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INTRODUCING DOROTHY DANDRIDGE

http://youtu.be/7eOg8o6M-58

a television film directed by Martha Coolidge. Filmed over a span of a few weeks in early 1998, the film was aired in the United States on August 21, 1999. The original music score was composed by Elmer Bernstein. The film is marketed with the tagline: “Right woman. Right place. Wrong time.” 2000 Black Reel Awards 2000 Directors Guild of America 2000 Emmy Awards 2000 Golden Globes 2000 Image Awards 2000 Screen Actors Guild Awards.
She was everything America wanted a movie star to be…except white Actress, dancer, singer. Here was a woman with talent, beauty and ambition. Dorothy Dandridge owed it to herself to make it to the top. And make it, she would. An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn’t let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of “Carmen Jones”, becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star – with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn’t wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.

Halle Berry Wins Best Actress TV Movie – Golden Globes 2000

http://youtu.be/6xNp37oWEiM

Seth Green and Claudia Schiffer present the Best Actress in a Mini Series or TV Movie award to Halle Berry for her role in “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.” She dedicates the award to Dorothy Dandridge and thanks the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, HBO, the producers, her mother, and many others.

Forest Whitaker winning Best Actor

http://youtu.be/4-fGCHGTaGE

Reese Witherspoon presenting the Best Actor Oscar® to Forest Whitaker for his performance in “The Last King of Scotland” -the 79th Annual Academy Awards® in 2007.

Rita Hayworth aka Margarita Carmen Cansino

Rita Hayworth aka Margarita Carmen Cansino

Before                                        and                          After   Spanish dancer Eduardo Cansino‘s daughter Margarita trained as a dancer from early childhood. At age 12, mature-looking Rita joined Eduardo’s stage […]

Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams

Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams

Spanning sixty years, this deliciously entertaining history uncovers the audacious manner in which many blacks made a place for themselves in an industry that originally had no place for them. Through interviews and the personal recollections of Hollywood luminaries, Bogle pieces together a remarkable history that remains largely obscure to this day. We discover that […]

Flash Dance actress Jennifer Beals

Flash Dance actress Jennifer Beals

She is African-American and Irish Jennifer Sue Beals was born in Chicago on December 19, 1963 as the second child of Jeanne Anderson and Alfred Beals. Her mother, an Irish-Catholic retired elementary schoolteacher, still lives in Chicago. Her African-American father owned a grocery store on the South Side of Chicago where she spent the first […]

African Tribal Dance

African Tribal Dance

From the movie “Coming to America”.   Choreography by Paula Abdul Her father (Harry Abdul) is of Sephardic Jewish background from Syria. Her mother is also Jewish and was born in Canada. Her parents have lived in Syria, Brazil, and Canada – and this varied background has contributed to incredibly different stories in the press […]

Slowing Aging

The human life span may soon be doubled. Some scientists are honing in on a genetic switch to turn off ageing. Others have discovered a hormone which is already producing startling results in the over fifties.

The Josephine Baker Story

The Josephine Baker Story

Legendary black American stage performer who took pre-World War II Europe by storm but found constant racial harassment in her homeland.

Biography of the African-American who became a major performer in the Paris cabarets of the 1920’s and 1930’s. The film follows her life beginning as a struggling performer in 1917 St. Louis, her frustrations leading to her move to France, and follows to her death in 1975.

Today in historyJune 3rd1906… dancer, singer and actress Freda Josephine McDonald (aka Josephine Baker), who gained fame in ParisFrance, thanks to her “risque” cabaret and musical hall performances, was born in St. LouisMissouri.

While Ms Baker did perform on screen in a number of films – Siren of the Tropics (1927), Zouzou (1934) andPrincesse Tam Tam (1935), notably – she’s probably more universally recognized for her vaudeville stage musical acts which helped her become maybe the first international black female celebrity.

She was also politically active, making contributions to the Civil Rights Movement here in the United States, and assisted the French Resistance during World War II, becoming the first American-born woman to receive the French military honor, the Croix de guerre.

