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Dorothy Jean Dandridge (November 9, 1922–September 8, 1965) was an American actress and popular singer. The first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, she was also the first African-American woman to appear at the Las Vegas Frontier and the Waldorf-Astoria,as well as the first to be featured on the cover of Life. Dandridge went on to appear on the Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson shows and received good reviews for her nightclub appearances at the Cafe de Paris and the La vie en Rose.
On September 8, 1965, Dandridge was found dead by her manager, Earl Mills, in her West Hollywood apartment from an overdose of Imipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant. She was 42 years old. Dandridge’s death was later ruled accidental.
It would be some years before Hollywood acknowledged Dandridge’s legacy. In later years, stars such as Cicely Tyson, Jada Pinkett, Halle Berry, Janet Jackson, and Angela Bassett acknowledged Dandridge’s contributions to the role of blacks in film. Halle Berry took the lead role of Dandridge in the HBO Movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, for which she won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Dorothy Dandridge has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6719 Hollywood Boulevard.
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