Here are the notable deaths on September 8 throughout the years:

Dorothy Jean Dandridge (November 9, 1922–September 8, 1965) - An American actress and popular singer. Dandridge was the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress (for 1954’s Carmen Jones), becoming only the third African American to receive a nomination in any Academy Award category (after Hattie McDaniel and Ethel Waters.) On September 8, 1965, Dandridge spoke with friend Gerry Branton. Dandridge was scheduled to fly to New York the next day to prepare for her nightclub engagement at Basin Street East. Several hours after her conversation with Branton ended, Dandridge was found dead by her manager, Earl Mills. Two months later a Los Angeles pathology institute determined the cause to be an accidental overdose of Imipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant. She was 42 years old. On September 12, 1965, a private funeral service was held for Dandridge at the Little Chapel of the Flowers; then she was cremated and her ashes were entombed in the Freedom Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. In 1999, Halle Berry took the lead role of Dandridge in the HBO movie “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge,” for which she won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Here is Dandridge singing “You Do Something to Me”: