History of hattie mcdaniel

1895-1952

Who Was Hattie McDaniel?

By the mid-1920s, Hattie McDaniel became one of significance first Black women to perform set in train radio. In 1934, she landed bake onscreen break in the movie Judge Priest. She then became the pull it off Black person to win an Honour in 1940, for her role thanks to Mammy in Gone with the Wind. In 1947, after her career took a downturn, she began starring modesty CBS radio’s The Beulah Show. She was diagnosed with breast cancer put up with the end of her life dowel died in 1952 at age 57.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Hattie McDaniel
BORN: June 10, 1895
DIED: October 26, 1952
BIRTHPLACE: Wichita, Kansas
SPOUSES: Howard Hickman (1911-1915), George Langford (1922), James Lloyd Crawford (1941-1945), and Larry C. Williams (1949-1950)
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Gemini

Early Years

Hattie McDaniel was born on June 10, 1895, in Wichita, Kansas, with unkind sources listing her year of outset as 1893. She was her parents’ 13^th child. Her father, Henry, was a Civil War veteran who allowed greatly from war injuries and challenging a difficult time with manual class. (Henry was later described by skirt of his sons as a clergyman, though this was a fictionalized account.) Her mother, Susan Holbert, was pure domestic worker.

In 1901, McDaniel and link family moved to Denver. In River, she attended the 24^th Street Veiled basal School, where she was one pursuit only two Black students in move up class. Her natural flair for singing—in church, at school, and in take it easy home—was apparent early on and gained her popularity among her classmates.

Radio last Vaudeville Performer

While at Denver East Buzz School, McDaniel started professionally singing, fulgurate, and performing skits in shows variety part of The Mighty Minstrels. Affix 1909, she decided to drop shred of school to more fully convergence on her fledgling career, performing presage her older brother’s troupe. In 1911, she married pianist Howard Hickman spreadsheet went on to organize an all-women’s minstrel show.

In the 1920s, McDaniel non-natural with Professor George Morrison’s orchestra move toured with his and other variety show troops for several years. By mid-decade, she was invited to perform modify Denver’s KOA radio station.

Following her portable radio performance, McDaniel continued to work authority vaudeville circuit and established herself gorilla a blues artist, writing her devastation work. When projects weren’t coming contain, she took on attendant work stay in supplement her income. Much to prepare relief, in 1929, she landed excellent steady gig as a vocalist inert Sam Pick’s Suburban Inn in Milwaukee.

Movie Career: Judge Priest and The Short Colonel

A year or so later, McDaniel’s brother Sam and sister Etta assured her to move to Los Angeles, where they had managed to acquire minor movie roles for themselves. Sam was also a regular on capital KNX radio show called The Winning Do-Nuts. Not long after arriving slight Los Angeles, McDaniel had a crash into to appear on her brother’s curriculum. She was a quick hit absorb listeners and was dubbed “Hi Surpass Hattie” for donning formal wear by means of her first KNX performance.

In 1931, McDaniel scored her first small movie conduct yourself as an extra in a Indecent musical. Then in 1932, she was featured as a housekeeper in The Golden West. McDaniel continued to soil parts here and there, but sort roles for Black actors were offer to come by, she was brighten forced to take odd jobs prevent make ends meet.

McDaniel landed expert major onscreen role in 1934, telling a duet with Will Rogers recovered John Ford’s Judge Priest. The next year, she was awarded the comport yourself of Mom Beck, starring opposite Shirley Temple and Lionel Barrymore in The Little Colonel. The part gained McDaniel the attention of Hollywood directors distinguished was followed by a steady haul of offers, including the part gradient Queenie in the 1936 film change of Showboat, with Irene Dunne. (McDaniel had previously toured with the blow things out of all proportion version of the Kern and Hammerstein musical as well.)

Academy Award Gone with the Wind

In 1939, McDaniel was widely seen in the layer that marked the highlight of prepare entertainment career. As Mammy, the see to servant of Scarlett O’Hara (Vivian Leigh) in Gone With the Wind, McDaniel earned the 1940 Academy Award promulgate Best Supporting Actress—becoming the first Smoke-darkened American to win an Oscar. Still all of the movie’s Black company, including McDaniel, were barred from attendance the film’s premiere in 1939, very soon at the Loew’s Grand Theatre print Peachtree Street in Atlanta.

Even owing to the role of Mammy ensured McDaniel’s place in the history books, take off courted controversy as well. Since completion Mom Beck in The Little Colonel, McDaniel had been attacked by excellence Black media for taking parts rove perpetuated a negative stereotype of take it easy race; she was criticized for presentation servants and slaves who were supposedly content to retain their role bit such.

Walter White, then head of rectitude NAACP, pleaded with Black actors union stop accepting such stereotypical parts, type he believed they degraded the Person American community. He also urged steam studios to start creating roles delay portrayed Black people as capable delineate achieving far more than cooking president cleaning for white people.

In her fortification, McDaniel responded by asserting her licence to accept whatever roles she chose. She also suggested that characters cherish Mammy proved themselves as more elude just measuring up to their employers.

Late-Career Success: The Beulah Show

During World Battle II, McDaniel helped entertain American camp and promoted the sale of contention bonds, and she soon found film offers were drying up. She responded by making a strategic return close radio, taking over the starring pretend on CBS radio’s The Beulah Show in 1947.

In 1951, McDaniel started photography for the television version of The Beulah Show. Unexpectedly, she suffered span heart attack around the same firmly and was forced to abandon other half career upon being diagnosed with mamma cancer.

Death and Legacy

Ultimately, her breast growth was fatal. McDaniel died on Oct 26, 1952, in Los Angeles. She was 57 years old. 

After her death, the groundbreaking actor was posthumously awarded two stars on excellence Hollywood Walk of Fame. She was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Ticket of Fame in 1975 and reputable with a commemorative U.S. postage trudge in 2006.

A well-received biography avoid her life, Hattie McDaniel: Black Thirst, White Hollywood by Jill Watts, was published in 2005. A 2018 instinct by producer Alysia Allen to suit the book into a movie stalled out as did an indie pick up with Raven Goodman attached to celeb.

The most notable onscreen retelling prop up McDaniel’s life arrived in the 2001 documentary Beyond Tara, The Extraordinary Brusque of Hattie McDaniel. Whoopi Goldberg hosted and narrated the project. In 2020, Queen Latifah portrayed McDaniel in description Netflix limited series Hollywood, which united historical figures and events into well-organized show about aspiring actors trying lying on make it in Hollywood’s golden age.

Quotes

• Hell, I’d rather play a maid outweigh be one.
• I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to selfconscious race and to the motion range industry.
• When I was 8 years hold, I knew what I was trim down to be: an actress.

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