DOROTHY DANDRIDGE - DOCUMENT SIGNED 02/05/1959 CO-SIGNED BY: LEW SCHREIBER - HFSID 279517

DOROTHY DANDRIDGE and LEW SCHREIBER
She signs a typed letter of agreement modifying contact procedures in her contract with 20th Century-Fox. Also signed by studio manager Lew Schreiber. Extremely rare!
Document signed: "Dorothy Dandridge", 1 page, 8½x11. Hollywood, California, 1959 February 5. Dandridge signs her agreement to a typed documentary letter from Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation altering her contract with the studio in regards to procedures by which Fox could send any notification to her. Dorothy Dandridge (1922-1965) may have been born a generation too soon. Most of her early film roles were stereotyped African-American parts. Not until the film Carmen Jones, for which she became the first black American nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, was her talent fully recognized. Dandridge was a fine singer, who had performed on stage as a child with sister Vivian. She was a popular nightclub singer. Halle Berry, who played Dandridge in a 1999 HBO movie, thanked her in her remarks upon becoming the first black Best Actress Oscar winner 3 years later. Dandridge didn't live to hear those remarks. Swindled by her financial advisers and struggling to help her daughter, brain damaged from birth, Dandridge died from an overdose of an anti-depressant drug in 1965. Originally a casting director on films like Les Miserables (1935) and One in a Million (1936), LEW SCHREIBER (1900-1961) eventually worked his way up to studio manager of the Los Angeles Twentieth Century Fox, becoming the second hand man of the motion picture company. He was often in charge of contacting the superstars of the company to inform them of production details or company standards. His death in 1961 was one in a long line of hardships Twentieth Century Fox followed between 1961 and 1962; Another was the death of producer Jerry Wald and the stroke of producer Darryl Zanuck. Staple holes at upper left. Lightly creased. Otherwise, fine condition.