14. “The American dream is a term that is often used but often misunderstood. It really isn’t about becoming rich and famous. It is about things much simpler and fundamental than that.” Dorothy Dandridge

At the onset of our thirties we, the former nannies, while ascending the career ladder, found our personal lives lagging. Polly found her male peers juvenile – emotionally immature and adolescent in their delight at attaining useless things. Darla made a three year, nine million dollar TV development deal and found all her male dinner companions, and prospective bedmates, really weren’t so very interested in her, but in her willingness to read their scripts and laugh at their desperate jokes. Jane fared slightly better in an academic setting, at least university men professed to a belief in gender equality and a need for sensitivity in human relations – in practice, not so much.

25th April 1956: American singer and actress Dorothy Dandridge (1923 – 1965). She received an Academy Award nomination for her role in the 20th Century Fox musical ‘Carmen Jones’. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)

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