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Dorothy Dandridge: Movies
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Though her films are now rarely watched, Dorothy Dandridge remains a unique example of thwarted talent and ill-starred beauty. Her career was made possible--and impossible--by post-war America's ambivalent racial attitudes, according to which a beautiful black woman could be acclaimed as an actress and at the same time denied the roles that would naturally have come to a white woman of comparable star quality. At her peak between the era of racial segregation and the later civil rights movement, Dandridge both acted and lived out the role of "tragic mulatto," suffering its consequences on screen and in her private life as well.
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Dorothy Jean Dandridge was born in Cleveland, Ohio on November 9th 1923. Dorothy began her public performances at black Baptist churches across the country. Due to the depression and the economy worsening, Dorothy and her family were forced to pack up and move to California where employment was more easily available. Dorothy’s first film was in the Marx Brothers comedy, A Day at the Races in 1937. It was a small part but Dorothy had hopes that it would lead into something more.
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[T]hree years passed before Dandridge starred in another film. This one, too, generated headlines, but not just for her performance. Island in the Sun (1957) was a daring foray into interracial romance that paired Dandridge with a white leading man. It was the first time a major American film had depicted such a relationship, and some audiences reacted with shock despite its extremely cautious approach to the subject matter. In the wake of the controversy, a number of theaters (mostly in the South) refused to show Island in the Sun. Nevertheless, it was a hit at the box office, and Dandridge went on to make several other movies dealing with the same theme, including The Decks Ran Red in 1958, Tamango in 1960 (a French production that could not obtain distribution in the United States), and Malaga in 1961.
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