14. Her Director Lover Gave Her Shoddy Career Advice
During their four-year love affair, Preminger frequently gave Dandridge advice on how to advance her career. Perhaps the Austro-Hungarian director’s opinion would have benefitted a white woman, but it did little for the challenging career predicaments of a Black actress in Jim Crow-era Hollywood. He encouraged her only to take leading roles, but those were in desperately short supply for Black actresses, and ultimately that advice hurt Dandridge’s career.
