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Introducing Dorothy Dandridge
''Introducing Dorothy Dandridge'' is a 1999 American biographical drama television film directed by Martha Coolidge from a screenplay by Shonda Rhimes and Scott Abbott, based on the biography ''Dorothy Dandridge'' by Earl Mills. Filmed over a span of a few weeks in early 1998, the film stars Halle Berry as actress and singer Dorothy Dandridge and premiered on HBO on August 21, 1999. The teleplay is drawn exclusively from the biography of Dorothy Dandridge by Earl Mills. The original music score was composed by Elmer Bernstein, who had known Dandridge and Otto Preminger. Cast * Halle Berry as Dorothy Dandridge ** Wendi Williams provides the singing voice for Dorothy Dandridge * Brent Spiner as Earl Mills * Klaus Maria Brandauer as Otto Preminger * Obba Babatundé as Harold Nicholas * Loretta Devine as Ruby Dandridge * Cynda Williams as Vivian Dandridge * LaTanya Richardson as Auntie * Tamara Taylor as Geri Branton-Nicholas * William Atherton as Darryl Zanuck * D. B. Sween ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shonda Rhimes
Shonda Lynn Rhimes (born January 13, 1970) is an American television screenwriter, producer, and author. She is best known as the showrunner—creator, head writer, and executive producer—of the television medical drama '' Grey's Anatomy'', its spin-off '' Private Practice'', and the political thriller series '' Scandal''. Rhimes has also served as the executive producer of the ABC television series '' Off the Map'', '' How to Get Away with Murder'', '' The Catch'', and ''Grey's'' spin-off '' Station 19''. In 2007, 2013 and 2021, Rhimes was named by ''Time'' on the ''Time'' 100, their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2015, she published her first book, a memoir, ''Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person''. In 2017, Netflix said that it had entered into a multi-year development deal with Rhimes, by which all of her future productions will be Netflix Original series. Netflix had already purchased the streaming ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biographical Film
A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of a non-fictional or historically-based person or people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudrama films and historical drama films in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a single person's life story or at least the most historically important years of their lives. Context Biopic scholars include George F. Custen of the College of Staten Island and Dennis P. Bingham of Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. Custen, in ''Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History'' (1992), regards the genre as having died with the Hollywood studio era, and in particular, Darryl F. Zanuck. On the other hand, Bingham's 2010 study ''Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre'' shows how it perpetuates as a codified genre using many of the same tropes used in the studio era that has followed a simil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darryl Zanuck
Darryl Francis Zanuck (September 5, 1902December 22, 1979) was an American film producer and studio executive; he earlier contributed stories for films starting in the silent era. He played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors (the length of his career was rivaled only by that of Adolph Zukor). He produced three films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture during his tenure. Early life Zanuck was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, the son of Sarah Louise (née Torpin), who later married Charles Norton, and Frank Harvey Zanuck, who owned and operated a hotel in Wahoo. He had an older brother, Donald (1893–1903), who tragically died in an accident when he was only 9 years old. Zanuck was of partial Swiss descent, and raised a Protestant. At age six, Zanuck and his mother moved to Los Angeles, where the better climate could improve her poor health. At age eight, he found his first movie job as an extra, but his disapproving father recalled him ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Atherton
William Atherton Knight (born July 30, 1947) is an American actor, best known for portraying Richard Thornburg in ''Die Hard'' and its sequel and Walter Peck in ''Ghostbusters''. Early life Atherton was born in Orange, Connecticut, the son of Myrtle (née Robinson) and Robert Atherton Knight. He studied acting at the Drama School at Carnegie Tech and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1969. Career Atherton was successful on the New York stage immediately after graduating and worked with many of the country's leading playwrights including David Rabe, John Guare, and Arthur Miller, winning numerous awards for his work on and off Broadway. He got his big break playing hapless fugitive Clovis Poplin in ''The Sugarland Express'' (1974), the feature film debut of Steven Spielberg. After this, he garnered major roles in dark dramas such as '' The Day of the Locust'' (1975) and '' Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1977), as well as the big-budget disaster film '' The Hindenburg' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vivian Dandridge
Vivian Alferetta Dandridge (April 22, 1921 – October 26, 1991) was an American singer, actress and dancer. Dandridge is best known for being the older sister of actress and singer Dorothy Dandridge and the daughter of actress Ruby Dandridge. Dandridge was a member of the Dandridge Sisters musical group, along with Etta Jones and Dorothy Dandridge from 1934 until the group disbanded in 1940. Dandridge went on to appear in minor roles on films and television from 1940 through the early 1960s. She never really achieved the same notable success as her younger sister, and Vivian Dandridge disappeared from the public eye by 1970. Dandridge died after suffering a stroke on October 26, 1991 at age 70. Early life and career Dandridge was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Cyril Dandridge, and the former Ruby Jean Butler, an aspiring entertainer. Dandridge's parents separated shortly before the birth of her sister Dorothy. Initially, Ruby Dandridge put her two girls to work performing acrobatic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruby Dandridge
