Dorothy Dandridge the Invisible Star: Racial Segregation in Hollywood Fan Magazines in the 1950s

In 1954, Dorothy Dandridge’s career and stardom were approaching their peak: after many years playing small roles on screen and performing on the nightclub circuit she was cast as the lead in Otto Preminger’s all-black musical Carmen Jones, a role that won her an Academy Award nomination. Despite this, Dandridge was ignored by the American fan magazines. Though major mainstream publications like Life, Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Look ran features on her, the top movie magazines such as Photoplay, Modern Screen and Motion Picture downplayed her significance, denying her stardom. This chapter examines one issue of Photoplay from February 1955, which amongst the usual content has a one-page sponsored feature in black and white about Carmen Jones. Using a detailed analysis of the content of this issue, the chapter outlines the way that the American fan magazines of the mid-1950s, in an effort to maintain the status quo, screened their mostly female audience from any political issues, which by the very nature of her race Dandridge epitomised. The result of this invisibility for Dandridge was that the progress of her career was impeded and short-lived.