Hattie McDaniel

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Hattie McDaniel (June 10, 1895 – October 26, 1952) was an actress, who was the first African American to be nominated and to win for her Academy Award-winning supporting role of Mammy in the 1939 epic movie Gone with the Wind.

1 Early life
2 Career
3 Death
4 Filmography
5 External links

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Early life

Hattie McDaniel was born in Wichita, Kansas to Baptist preacher Henry McDaniel and Susan Holbert, a singer of religious music. Her grandmother had been a household slave cook on a Virginia plantation, and her father was born into slavery as a fieldhand. Henry McDaniel served as a soldier for the Union Army during the Civil War. Hattie was born on June 10, 1895, the youngest of thirteen children. The family briefly lived in Fort Collins, Colorado at 317 Cherry St (which still stands) and Hattie briefly attended Franklin School. In 1910 she was the only African American participant in a Women's Christian Temperance Movement event in which she won a gold medal for reciting a poem entitled "Convict Joe." Winning the award was what cemented her dream of becoming a performer. She quit high school after her sophomore year, traveling with a minstrel group started by her father and brothers Otis and Sam. In addition to performing, Hattie was also a songwriter, a skill she honed while working with Henry's minstrel show. After the death of her brother Otis in 1916 the family's minstrel group began to loose momentum, and it wasn't until 1920 that Hattie received another big opportunity. She joined George Morrison's "Melody Hounds" and received brilliant reviews.

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Career

In 1925 McDaniel began singing on KOA, a Denver radio station. Her radio job led to the recording of several songs, which she herself had written. She had the opportunity to tour many American cities, most frequently she was booked by the Theatrical Owners Booking Association, which was comprised of black theater owners. She was playing the role of "Queenie" in Showboat when the stock market crashed, and her company had to shut down. The only work McDaniel could find was a job as washroom attendant at Club Madrid in Milwaukee, a primarily white club. Despite the owner's reluctance to let her perform, McDaniel was eventually allowed to take the stage, and became a regular. In 1931, McDaniel made her way to Los Angeles to join her brother Sam, and sisters Etta and Orlena. When she could not get film work, she took jobs as a maid or cook. Sam was working on a radio program called "The Optimistic Do-Nut Hour" and he was able to get his sister a spot on the show. Her show became extremely popular, but her salary was so low that she had to continue working as a maid. In the early years of the 1930's she received roles in several films, often singing in choruses. However, she didn't receive screen credit for her work. Over the course of her career, McDaniel appeared in over 300 films, although she only received screen credits for about 80. Because of the paucity of roles available to African American actresses, she spent much of her twenty-year career playing maids. She has been quoted as saying, "Why should I complain about making seven hundred dollars a week playing a maid? If I didn't, I'd be making seven dollars a week actually being one." [1] 1934's Judge Priest, directed by John Ford and starring Will Rogers, was the first film in which she would receive a leading role. She got to sing several times in the film, including a duet with Will Rogers. McDaniel and Rogers became good friends during filming, and Rogers would credit her with the film's success. By the mid-thirties, McDaniel had befriended several of Hollywood's most popular white stars, including Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Shirley Temple, Henry Fonda, Ronald Reagan, and Olivia de Havilland and Clark Gable, with whom she would star in Gone With the Wind. It was around this time that she began to be criticized by members of the black community for roles she was choosing to take. 1935's The Little Colonel depicted black servants longing for a return to the Old South. Ironically, McDaniel's portrayal of the maid Malena in Alice Adams, made that same year, was a depiction that angered white Southern audiences. This was the type of role she would be best known for, the sassy, sometimes outspoken, even opinionated maid.

It was one such role, that of Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939), opposite Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, that she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress on February 29, 1940, making her the first African American performer to win an Oscar. Also notably, she was the first African American to attend the Oscars as a guest. When the date of the Atlanta premiere of Gone with the Wind approached, she informed director Victor Fleming that she was unable to attend due to illness; in actuality, she did not want to attend because of the racism that pervaded Southern society at that time, for fear of increasing racial hostilities. When Clark Gable heard that McDaniel did not want to attend because of the racial issue, he threatened to boycott the premiere unless McDaniel was able to attend; he later relented when McDaniel convinced him to go.

The competition for the role of Mammy had been almost as stiff as that for Scarlett O'Hara. Eleanor Roosevelt wrote to film producer David O. Selznick to ask that her own maid be given the part. McDaniel did not think she would be chosen, because she was known for being a comic actress. Clark Gable wanted the role to go to McDaniel, and when she went to her audition dressed in an authentic maid's uniform, Selznick knew he had found Mammy.

Hattie's first major roles came in 1935 with her classic performance in Alice Adams and China Seas, the latter her first film with Gable. She also had major roles in Saratoga and The Mad Miss Manton prior to the release of Gone With the Wind. Her performance in 1942's In This Our Life is well remembered for her movingly dramatic turn as a black housewife whose son is framed in a hit-and-run accident.

Hattie became the first major African-American radio star with her comedy series Beulah in the late 1940's. She became a further trailblazer when the program became a television series in 1951. She became ill during the show's run and was replaced by Louise Beavers.

Hattie McDaniel has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood: one for her contributions to radio at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard, and one for motion pictures at 1719 Vine Street. McDaniel will also be featured on a 2006 United States postage stamp [2].

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Death

McDaniel died at age fifty-seven in the hospital on the grounds of the Motion Picture House in Woodland Hills. It was her wish to be buried in the Hollywood Cemetery on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, along with her fellow movie stars, but the owner, Jules 'Jack' Roth, refused to allow her to be interred there because she was black. She is interred in Angelus Rosedale Cemetery, Los Angeles. In 1999, Tyler Cassity, the new owner of the Hollywood Cemetery, who had renamed it Hollywood Forever Cemetery; wanted to right the wrong and have Miss McDaniel interred in the cemetery. Her family did not want to disturb her remains after the passage of so much time, and declined the offer. Hollywood Forever then did the next best thing and built a large cenotaph memorial on the lawn overlooking the lake in honor of McDaniel. It is one of the most popular sites for visitors to the cemetery.

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