01 09 10
BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS »

Bogie

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Everything and Nothing: The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy (Part 2 ) The Wonder Kids

Bad Investment


Rual Steddiman my lawyer got me to invest in oil wells in Arizona.  Mel Parker my accountant, told me to not invest any more money in the oil wells.  Rual convinced me to put all my film projects and future film projects money into the oil wells.





Evie and Van Johnson 

Evie, Van Johnson's wife warned me to stop dealing with Rual.



Ruby Dandridge

My mother Ruby warned me; she told me that I should have put it into real estate.



Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas paid to get out of it.  I was in it for four years.




If it is possible for any human being to be like a haunted house, maybe that would be me.



If it weren't for my belief in God, I'd think none of it was worthwhile...











Monday, September 8, 2014

Everything and Nothing: The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy (Part 1) View From Abyss

"Hollywood's first authentic love goddess of color."









Author, Earl Conrad

Many of her close friends told her that her autobiography was a disgrace and should be kept quiet
Earl Conrad




The Tragedies
Legally evicted from my showcase home in the Hollywood Hills, lost fortune (due to poor investments in Arizona oil wells), retarded 19 year old daughter returned to me, in court to divorce second husband (Jack Denison)....All of these events converged with paralyzing swiftness, with crisis upon crisis.  At the end, all I wanted was to tale a long walk off Malibu Beach.  My career seemed crushed and over with.

Desiring death more than anything.  Pills to pep up.  Pills to pipe down.  Pills taken Benzedrine (dangerous if overdosed).  Dexamil and Dexedrine (appetite deterrents).  Thyroid pills and digitalis.  More on and about the drugs Dorothy took




Dorothy used 3 trucks from Bekins Van and Storage Company, during the eviction process.





I am nothing but emotion; I am nothing but a wind of emotion; and everything was blowing as I took the last look at the interior of the house.  (Dorothy's assets at that time was $5,000.  Her debts nearly $130,000).




Long living room - beige carpeting (deep), beige walls, cream colored frames on the pictures, long brown sofa, low round marble topped table brown oak legs, decanters of brandy and wine, translucent ash trays, ornamental lamps, vases choking with flowers, four tan and white cushions, garden side yard flowers.





My ornamental candelabra sitting on my Mason & Hamlin piano.  Harolyn use to play do,re,mi....on the piano all the time.  Actually after being cared for by the same lady from the ages of 9-19 she was returned to me at the same time I was being evicted.  After never missing a payment for ten years....was only behind two months she was returned to me.  Lynn sat at that piano and kept playing the same notes over and over again.  Very nerve wrecking.  Still I put on a smile.


Papers kept arriving and I, grinning as if this were all a routine ritual, served hamburgers and coffee, and applauded my daughter, and patted the dogs.   Yet inwardly I could see and feel my whole career in show business - and my whole personal life - tapping right offstage.





Roofed patio Jack and I used to sit and have breakfast or squabble.  I tired of trying to get him up off the floor. He came to depend on me as the breadwinner, and that irked me terribly.



Also in that area, walnut paneled downstairs den. This is where I read scripts and played records.



Sammy Davis Jr. and May Britt lived next door.  



Herb Jeffries and Tempest Storm lived further down on the same block.




With Cissy, little mongrel.   Had to let go of Cissy and Duke (husky).  After giving up Cissy and Duke, I had a half dozen of pink and white cloth dogs to settle for in place of them.  Stayed in a nearby hotel until an apartment was available.  As I stayed by myself in this neat, clean, well-equipped dead end.  I asked myself over and over.  What happened?  How did I get here? What do I do now?




Took a small apartment near the Hollywood Strip.  




Earl Conrad 
(co-author of the auto-biography (with Dorothy Dandridge) Everything and Nothing: The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy)

It was not suicide, it was a murder that took a lifetime ~ Earl Conrad






Earl Conrad (17 December 1912 - 17 January 1986), birth name Cohen, was an American author who penned at least twenty works of biography, history, and criticism, including books in collaboration. At least one that he 'ghost' wrote was the biography of actor Errol Flynn, titled My Wicked, Wicked Ways.

