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GOOD MORNING: The chairs for the cast
on Stage 30 at the WB ranch read: Otto
Preminger, Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey and
Dorothy Dandridge. It was, of course, the stage
for HBO’s “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge”
starring Halle Berry and directed by Martha
Coolidge. There are also scenes with Marilyn
Monroe and Ava Gardner, two other actresses
whose lives were more dramatic and finally
more pathetic than any roles they’d played. And
Coolidge claims the Dandridge story “is more
interesting than the Monroe story.” Berry is so
deep into her role, she must be addressed as
“Dorothy” by one and all — including a visitor
like yours truly. The penalty for calling her
“Halle” is $5 — many company members have
racked up contributions to charity for forgetting
… Berry reminded me that Whitney Houston
and Janet Jackson also want to make the
Dandridge story and have rights to other books
— but Berry is the first in front of the cameras,
with the Earl Mills book. Actually, Halle reminds
she’s been trying to do the film for five years but
agrees it’s fortunate it took that long to get a
go-ahead — from HBO — after she and fellow
exec producer Vince Cirrincione were turned
down by all the majors. Halle says “I wouldn’t
have had the emotional background to have done
it five years ago” … The HBO NYC production
is budgeted at $9 million and Coolidge is shooting
it in 34 days … Coolidge claims she is doing the
biopic “Because I feel she didn’t kill herself.”
There were many rumors Dandridge’s drug
addiction was a possible cause, and it was
maybe a suicide, but the coroner’s report, per
Daily Variety’s obit Sept. 15, 1965, said her
death was caused by an embolism. It was ironic
that Dandridge, whose career had fallen, got a
new lease on life with a date, upcoming the
week of her death, at Basin Street East … At
the height of her career, she was the first black
to play the Empire Room of the
Waldorf-Astoria.
THERE WERE ONLY WHISPERS in the
’50s about the long romance between Dandridge
and Preminger. But their relationship is depicted
fully in the HBO feature. Preminger is portrayed
by Klaus-Maria Brandauer, who received an
Oscar nomination for 1985’s “Out of Africa.”
This is his first return to Hollywood in six years.
The versatile Brandauer (he is also shooting
“Rembrandt” in Paris) wears a hair-concealing
bald cap to look like Preminger but the Austrian
native doesn’t have to fake the accent.
Brandauer, who also starred for Ingo Preminger
in “The Salzburg Connection,” has a distinct
sense of humor — which few got to discover in
Otto. On stage Otto could be a terror, but he
was the ultimate Prince Charming as a dinner
companion (as my wife and I had been with him
in London). Similarly in the movie, Brandauer
was in character and a terror directing scenes of
“Carmen Jones” on Stage 30 Tuesday when we
visited. … HBO has a large black audience,
they report, and feel that this story, like the
Josephine Baker and Don King movies, will
have a big reception. But, Coolidge reminds, the
film crosses all lines. “It is the story of a woman
victimized — by the business as well as society.
And she broke so many barriers.” She had two
marriages, one to Harold Nicholas of the
Nicholas Brothers (played by Obba Babatunde)
and a second to wifebeater Jack Dennison
(D.B. Sweeney). Dandridge’s longtime manager
Earl Mills, who was in love with her but never
able to get her hand in marriage, is played by
Brent Spiner, who also starred in Coolidge’s
“Out to Sea” … Fayard Nicholas, who is
technical adviser, is played by Darrian Ford, tap
dances with Babatunde and Berry, making her
dancing bow in the pic. Scenes are set at the
Academy Awards where Dandridge was a
nominee for “Carmen Jones,” the Mocambo on
the Sunset Strip and Ciro’s in Miami where she
sang. But there are no usable records of her
singing!
BUT WHAT I REALLY WANT to do is —
produce,” admitted Berry, who is wearing that
hat for the first time with this telepic. With no
pix in the can following “Why Do Fools Fall in
Love,” Berry says she and Oprah Winfrey,“a
really good friend,” are talking more projects to
follow their teaming on the ABC miniseries “The
Wedding.” Coolidge is still hoping she and writer
Nick Kazan can get their “Blowing Up” project
up and away. It’s a comedy about a nuclear
reactor accident(!). She and producer Martin
Scorsese also have “You Must Remember This”
in preparation. And she and Fred Roos hope
they can get back (from Spelling Films) the 1820
Africa-set story of James Barry, a woman who
passed for a man all her life … Meanwhile, on
Stage 30 at the WB ranch, Coolidge was
shooting a scene duplicating “Carmen Jones,”
Preminger’s 1954 updated, all-black film version
of the opera “Carmen” that starred Dandridge,
Belafonte and Bailey. Coolidge was shooting the
scene with two “crews” and casts — one for
the HBO shoot, another for the movie within a
movie. The set was designed by Jim Spencer to
duplicate the one by Edward L. Ilou for
Preminger’s 20th Century Fox Cinemascope pic.
Berry was lip-synching (as Dandridge did) to
Marilyn Horne singing the “Habanera” … Also
on this stage, Coolidge would shoot a scene with
Dandridge from “Tarzan’s Peril,” in which she
co-starred with Lex Barker. I asked director
Coolidge who she thought is today’s Otto
Preminger? Her answer: “Jim Cameron.”
Copyright 1998 Variety, Inc.
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