If you aren’t familiar with Donald Bogle’s work, then you’re missing out on one of the quintessential biographers and researchers of the documented history of African Americans in film and television. His books include Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood, and Brown Sugar; Eighty Years of America’s Black Female Superstars.

In this 1997 interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose, Mr. Bogle is joined by two legendary actresses: Ruby Dee and Cicely Tyson (making a rare appearance… replete with leather gloves).

All three guests are discussing Donald’s 1997 book, Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography, as well as an intense discussion about the actress herself and Black actresses in Hollywood.