Music VIDEO: Dorothy Dandridge sings "A Jig In The Jungle"

Before there was DEI, before affirmative action, even before the Civil Rights Act, a black... or non-white... actress could still make it big in Hollywood. All she needed was talent. Here's song-and-dance artiste Dorothy Dandrige singing "A Jig in the Jungle" (Walt knows what you're thinking) in front of Cee Pee Johnson and his Orchestra.

Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress and singer, born on 9 November 1922. That makes her 18 at the time this video was recorded. 

Ms Dandridge was the first black American to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for Carmen Jones (1954). She 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, usually in uncredited roles, in a succession of films, including a Marx Brothers picture. Can you think which one? Keep reading and Walt will tell you.

In 1959, Ms Dandridge was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Porgy and Bess. She was the subject of the 1999 biographical film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, with the well-chosen Halle Berry portraying her. She had been recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Ms 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. She died on 8 September 1965 at the age of 42. 

[Well? What about that Marx Brothers movie, then? Ed.]  Oh. Sorry. It was A Day at the Races, 1937.