LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Dorothy Dandridge: Career
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Dorothy played in other movies after this accomplishment, including Porgy and Bess and Island in the Sun. However, she found that despite her fame, it was hard finding work as a black actress. The forces of racism were too strong. In 1963 Dorothy Dandridge filed for bankruptcy after a failed marriage to Jack Denison and a series of bad investments. It seemed that her career had gone downhill. She began to drink heavily and was found dead in her apartment on September 8,1965.
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Dandridge's performances in her later films are marked by the increasing strain she felt as a woman caught between two worlds. As her film career faltered, the actress's private life continued to be a source of endless grief, with one romance after another foundering on the rocks of racial difference. In 1959 she married her second husband, white nightclub owner John (better known as Jack) Denison. The marriage proved to be yet another disaster... and Dandridge later claimed in her autobiography that Denison had married her in the hope that she could support his troubled businesses.
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In the depths of her depression, Dorothy is reunited with former manager Mills, who attempts to resurrect her career. Plans for a successful comeback are brought to a tragic halt when Dandridge is found dead on the morning she is to depart for a national tour. She is 42.
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In the 1960s Dandridge's life and career were wracked by divorce, personal bankruptcy, and the absence of offers of work. At age 42 she was found dead in her West Hollywood apartment, either a suicide or a victim of an accidental drug overdose.
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If that were the case, Denison badly miscalculated, for Dandridge herself was soon in financial difficulties. Her income from film and nightclub work declined in the early sixties, and, even worse, she was persuaded to invest huge sums of money in Arizona oil wells. Little oil was found, and in March of 1963 Dandridge declared personal bankruptcy and lost everything she owned, including a house in the Hollywood hills. The marriage had ended a few months before, leaving Dandridge to face alone the prospect of poverty, middle age, and her failing career as an entertainer.
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