with whom Dandridge was particularly close), themselves destined to become two of cinema’s legendary screen goddesses. Dorothy Dandridge possessed this same currency, but ultimately, she was unable to capitalize on her qualities and achievements. African American women did not have access to major parts in dramatic films—the roles commensurate with the position of screen goddess and leading lady. Carmen Jones was the peak of her career. Although Dandridge appeared in high-profile projects such as Island in the Sun (1957) and Porgy and Bess (1959) (for which she received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress), she struggled personally and professionally. Following her untimely death at age forty-two, Dandridge seemed to disappear from cinematic history, virtually unknown outside the realm of film scholars. She was rediscovered in the late twentieth century, reclaimed by Black women performers and studied by feminist scholars, and she has become a prominent figure in popular culture. Contemporary Hollywood celebrates Dorothy Dandridge as a potent screen goddess, a status unavailable to her during her lifetime.

General Overviews

As a Black female actress, Dandridge is a consummate figure of intersection. She is included in volumes that historicize and classify notable figures identified by race in Carney and Palmisano 2000 and Potter 2013 (originally published in 2002); race and gender in Lyman 2005 and Smith and Phelps 1992; race and profession in Mapp 2008; and race, gender, and profession in Bogle 2001, McCann 2010, and Parish 2003. She is also a particularly exceptional individual, standing alone in a territory devoid of women of color, as in Agan 1979, where she is the only Black woman in a profile of ten screen goddesses. In Bogle 2007, which is devoted to Black actresses, Dandridge assumes the top position in the hierarchy of achievement. Bogle classifies Dandridge as a mulatto figure, a position on the spectrum of Black stereotypes he has identified in Hollywood film. This figure, at once privileged and abject, is a recurring metaphor in Dandridge’s struggle to establish an acting career, and it sometimes bedeviled her personal life. Dandridge is likewise classified with mixed-race women in Hine 2005.

• Agan, Patrick. The Decline and Fall of the Love Goddesses. Los Angeles: Pinnacle Books, 1979.

  Agan’s study includes Frances Farmer (b. 1931–d. 1970), Betty Grable (b. 1916–d. 1973), Rita Hayworth (b. 1918–d. 1987), Linda Darnell (b. 1923–d. 1965), Veronica Lake (b. 1919–d. 1974), Betty Hutton (b. 1921–d. 2007), Susan Hayward (b. 1918–d. 1975), Jayne Mansfield (b. 1933–d. 1967), and Marilyn Monroe (b. 1926–d. 1962). (Rita Hayworth, born Margarita Canseco, was Mexican, but regularly cast in white roles.) Agan’s parameters capture a generation of women with careers that peaked in the 1940s and 1950s. Among them, Dandridge has the shortest Hollywood feature filmography.

• Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. 4th ed. New York: Continuum, 2001.

  Bogle’s study, first published in 1973, addresses film history through an analysis that expands on the notion of racist stereotypes. Bogle examines the representation of Blackness in Hollywood film through a group of archetypal figures. He explains how they derive from historical distortions of Black identity. Bogle reveals the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality characterizing each of these archetypes.

• Bogle, Donald. Brown Sugar: Over One Hundred Years of America’s Black Female Superstars. New York: Continuum, 2007.

  DOI: 10.5040/9781501340253

  This chronological overview of Black women in the performing arts, originally published in 1980, remains unique in historical breadth. The book is composed of short biographical entries along with filmographies and other relevant artistic background. Brown Sugar includes many reproductions of rare photographs. The entry on Dorothy Dandridge identifies her as a tragic figure—her career thwarted by Hollywood’s lack of opportunities for Black leading women in dramatic film.

• Carney, Jessie Smith, and Joseph M. Palmisano, eds. Reference Library of Black America. 5 vols. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000.

  The series contains five volumes listing prominent Black Americans in a historical chronology over five centuries in a range of areas.

• Freilicher, Melvyn. The Unmaking of Americans: 7 Lives. San Diego, CA: San Diego City Works Press, 2007.

  This eclectic study examines the lives of prominent cultural figures, including Dorothy Dandridge, Bettie Page, Joey Stefano, Margaret Fuller, Margaret Sanger, Bayard Rustin, and Billy Strayhorn. All had career triumphs, but they could not realize their full potential due to social discrimination directed against racial minorities and sexual outlaws in the pre–civil rights era.

• Hine, Darlene Clark. Black Women in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

  First published in 1994, this award-winning landmark reference work contains three superlative volumes celebrating the achievements of Black women throughout history and highlighting their ongoing contributions in America today. The second edition includes more than 150 new entries. There are over 335 comprehensive biographical essays, including a bibliography for each entry.

• Lyman, Darryl. Great African-American Women. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David, 2005.

  Celebrates the lives and accomplishments of prominent African American women across history and multiple realms, including the arts, political activism, and sports.

• Mapp, Edward. “Dorothy Dandridge: Carmen Jones.” In African Americans and the Oscar: Decades of Struggle and Achievement. 2d ed. 10–11. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008.

  Profiles African American nominees and recipients of the coveted award in acting, writing, and directing categories. Entries organized chronologically and by name provide information about how the role or film was viewed during its time and places it in historical context by drawing connections to other related awards or events in film history. Mapp’s entry on Dandridge emphasizes the early foreclosure of her career has not dimmed the significance of Dandridge’s artistic legacy.

• McCann, Bob. Encyclopedia of African American Actresses in Film and Television. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010.

  This text contains three hundred and sixty entries from silent film to the year 2010.

• Parish, James Robert. Hollywood Divas: The Good, the Bad and the Fabulous. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2003.

  Organizing the book with profiles of seventy prominent female figures, Parish traces the path from legendary female icons of the stage and screen to late-20th-century and millennial female stars of film, television, and popular music.

• Potter, Joan. African American Firsts: Famous, Little-Known and Unsung Triumphs of Black America. New York: Kensington, 2013.

  Originally published 2002. Spanning colonial days to the present, this encyclopedic study highlights significant achievements and inventions by over four hundred and fifty African Americans in diverse fields, including government, entertainment, science, athletics, medicine, law, the military, and the business world.

• Smith, Jessie C., and Shirelle Phelps, eds. Notable Black American Women. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992.

  This three-volume series contains narrative biographical essays on over 1.500 African American women from 1730 to the present, highlighting diverse areas of achievement, including business, civil rights, the arts, education, scholarship, and government. Discusses each woman’s unique activities and the public reception of their lives and works.