Dorothy Dandridge, Part 1: A Star of Her Own Making — Baptism by Show Business, Carmen Jones, and a Historic Oscar Nomination
About this episode
This episode explores the early life and career of Dorothy Dandridge, highlighting her journey as a pioneering Black actress in Hollywood.
Dorothy Dandridge was one of the most electrifying talents Hollywood ever tried to contain — a trailblazing performer who would become the first Black woman nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, and whose story began long before anyone in Hollywood was paying attention. From a childhood spent on the road — singing and dancing through segregated churches and theaters across the South before she'd even learned to read — to performing at the Cotton Club by sixteen, Dandridge spent her early years chasing a stage of her own. While still a teenager, she'd walked away from the singing trio that had defined her childhood to chase something Hollywood almost never gave Black actresses: real, dramatic roles. Part 1 of our two-part series on Dorothy Dandridge follows her from a Depression-era childhood split between a controlling guardian and a mother chasing her own Hollywood break, through the Dandridge Sisters' years on the Cotton Club stage, in films like The Big Broadcast of 1936 and A Day at the Races , and on a European tour disrupted by the outbreak of World War II. It follows her star-making specialty number in Sun Valley Serenade alongside the Nicholas Brothers, and back to the one…
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