Ruby Jean Dandridge (née Butler; March 3, 1900 – October 17, 1987) was an American actress from the early 1900s through to the late 1950s. Dandridge is best known for her role on the radio show '' Amos 'n Andy'', in which she played Sadie Blake and Harriet Crawford, and on radio's '' Judy Canova Show'', in which she played Geranium. She is recognized for her role in the 1959 movie ''A Hole in the Head'' as Sally. Early life Born Ruby Jean Butler in Wichita, Kansas, on March 3, 1900, she was one of four children. Dandridge's parents were Nellie Simon, a maid, and George Butler, who was a janitor, grocer and entertainer. Dandridge's father was also "a famous minstrel man." Career In 1937, Dandridge played one of the witches in what an article in ''The Pittsburgh Courier'' called a "sepia representation" of ''Macbeth'' in Los Angeles. California. The production began on July 8 at the Mayan Theater. Five years later, she appeared in a production of '' Hit the Deck'' at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Nicholas
Harold Lloyd Nicholas (March 27, 1921 – July 3, 2000) was an American dancer specializing in tap. Nicholas was the younger half of the tap-dancing pair the Nicholas Brothers, known as two of the world's greatest dancers. His older brother was Fayard Nicholas. Nicholas was featured in such musicals as ''An All-Colored Vaudeville Show'' (1935), '' Stormy Weather'' (1943), '' The Pirate'' (1948), and ''The Five Heartbeats'' (1991). Life and career Early years Nicholas was born to drummer and orchestra leader Ulysses Domonick and pianist Viola Harden in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. By the age of three, his older brother Fayard enjoyed sitting in the audience of the black vaudeville theater where his parents performed, enraptured by the great performers on stage. Immersed in show business, when the Nicholases added a second son to the family, seven-year-old Fayard insisted that the child be named after his idol, Harold Lloyd, the silent-screen comedian. The two brothers soon beg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger ( , ; 5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian-American theatre and film director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the theatre. He first gained attention for film noir mysteries such as '' Laura'' (1944) and '' Fallen Angel'' (1945), while in the 1950s and 1960s, he directed high-profile adaptations of popular novels and stage works. Several of these later films pushed the boundaries of censorship by dealing with themes which were then taboo in Hollywood, such as drug addiction ('' The Man with the Golden Arm'', 1955), rape ('' Anatomy of a Murder'', 1959) and homosexuality ('' Advise & Consent'', 1962). He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. He also had several acting roles. Early life Preminger was born in 1905 in Wischnitz, Bukovina, Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Vyzhnytsia, Ukraine), into a Jewish family. His parents were Josefa (née F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wendi Williams
For Real is an American R&B and soul quartet, that formed in 1990. In the latter part of that decade they were nominated for a Billboard Music Award and a Soul Train Music Award. The ladies have now reunited and are touring. Biography For Real secured their recording contract by accident. "We were picking up our manager from the airport. So we decided to greet him with an acappella song. Someone from A&M Records just happened to be in the airport and heard us perform. Not long after, we were signed," said Latanyia Baldwin. The band released their debut album, '' It's a Natural Thang'', with production from Brian McKnight on A&M Records in 1994, and it became a critical success, including a rare four stars from ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. Their first single, "You Don't Wanna Miss" hit #28 on the ''Billboard'' Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart; the group's second single, "Easy to Love", peaked at #65 on the same chart. The third single, "You Don't Know Nothin'", peaked at #88 on the ''B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertelsmann Music Group
Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) was a division of a German media company Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Sony Corporation of America on 1 October 2008. Although it was established in 1987, the music company was formed as RCA/Ariola International in 1985 as a joint venture to combine the music label activities of RCA's RCA Records division and Bertelsmann's Ariola Records and its associated labels which include Arista Records. It consisted of the BMG Music Publishing company, the world's third largest music publisher and the world's largest independent music publisher, and (since August 2004) the 50% share of the joint venture with Sony Music, which established the German American Sony BMG from 2004 to 2008. Acquisition In March 1998, BMG sold its video game publisher BMG Interactive to Take-Two Interactive, with Bertelsmann taking a 16 percent stake in Take-Two. BMG Interactive published the '' Grand Theft Auto'' video game series. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jet (magazine)
''Jet'' is an American weekly digital magazine focusing on news, culture, and entertainment related to the African-American community. Founded in November 1951 by John H. Johnson of the Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, Illinois, the magazine was billed as "The Weekly Negro News Magazine". ''Jet'' chronicled the civil rights movement from its earliest years, including the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the activities of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. ''Jet'' was printed from November 1, 1951, in digest-sized format in all or mostly black-and-white until its December 27, 1999, issue. In 2009, ''Jet'' expanded one of the weekly issues to a double issue published once each month. Johnson Publishing Company struggled with the same loss of circulation and advertising as other magazines and newspapers in the digital age, and the final print issue of ''Jet'' was published on June 23, 2014, continuing solely as a digital magazine app. In 2016, J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorothy Dandridge
Dorothy Jean Dandridge (November 9, 1922 – September 8, 1965) was an American actress, singer and dancer. She is the first African-American film star to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, which was for her performance in '' Carmen Jones'' (1954). Dandridge performed as a vocalist in venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. During her early career, she performed as a part of The Wonder Children, later The Dandridge Sisters, and appeared in a succession of films, usually in uncredited roles. In 1959, Dandridge was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for ''Porgy and Bess''. She is the subject of the 1999 HBO biographical film, '' Introducing Dorothy Dandridge''. She has been recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Dandridge was married and divorced twice, first to dancer Harold Nicholas (the father of her daughter, Harolyn Suzanne) and then to hotel owner Jack Denison. Dandridge died in 1965 at the age of 42. Early life Dandridge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
