In Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, Donald Bogle tells–for the first time–the story of a place both mythic and real: Black Hollywood. Spanning sixty years, this deliciously entertaining history uncovers the audacious manner in which many blacks made a place for themselves in an industry that originally had no place for them. Through interviews and the personal recollections of Hollywood luminaries, Bogle pieces together a remarkable history that remains largely obscure to this day. We discover that Black Hollywood was a place distinct from the studio-system-dominated Tinseltown–a world unto itself, with unique rules and social hierarchy. It had its own talent scouts and media, its own watering holes, elegant hotels, and fashionable nightspots, and of course its own glamorous and brilliant personalities. Along with famous actors including Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Hattie McDaniel (whose home was among Hollywood’s most exquisite), and, later, the stunningly beautiful Lena Horne and the fabulously gifted Sammy Davis, Jr., we meet the likes of heartthrob James Edwards, whose promising career was derailed by whispers of an affair with Lana Turner, and the mysterious Madame Sul-Te-Wan, who shared a close lifelong friendship with pioneering director D. W. Griffith. But Bogle also looks at other members of the black community–from the white stars’ black servants, who had their own money and prestige, to gossip columnists, hairstylists, and architects–and at the world that grew up around them along Central Avenue, the Harlem of the West. In the tradition of Hortense Powdermaker’s classic Hollywood: The Dream Factory and Neal Gabler’s An Empire of Their Own, in Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, Donald Bogle re-creates a vanished world that left an indelible mark on Hollywood–and on all of America.

The films, the stars, the filmmakers-all get their due in Hollywood Black, a sweeping overview of blacks in film from the silent era through Black Panther, with striking photos and an engrossing history by award-winning author Donald Bogle. The story opens in the silent film era, when white actors in blackface often played black characters, but also saw the rise of independent African American filmmakers, including the remarkable Oscar Micheaux. It follows the changes in the film industry with the arrival of sound motion pictures and the Great Depression, when black performers such as Stepin Fetchit and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson began finding a place in Hollywood. More often than not, they were saddled with rigidly stereotyped roles, but some gifted performers, most notably Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind (1939), were able to turn in significant performances. In the coming decades, more black talents would light up the screen. Dorothy Dandridge became the first African American to earn a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Carmen Jones (1954), and Sidney Poitier broke ground in films like The Defiant Ones and1963's Lilies of the Field. Hollywood Black reveals the changes in images that came about with the evolving social and political atmosphere of the US, from the Civil Rights era to the Black Power movement. The story takes readers through Blaxploitation, with movies like Shaft and Super Fly, to the emergence of such stars as Cicely Tyson, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and Whoopi Goldberg, and of directors Spike Lee and John Singleton. The history comes into the new millennium with filmmakers Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), Ava Du Vernay (Selma),and Ryan Coogler (Black Panther); megastars such as Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Morgan Freeman; as well as Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Viola Davis, and a glorious gallery of others. Filled with evocative photographs and stories of stars and filmmakers on set and off, Hollywood Black tells an underappreciated history as it's never before been told.

Available once again, the definitive biography of the pioneering Black performer—the first nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award—who broke new ground in Hollywood and helped transform American society in the years before Civil Rights movement—a remarkable woman of her time who also transcended it. “An ambitious, rigorously researched account of the long-ignored film star and chanteuse. . . . Bogle has fashioned a resonant history of a bygone era in Hollywood and passionately documented the contribution of one of its most dazzling and complex performers."—New York Times Book Review In the segregated world of 1950s America, few celebrities were as talented, beautiful, glamorous, and ultimately influential as Dorothy Dandridge. Universally admired, she was Hollywood's first full-fledged Black movie star. Film historian Donald Bogle offers a panoramic portrait of Dorothy Dandridge’s extraordinary and ultimately tragic life and career, from her early years as a child performer in Cleveland, to her rise as a nightclub headliner and movie star, to her heartbreaking death at 42. Bogle reveals how this exceptionally talented and intensely ambitious entertainer broke down racial barriers by integrating some of America's hottest nightclubs and broke through Tinseltown’s glass ceiling. Along with her smash appearances at venues such as Harlem’s famed Cotton Club, Dorothy starred in numerous films, making history with her role in Otto Preminger’s Carmen Jones, playing opposite Harry Belafonte. Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress—the first Oscar nod for a woman of color. But Dorothy’s wealth, fame, and success masked a reality fraught with contradiction and illusion. Struggling to find good roles professionally, uncomfortable with her image as a sex goddess, coping with the aftermath of two unhappy marriages and a string of unfulfilling affairs, and overwhelmed with guilt for her disabled daughter, Dorothy found herself emotionally and financially bankrupt—despair that ended in her untimely death. Woven from extensive research and unique interviews, as magnetic as the woman at its heart, Dorothy Dandridge captures this dazzling entertainer in all her complexity: her strength and vulnerability, her joy and her pain, her trials and her triumphs.