Conrad was born to Eli and Minnie Cohen in Auburn, New York, into a Jewish family with nine siblings. He was "reared in the Judaic tradition" but chose to Anglicize his name when he began his career as a professional journalist. He wished to be a writer from a young age, and his early experience included a stint at the Auburn Advertiser-Journal. He worked as a journalist for the newspaper PM in New York City, and other papers. As the Harlem Bureau Chief for then Chicago Defender, he investigated lynchings in the south. This work brought him into contact with Heywood Patterson. In 1950, Conrad co-wrote Patterson's memoir, Scottsboro Boy, about his experience as one of a group of nine men accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. 

He married Anna Alyse Abrams in 1938, and they had one son, Michael Earl Conrad. The Conrads lived in San Francisco at least during the 1967-1972 period in an apartment near downtown, not far from Union Square. In the early 1980s, they lived in Coronado, California. Some of his papers are in the local history collection of the Cayuga Community College in Auburn. Other papers are in the collection of the university of Oregon. He died on January 17, 1986, of complications from lymphoma.

His interests as a writer included biographies of show business personalities, such as his memoir of Errol Flynn and his biography of Dorothy Dandridge; and issues related to African Americans, such as his biographies of Harriet Tubman. He wrote a fantasy novel about an African American nation being carved out of the American South, a country in the shape of Africa.

Works
Conrad penned these following works under his name, or with collaboration.

Harriet Tubman: Negro Soldier and Abolitionist (1942)
Harriet Tubman (1943)
Rock Bottom (1952)
The Da Vinci Machine (short stories, 1968)
Errol Flynn: A Memoir (1978)
Typoo
The Premier
The Trial of William Freeman
Scottsboro Boy (with Haywood Patterson)
The Philology of Negro Dialect
Horse Trader
Gulf Stream North
The Invention of the Negro
Battle New York
Jim Crow America
The Public School Scandal
Billy Rose: Manhattan Primitive
Everything and Nothing: The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy

Pills, Drugs, Booze Dorothy took

Benzedrine a habitual hallucinogenic drug 

Benzedrine probably led Dorothy to a selfish indifference towards the common world everyone else lived in and a withering of love and affection for others.  Bennies (nickname for the drug) did not alter one's personality or distort one's perceptions of reality; they were, in that sense at least, morally acceptable.

Of course, bennies had a tendency to ruin the body of the person using them. Benzedrine wasn't made a prescription drug until 1959, but by then the fad was already in decline, partly because people could see the damage that bennies were inflicting on their users, but perhaps even more because artistic and intellectual styles were changing. 




Dexedrine.  Two important benefits.  One, effective in appetite control.  Two offered a renewed level of energy.  

Interesting.  It is a stimulant widely prescribed by physicians for the treatment of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and narcolepsy (a sleep problem). This medicine is a stimulant.





Dexamyl - Appetite deterrent.  An amphetamine stimulant combined with a barbiturate depressant. Dexamyl was of a significant value in depressed and verbally inhibited patients.

Dexamyl (or Drinamyl in the UK) is the brand name of a combination drug composed of amobarbital (previously called amylbarbitone) and dextroamphetamine.

First introduced in 1950 by Smith, Kline and French, Dexamyl was marketed as an antidepressant medication that did not cause agitation, and also as an anti-anxiety drug and diet drug. Amphetamine alone had previously been marketed as an antidepressant (under the Benzedrine Sulfate brand) beginning around 1938. The amphetamine in Dexamyl was intended to elevate mood, while the barbiturate was added to counter the side effects of the amphetamine. Its name is a portmanteau of dextroamphetamine and amylbarbitone.

In Britain during the early 1960s, the drug was taken by "tired housewives", and was also abused by youths who took excessively large doses and nicknamed the triangular blue tablets "purple hearts". This became a celebrated part of the Mod subculture. The main character of the film of Quadrophenia by The Who is shown taking purple hearts at a party, then subsequently appearing to suffer an attack of amphetamine psychosis.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dexamyl spansules—a clear and green capsule containing green and white "beads"—became popular as a street-drug upper nicknamed "Christmas trees," a reference to its appearance.

