Dorothy Dean

Not to be confused with Dorothy Dean, editor of Paid My Dues: Journal of Women and Music, or English stage actress Dorothy Dene.

Dorothy Dean
Dorothy Dean at Andy Warhol's Factory, 1965. Photo: Billy Name.
Born(1932-12-22)December 22, 1932
White Plains, New York, USA
DiedFebruary 13, 1987(1987-02-13) (aged 54)
Boulder, Colorado, USA
OccupationsWriter, actress

Dorothy Dean (December 22, 1932 – February 13, 1987) was an African-American writer and actress connected to Andy Warhol's The Factory, and Max's Kansas City where she worked as door person.

Biography

Dean was born in White Plains, New York, on December 22, 1932.[1] She attended White Plains High School in New York, where she was their first Black high school valedictorian.[2]

She graduated from Radcliffe and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at Harvard University. While living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 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 1950s and '60s, politics with which she did not identify.[1]

After moving to New York in 1963,[3] Dean was employed as the first female fact checker at The New Yorker, held roles at magazines Vogue and Essence,[4] and later worked as a bouncer at Max's Kansas City.[5] She self-published a newsletter of film reviews titled All-Lavender Cinema Courier. It ran for eight issues.[6] At the time of her death, she was proofreader for The Daily Camera.[7]

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").[3]

Death and legacy

She died of cancer in Boulder, Colorado, on February 13, 1987.[8] Her memorial was held in New York.[9]

New York University holds a collection of letters to Joe Campbell from Dorothy Dean dated between 1964-1987.[10] They also hold additional correspondence between Dean and her mother, as well as between Dean and her friends such as Edie Sedgewick, Harvey Milk, Paul Schmidt, and Jean-Claude van Itallie.[6]

Dorothy Dean appears in Andy Warhol's A, A Novel (1968) as the character 'Dodo Mae Doom'. She also appears in Lynne Tillman's Cast in Doubt (1975) as 'Gwen', as 'Dee Dee Beane' in Darryl Pinckney's High Cotton (1992), and as herself in James McCourt's Time Remaining (1993).[3][9]

Dean is one of the subjects of Hilton Als' 1996 book The Women.[11] The essay had appeared previously in The New Yorker.[9][3]

Her writing was collected along with essays on her life in Who are you Dorothy Dean?, published in 2024 and edited by Anaïs Ngbanzo.[4] This was then adapted into Dorothy, A Play (2024), also written by Ngbanzo.[12][13]

Filmography

References

  1. ^ a b Watson, Steven, Factory Made: Andy Warhol and the Sixties, New York: Pantheon Books, 2003, ISBN 0-679-42372-9. Archived August 29, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ^ DeMarco, Nicole (March 14, 2024). "Handmade Porcelain Painted With Brooklyn Blossoms". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 14, 2026.
  3. ^ a b c d Reed, Bill (2009). Early Plastic (2nd ed.). Cellar Door Books.
  4. ^ a b Williams, Conor (June 2, 2024). "Another World, Another Life: On Anaïs Ngbanzo's "Who Are You Dorothy Dean?"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved February 14, 2026.
  5. ^ Nevins, Jake (March 22, 2024). "Meet Dorothy Dean, the Forgotten Warhol Superstar of the 1960s". Interview Magazine. Retrieved February 13, 2026.
  6. ^ a b "Brad Gooch Collection on Dorothy Dean: NYU Special Collections Finding Aids". findingaids.library.nyu.edu. Retrieved February 14, 2026.
  7. ^ "Dorothy Dean, former New Yorker editor". The Palm Beach Post. February 18, 1987. p. 98.
  8. ^ "Dorothy Dean" at warholstars.org.
  9. ^ a b c Als, Hilton (April 17, 1995). "Friends of Dorothy Dean". The New Yorker – via www.newyorker.com.
  10. ^ "Joe Campbell Collection of Dorothy Dean Letters: NYU Special Collections Finding Aids". findingaids.library.nyu.edu. Retrieved February 14, 2026.
  11. ^ Lee, Andrea (January 5, 1997). "Fatal Limitations". The New York Times.
  12. ^ Barnard, Mike (February 21, 2024). "ICA reveals post renovation programme of music, film, performance, exhibitions, talks, and learnings". Zap Bang Magazine. Retrieved February 13, 2026.
  13. ^ "ICA | Dorothy, A Play". www.ica.art. Retrieved February 13, 2026.
  14. ^ Bender, Marylin (July 26, 1965). "Edie Pops Up as Newest Superstar". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 14, 2026.

Further reading

  • Ngbanzo, A. (Ed.) (with Dean, D.). (2024). Who are you Dorothy Dean? (R. Valinksy & D. Crowch, Trans.; Édition bilingue.). Éditions 1989. ISBN 2958108414
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