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Search Results for “Dandridge

CHARLIE MINGUS ON THE BASKETBALL COURT (1944)

Hollywood: Herbert Holcombe, [ca. 1944]} Vintage original 8 x 10″ (20 x 25 cm.) black-and-white print still photo, NEAR FINE, with stamp on verso “HERBERT HOLCOMBE PHOTOGRAPHER HOLLYWOOD”.

There was a period in Los Angeles Black entertainment history when many night clubs, traveling musicals and bands would form their own basketball teams. This is a photo of seven musicians and performers who were appearing in the musical SWEET N’ HOT, promoted as “The Greatest Negro All Star Musical to Hit the Coast”. The show ran for eleven weeks at the Mayan Theatre in downtown Los Angeles and featured a young Dorothy Dandridge.

The legendary jazz composer and bass player Charlie Mingus can be seen at the right under the light. He grew up in the Los Angeles Watts area, and would have been all of 20 years-old when the photo was taken. Among the others seen here are Leonard Reed, Lee Young (Lester Young’s brother), Sneaks of the Sneaks and Emil dance team, tenor player Maxwell Davis, Calvin Jackson, Marques Haynes and Carmen O’Leary. Accompanied by a letter from jazz scholar Bill Reed. An extraordinarily early photo of the great Mingus.

TAMANGO (1959 US-release) Lobby card set

Hollywood: Hal Roach Pictures, 1959. Vintage original 11 x 14″ (28 x 36 cm.) lobby card set of eight (8) cards, USA. Dorothy Dandridge, Curd Jürgens, dir: John Berry; Hal Roach Dist. Corp. Various chips, pinholes and other signs of handling, primarily in blank margins, GOOD+. After Dorothy Dandridge triumphed in CARMEN JONES, she had difficulty finding work. TAMANGO, a film about a slave ship revolt, offered her an opportunity to work on a European film (a French-Italian co-production).

CARMEN JONES (1954; 1955 Swedish release) Poster

Stockholm: Twentieth Century Fox, [1955]. Vintage original 39 x 27″ (99 x 69 cm.) one sheet poster, Sweden. Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, dir: Otto Preminger; Twentieth Century Fox. Conserved on archival linen, with routine touch-ups to address minor tears and chipping, near fine.

Dorothy Dandridge‘s greatest and most iconic role.

This Swedish poster, with a design entirely different from its U.S. equivalent, has a large image of her, hands on hips and smiling broadly, alongside designer Saul Bass’ image of the flaming red rose (which occurs in the film’s credits).

Movie Lobby Cards – The Origin and Reasons for Collecting

Movie Lobby Cards Shop Now Movie lobby cards are a uniquely American creation. They are a hybrid of movie posters and, usually, movie star photos. Back in the early 1910’s, the small nickelodeons, where films were first shown, started morphing into larger, more permanent,[…]

PORGY AND BESS (1959)

Vintage original 13 x 10 ” (34.5 x 26 cm.) borderless black-and-white double weight print still photo, USA. Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis, Jr., dir: Otto Preminger; Columbia. A magnificent, and certainly extremely scarce, photo of the three principals from this classic musical film, adapted from Gershwin. FINE.