The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and the Food and Drug Administration decided to recall all diet drugs that contained amphetamines and required all of them to be off the market by June 30, 1973. Smith, Kline & French, the producer of Dexamyl and Eskatrol, was excepted from an order banning interstate shipment of its drugs. The company asked for a hearing before the F.D.A.

Dr. George C. Nichopoulos was indicted in May 1980 for having improperly prescribed Dexamyl and Preludin to the singer Jerry Lee Lewis, despite knowing he was addicted to them.  Dr. Patrick A. Mazza, team physician for the Reading Phillies, said he prescribed Dexamyl, Eskatrol, Dexedrine, and Preludin for Steve Carlton, Larry Christenson, Tim McCarver, Pete Rose, Larry Bowa, and Greg Luzinski. The charges against Mazza were dropped after he contended that he had provided the prescriptions in good faith to the baseball players at their request.

Dexamyl was discontinued in the 1970s in favor of MAO inhibitors and tricyclic antidepressants.




Soloxine, a thyroid pill

How It Works
People with hypothyroidism have lower-than-normal or no thyroid function and do not make enough thyroid hormone for the body to function properly. Taking thyroid hormone medicine replaces missing hormones.

Why It Is Used
Thyroid hormone medicines are given when blood tests show that you have hypothyroidism.

Thyroid hormone medicines also may be prescribed:
For mild (subclinical) hypothyroidism when you test positive for antithyroid antibodies.
For an enlarged thyroid gland (goiter).

How Well It Works
People with hypothyroidism who take thyroid hormone medicine usually notice:
Improved energy level.
Gradual weight loss (in people with severe hypothyroidism at the time of diagnosis).
Improved mood and mental function (thinking, memory).
Improved pumping action of the heart and improved digestive tract function.
Reduction in the size of an enlarged thyroid gland (goiter), if you have one.
Improved growth, school performance, and behavior in children. Children whose growth has been delayed because of hypothyroidism start growing normally again when they are getting adequate doses of thyroid hormone.
Lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
In most cases, thyroid hormone medicine works quickly to correct symptoms.




Digitalis

Digitalis is a plant. Although the parts of the plant that grow above the ground can be used for medicine, digitalis is unsafe for self-medication. All parts of the plant are poisonous.

Chemicals taken from digitalis are used to make a prescription drug called digoxin. Digitalis lanata is the major source of digoxin in the US.

Digitalis is used for congestive heart failure (CHF) and relieving associated fluid retention (edema); irregular heartbeat, including atrial fibrillation and “flutter;” asthma; epilepsy; tuberculosis; constipation; headache; and spasm. It is also used to cause vomiting and for healing wounds and burns.

How does it work?
Digitalis contains chemicals from which the prescription medication digoxin (Lanoxin) is made. These chemicals can increase the strength of heart muscle contractions, change heart rate, and increase heart blood output.

Believe Dorothy used it for relieving fluid retention (edema).




Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Dorothy's Automobiles


1953 Cadillac Eldorado convertible (am not sure what color, so I chose one in Black and one in Red since both to me are colors men would choose).


Farley Granger

Peter Lawford


The convertible Dorothy drove was either Peter Lawford's (her boyfriend at the time) or Farley Granger's.   (Jet - July 2, 1953) (Jet - Nov 5, 1953)

TO VIEW LARGER PHOTOS, CLICK ON PHOTO

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Dorothy Diet and Exercise Regimen

Dorothy liked to lounge around at home in shorts and keep fit doing exercises in her small garden.

A workout in a gymnasium caused actress to break her foot.  w/Walter Saxer, World's top body culture expert at that time.


Dorothy asked how she keeps her sexy figure: "No weight trouble, but I have to eat for energy.  So I consume lots of eggs, meat, grapefruit and tea with lemon for pep."


Dorothy's Death


Four Shall Die (1940)