This study of black images in American motion pictures, is re-issued for its 30th anniverary in its 4th edition. It includes the entire 20th century through black images in film, from the silent era to the unequalled rise of the new African American cinema and stars of today. From The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, and Carmen Jones to Shaft, Do the Right Thing, Waiting to Exhale, The Hurricane, and Bamboozled, Donald Bogle reveals the way the image of blacks in American cinema has changed - and also the shocking way in which it has often remained the same.

This thought-provoking work examines the dehumanizing depictions of black males in the movies since 1910, analyzing images that were once imposed on black men and are now appropriated and manipulated by them. Moving through cinematic history decade by decade since 1910, this important volume explores the appropriation, exploitation, and agency of black performers in Hollywood by looking at the black actors, directors, and producers who have shaped the image of African American males in film. To determine how these archetypes differentiate African American males in the public's subconscious, the book asks probing questions—for example, whether these images are a reflection of society's fears or realistic depictions of a pluralistic America. Even as the work acknowledges the controversial history of black representation in film, it also celebrates the success stories of blacks in the industry. It shows how blacks in Hollywood manipulate degrading stereotypes, gain control, advance their careers, and earn money while making social statements or bringing about changes in culture. It discusses how social activist performers—such as Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and Spike Lee—reflect political and social movements in their movies, and it reviews the interactions between black actors and their white counterparts to analyze how black males express their heritage, individual identity, and social issues through film.

A landmark study by the leading critic of African American film and television Primetime Blues is the first comprehensive history of African Americans on network television. Donald Bogle examines the stereotypes, which too often continue to march across the screen today, but also shows the ways in which television has been invigorated by extraordinary black performers, whose presence on the screen has been of great significance to the African American community. Bogle's exhaustive study moves from the postwar era of Beulah and Amos 'n' Andy to the politically restless sixties reflected in I Spy and an edgy, ultra-hip program like Mod Squad. He examines the television of the seventies, when a nation still caught up in Vietnam and Watergate retreated into the ethnic humor of Sanford and Son and Good Times and the poltically conservative eighties marked by the unexpected success of The Cosby Show and the emergence of deracialized characters on such dramatic series as L.A. Law. Finally, he turns a critical eye to the television landscape of the nineties, with shows such as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, I'll Fly Away, ER, and The Steve Harvey Show. Note: The ebook edition does not include photos.

From the middle of the nineteenth century, as Euro-Americans moved westward, they carried with them long-held prejudices against people of color. By the time they reached the West Coast, their new settlements included African Americans and recent Asian immigrants, as well as the indigenous inhabitants and descendants of earlier Spanish and Mexican settlers. The Coveted Westside deals with the settlement and development of Los Angeles in the context of its multiracial, multiethnic population, especially African Americans. Mandel exposes the enduring struggle between Whites determined to establish their hegemony and create residential heterogeneity in the growing city, and people of color equally determined to obtain full access to the city and the opportunities, including residential, that it offered. Not only does this book document the Black homeowners’ fight against housing discrimination, it shares personal accounts of Blacks’ efforts to settle in the highly desirable Westside of Los Angeles. Mandel explores the White-derived social and legal mechanisms that created this segregated city and the African American-led movement that challenged efforts to block access to fair housing.