Dorothy Dandridge (𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 November 9, 1922, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.—died September 8, 1965, West Hollywood, California) was an American singer and film actress who was the first black woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for best actress.

Carmen JonesDorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte in Carmen Jones (1954).

Dandridge then won the title role in Otto Preminger’s all-black Carmen Jones (1954), earning an Oscar nomination. (She did not sing in Carmen Jones, however; the singing was dubbed by mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne.) Because she was a black woman in a racially tense era, film offers thereafter did not come readily, though she did appear in Island in the Sun (1957), which dealt with miscegenation and costarred Harry Belafonte, as well as in The Decks Ran Red (1958), Tamango (1959), and Moment of Danger (1960). One of her most important roles was Bess in Preminger’s handsomely produced Porgy and Bess (1959), starring opposite Sidney Poitier.