With Love, Dorothy (and Marilyn)

Erin Sullivan as Marilyn (photo by Jason Woodruff)

Actress Erin Sullivan – currently touring the US in her one-woman show, With Love, Marilyn – will also play a supporting role as MM in an industry presentation of a new musical, Dorothy Dandridge: Hollywood’s Sepia Goddess, at New York’s Off-Broadway Theatre on November 13, BWW reports.

Marilyn first met Dorothy at the Actors’ Lab in Los Angeles during the late 1940s. They were neighbours on Hilldale Avenue in 1952, and Marilyn’s vocal coach, Phil Moore, was also Dorothy’s musical arranger. In 1953, as Marilyn filmed River of No Return, Dorothy began a tumultuous relationship with director Otto Preminger. Sadly, Dorothy’s career was ultimately stymied by racism, and in an eerie echo of Marilyn’s fate, she would also die of a drug overdose.