Dandridge was played by actress Halle Berry in the 1999 TV movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. By coincidence, Berry became the first African-American woman to win the Oscar as best actress, for her role in the 2001 film Monster’s Ball… Dandridge and Harold Nicholas had one daughter, Harolyn, born in 1943. She suffered from brain damage and was institutionalized for much of her life… It’s unknown if Dandridge’s fatal overdose was a suicide or an accident; the coroner declared this to be “undetermined.”