Dean, Dorothy, 1932-1987

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person

Name Entries *

Dean, Dorothy, 1932-1987

Computed Name Heading

Name Components

Surname :

Dean

Forename :

Dorothy

Date :

1932-1987

eng

Latn

authorizedForm

rda

Genders

Female

Exist Dates

Exist Dates - Date Range

1932-12-22

December 22, 1932

Birth

1987-02-13

February 13, 1987

Death

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Biographical History

Dorothy Dean was a downtown social figure. Born into a bourgeois black family in 1932 in White Plains, New York, she attended Radcliffe College and in 1958 earned a masters degree in Fine Arts from Harvard College. While at Cambridge, she began associating almost entirely with gay white men, presumably in an effort to distance herself from the politics surrounding being both black and female in the fifties and sixties, politics with which she did not identify. Moving to New York, Dean established herself as part of Andy Warhol's Factory and also worked as the door person at Max's Kansas City. She was loved for her strong, verbose personality, perhaps mostly for her playful phrasing and clever nicknames (Andy Warhol, to Dean, became "Drella," a combination of Dracula and Cinderella; James Baldwin was "Martin Luther Queen"). She rarely worked; she held brief editorial and proofreading positions at publications such as The New Yorker and Vogue . She appeared in several Factory films, including My Hustler, and Afternoon . In 1980, Dean moved to Boulder, Colorado, where she worked at a bookstore and as an editor, and continued writing letters to her friends. She died of cancer in Boulder on February 13, 1987.

eng

Latn

External Related CPF

https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q5298375

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Languages Used

Subjects

African Americans

African Americans

Artists and community

Gay men

Gender identity

Nationalities

Americans

African Americans

Activities

Occupations

Actresses

Socialites

Legal Statuses

Places

Boulder

CO, US

Address

Death

New York City

NY, US

Address

Residence

White Plains

NY, US

Address

Birth

Cambridge

MA, US

Address

Residence

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<conventionDeclaration><citation>VIAF</citation></conventionDeclaration>

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Identity Constellation Identifier(s)

w64j1ks9

15492399