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Rating: 
Summary: Only scratches the surface...
Review: After reading other works on Dorothy Dandrige I thought this purported autobiograph left a few things to be desired. The book reveals personal details of her life but downplays certain players in her life. For example, the lesbian relationship between her mother and "friend" Auntee was passed off as being no more than a casual friendship. I understand DD reasons for not revealing things about her mother considering she was still alive at the time the book was published. She only mention a few details about her fame with the movie CARMEN.The book is written well but only takes a cursory view of her life and success. It seems to accentuates the most tragic details of her life and downplays her contribution to others. It's a good book, but please read Donald Bogle's book if you want a more thorough revelation of her life.
Rating:
Summary: Only scratches the surface...
Review: After reading other works on Dorothy Dandrige I thought this purported autobiograph left a few things to be desired. The book reveals personal details of her life but downplays certain players in her life. For example, the lesbian relationship between her mother and "friend" Auntee was passed off as being no more than a casual friendship. I understand DD reasons for not revealing things about her mother considering she was still alive at the time the book was published. She only mention a few details about her fame with the movie CARMEN. The book is written well but only takes a cursory view of her life and success. It seems to accentuates the most tragic details of her life and downplays her contribution to others. It's a good book, but please read Donald Bogle's book if you want a more thorough revelation of her life.
Rating: 
Summary: Full of Dandridge's effusive and self-deprecating humor!
Review: Dandridge's take on her life is very different from the other 2 well-known biographies -- if for no other reason that her book is full of her effusive and self-deprecating humor! But don't be fooled; Dandridge's life is a very complex one. Basically this is a memoir, but it's so much else. It's a story of love and marriage and motherhood and divorce and lust (and yes, in that order!). There's the joyful laughter of nostalgia mixed with the bitter tears of regret. There's the realization of hard-fought ambitions, there's haughty glamour, there's acute despair. In some ways Dorothy was the queen of self-preservation, yet you could almost call this book the world's longest suicide note. Dorothy truly had everything and nothing and that is bluntly yet gracefully explained in this book. Dorothy was a star at a time when talent, ambition, beauty, class, and ability was in no way valued in a black woman, just was not asked for by the larger society, much less encouraged, cherished, and held dear. The real tragedy of her life is that she is not remembered by more people. Reading about her has convinced me more than ever that we all need to listen, hear, and heed the story of Dorothy Dandridge.
Rating: 
Summary: The Unhappy Life of the 1st Black Movie Glamour Girl
Review: Dorothy Dandridge was a contemporary of Lena Horne who didn't make it - she died a suicide, unhappy for reasons that proceeded her life in Hollywood. The book covers her childhood through her movie career and failed marriage - and tells the "rest of the story" as to why someone who would seem to have had it all was actually so miserable she wanted to die. Thus the title "Everything and Nothing".
There are only a small number of books dealing with the pathology of "black rage" in the 20th century. This is a good story of how demons handed down in the family tree - a product of conditions often found in black culture - managed to destroy someone who outwardly looked happy and prosperous. Lena Horne survived her own troubles and went on to become an astounding (and very wise) old lady with a long life of accomplishment. Dandridge didn't make it. After reading this well written biography - completed and published posthumously by a friend of Dandridge's - you'll wonder what she would have become if she'd overcome her depression.
Books like these give an insight into problems most people would never realize are going on in "successful" blacks.
(See also "Black Rage" by Price Cobbs MD.
Rating:
Summary: A must have
Review: From the pages I got to read it is a book I will definitly buy. It was very good and I recommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: A sad tale of a Beautiful Woman
Review: I agree w/ the comments made above. I love Dorothy Dandridge & have always been curious about her life & when i read this book i was shocked. Mostly at how frank & completely honest she was about the events of her life. She named names & told it like it was & beleive me it was not a pretty picture.....but i was intrigued from start to finish w/ this book. i also have to say it was probably one of the saddest books i ever read. This is no sunny tale folks but a honest & realistic story of what it was like to be a black female superstar in 1950's Hollywood when there were no Black female Superstars at all.
Rating:
Summary: A sad tale of a Beautiful Woman
Review: I agree w/ the comments made above. I love Dorothy Dandridge & have always been curious about her life & when i read this book i was shocked. Mostly at how frank & completely honest she was about the events of her life. She named names & told it like it was & beleive me it was not a pretty picture.....but i was intrigued from start to finish w/ this book. i also have to say it was probably one of the saddest books i ever read. This is no sunny tale folks but a honest & realistic story of what it was like to be a black female superstar in 1950's Hollywood when there were no Black female Superstars at all.
Rating:
Summary: an eyeopener!!! a bit depressing...
Review: i recently completed reading this book i found dorothy's own story a completely modern and intelligent account to be in accord with many of the same ugly problems that face us today...racism and sexism...how devastating it was for her to be so talented and beautiful yet...she was treated like ... because of her color and men only wanted to treat her like a prostitute because to them yes she was very beautiful and famous...but she could not be treated with dignity and respect because she was a black woman...she found this overwhelmingly frustrating that these powerful, handsome men did not want the human dorothy dandridge with feelings and intelligence...they just wanted to be seen with her or just to try her out sexually then put her back right away in the dump somewhere...dorothy tried and she stated in her book that many times she thought things would be different for her...she deserved to be loved..yet... no fault of her own she lived a life without love from day one...her mom just wanted to make money off of the child dorothy and her sister vivian...her mother let a obviously jealous and abusive stranger have full control over young dorothy and sibling something that dorothy could not ever understand ... her mom would just come along to collect the dough that the children made and go...her father only shows up after absolutely no contact at all to see the successful adult dorothy now in her twenties and a fast rising star...leaving dorothy to wonder would he contact her after all of these years if she was a criminal or doing badly...her first philandering husband was another user...he offered no support to dorothy or their disabled daughter in any kind of way...after several disfunctional relationships her sister does not even bother to contact dorothy...in between a string of user lovers,an abusive gold digger husband no#2, bad investments, aging and a fledging career...topped with crippling racism in that era and in her field of entertainment...dorothy dandridge's lonely heart simply could not take any more...her mind could not find rhyme or reason to anymore letdowns..she was tired of life and did not stick around for the next blow because she was too fragile for anymore heartache...all of this lead up to her untimely death...while lena horne went through similar heartbreaks, racism and letdowns...lena horne was a stronger person than dorothy dandridge and lena refused to let the people and situations created by them destroy her...nevertheless this is a beautiful and bittersweet account of an angel named dorothy dandridge...may we read and learn from this story and pray for dorothy dandridge's soul and thank her for that legendary knockout portrayal as Carmen...showing that the 50's black woman in hollywood could be shown as more than a fat, greasy and homely domestic with bad english
Rating:
Summary: The truth is stranger than fiction
Review: This book captivates you the moment you open it. Dottie's openess and honesty about her life totally humanizes this legend. So many important issues of today are discussed like how racism played a role in her career. The other part is she connects with other women with tales of her desire to be a wife and mother. Riveting.
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