She died on April 12th1975 at age 68.

Since then, there’s really been only 1 true attempt to tell her story on film – the 1991HBO movie, The Josephine Baker Story, which starred Lynn Whitfield as Baker. Whitfield would go on to win an Emmy Award for her performance!

Actress & Singer: Dorothy Dandridge As Carmen Jones

Actress & Singer: Dorothy Dandridge As Carmen Jones

In 1943, Oscar Hammerstein Jr. took Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, rewrote the lyrics, changed the characters from 19th century Spaniards to World War II-era African-Americans, switched the locale to a Southern military base, and the result was Carmen Jones. Dorothy Dandridge stars as Carmen Jones, tempestuous employee of a parachute factory. Harry Belafonte plays Joe (originally José), a young military officer engaged to marry virginal Cindy Lou (Olga James). When Carmen gets into a fight with another girl, she is placed under arrest and put in Joe’s charge. Succumbing to her attractiveness, Joe accompanies Carmen to her old neighborhood, where, after killing a sergeant sent to retrieve him, he deserts the army. Carmen tries to be faithful, but fortune-telling Frankie (Pearl Bailey) warns her that she and her soldier are doomed. Enter Joe Adams in the role of boxer Husky Miller (a play on Carmen’s bullfighter Escamillo), who sweeps Carmen off her feet, ultimately with tragic consequences. Alhough both Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte were singers, their opera voices were dubbed in by LeVern Hutcherson and Marilyn Horne.

Actress & Singer: Eartha Kitt as Catwoman

Actress & Singer: Eartha Kitt as Catwoman

Nationality: American Ethnicity: Mother is Cherokee & African American & Father Dutch or German descent. Her surname Kitt is said to be of Dutch or German origin. In the late 1960s, Batman featured recurring villain Kitt as Catwoman after Julie Newmar had left the role, in season 3. https://youtu.be/zXrLJEN0jAQ She had sung and danced her way […]

New Asian Wealth Buying Tricked Out Private Jets

Piers Morgan on Shanghai HD http://youtu.be/bR8bvwzG_ho

Secret Lives of the Super Rich: Mega-Homes

When some of the richest people on earth want to sell their homes they turn to Dolly: The eight billion dollar woman. She’s gained the trust of the rich and famous and her knowledge of their secret lives helped her move over $8 Billion in high-end real estate. Now she’s revealing all, from the new […]

Global Impact Economy Forum

http://youtu.be/0xkxKNZ_iQA Actor and activist Maria Bello talks about how investing in women is creating a more inclusive economy in Haiti at the Global Impact Economy Forum in Washington, DC. U.S. Department of State’s Ambassador-at-Large Melanne Verveer and U.S. Agency for International Development’s Dr. Maura O’Neill provides opening remarks.  

community discussions as a catalyst to transform

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/bring_your_a_game To generate a national conversation on the plight of Black men and boys, the Twenty-First Century Foundation (21CF) has partnered with actor-director Mario Van Peebles and producer Karen Williams to create Bring Your A Game – a groundbreaking documentary film that, in Van Peebles’ words, “sheds light on the resilience and influence of Black […]

World’s Youngest Professional Drummer: Julian Pavone

MACOMB TOWNSHIP, Mich., USA — Julian Pavone is just seven and is already a professional drummer since he was 5 years 10 months and 3 days old – setting the new world record for the Youngest Professional Drummer. http://youtu.be/rfq2Q242DXQ  

sade

sade

Nationality: British Birth Name:  Helen Folasade Adu Birth Place: Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Ethnicity: English and Yoruba Nigerian the British singer Sade Adu, was born to an English Mother and a Yoruba Nigerian Father. She was born in Nigeria and lived there until she was four was 4 years old.   http://youtu.be/KWy3X7f4MyY   Source: http://www.sade.com/gb/biography/ http://youtu.be/Jg7OgfFkkGA