Career
Bogle's first book, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretative History of Blacks in Films, was published in 1973. In it, he identified five basic stereotypical film roles available to black actors and actresses: the servile, avuncular "tom"; the simple-minded and cowardly "coon"; the tragic, and usually female, mulatto; the fat, dark-skinned "mammy"; and the irrational, hypersexual male "buck".[2] In the second edition of the book, Bogle identified a sixth stereotype: the sidekick, who is usually asexual.[2] Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks was awarded the 1973 Theatre Library Association Award.[3]
Brown Sugar: Eighty Years of America's Black Female Superstars was published in 1980.[4] It was the basis of "Brown Sugar," a four-hour PBS documentary that aired in 1986.[5]
Bogle published his third book, Blacks in American Film and Television: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, in 1988.[6]
Bogle's next book, a biography of actress Dorothy Dandridge (1922–1965), caused a sensation before its 1997 publication.[4] It sparked renewed interest in Dandridge's life, and several Black performers raced to make a film about her.[7] Whitney Houston acquired the rights to produce a movie based on Bogle's biography,[7] but Halle Berry brought Introducing Dorothy Dandridge to fruition.[8]
Bogle published Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television in 2001. In it, he argued that television lags behind film in reflecting the social realities of blacks.[9]
His next book, Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood, was published in 2005. It tells the story of black actors and actresses in the film industry during the first half of the 20th century.[10]
In 2011, he published Heat Wave: The Life and Career of Ethel Waters, which examines the personal and professional life of singer and stage performer, Ethel Waters.
His most recent book is titled, Lena Horne: Goddess Reclaimed which was published in 2023, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive and lavish biography of Hollywood’s first African American movie goddess, Lena Horne.
