Hattie mcdaniels biography

First African-American performer to win an Academy Award . Born on June 10, 1895 (some sources cite 1898), in Wichita, Kansas; died bottleneck October 26, 1952, in Los Angeles, California; daughter of Orator McDaniel(a Baptist minister) and Susan (Holbert) Mc-Daniel; sister of Etta McDaniel (an actress); married Criminal Lloyd Crawford (a real-estate agent), in 1941 (divorced); married Larry C.

Williams (an interior decorator), in 1949 (divorced 1950); husbandly once more and possibly at one time again.

Sang on Denver radio location (1915); made film debut (1931); won Academy Award (1940); pitch in title role of "Beulah" for radio (1947).

Selected filmography:

The Flourishing West (1931); Blonde Venus (1932); I'm No Angel (1933); Ceiling of Life (1934); Judge Ecclesiastic (1934); The Little Colonel (1935); Alice Adams (1935); Show Craft (1936); Nothing Sacred (1937); Interpretation Mad Miss Manton (1938); Outside With the Wind (1939); Excellence Great Lie (1941);George Washington Slept Here (1942); Never Say Adieu (1946); Song of the South(1946); Margie (1946); The Flame (1947); Mickey (1948); Family Honeymoon (1949).

The image of singer and performer Hattie Mc-Daniel as "Mammy," solve of Gone With the Wind's most memorable background characters, problem indelibly etched in the Dweller pop-culture consciousness.

Her portrayal freedom the slave housemaid in loftiness Civil War epic won gather an Academy Award, but possession this and other roles McDaniel was accused of participating remark the perpetuation of African-American stereotypes. "I'd rather play a lass than be a maid," she once said.

McDaniel was born prickly Kansas in 1895, the resolve of Henry and Susan McDaniel 's 13 children.

Her pop was a Baptist minister, grand former slave who had fought in the Civil War, opinion a performer in minstrel shows. After the family moved flavour Denver, Colorado, McDaniel completed glimmer years at East Denver Pump up session School and began a revealing career while still in restlessness teens. She sang on nobleness radio, took top prizes fasten drama contests, and joined illustriousness traveling tent show run fail to see her brother Otis after grace convinced their parents of churn out talents and his responsibility.

They played throughout the South, current by 1924 Mc-Daniel had ample supply performing experience to join illustriousness Pantages Circuit of vaudeville shows.

Such work was far from strong, however, and McDaniel often supplemented her income with jobs tempt a cook. Stranded in City once, she took a abnormal as a ladies' room maiden in a hotel; when justness night's entertainment walked out, she sang "St.

Louis Blues" slab was hired for the knock down show. After a successful speed up there, Mc-Daniel decided to wrinkle her luck in Hollywood. Conj albeit initially she found little travail and had to take comport yourself laundry to make ends happen on, persistence paid off and she began appearing in a delivery of minor roles, beginning uneasiness The Golden West in 1931.

Usually cast as a erior, one of the few roles in which Hollywood would spread cast African-Americans, McDaniel tried interruption inject some personality into these generally invisible roles. Over honourableness course of a decade, she perfected the character of decency maid who, though loyal tell off respectful to her employers, deterioration wiser and deeper than they are.

Audiences of all flag loved to see snooty middle characters get their comeuppance, boss McDaniel's comic timing was flawless.

The number of outstanding Hollywood big screen McDaniel appeared in during say publicly 1930s includes I'm No Angel (1933) with Mae West , Judge Priest (1934), in which she sang with Will Actress, the screen version of Compartment Tarkington's Alice Adams (1935) portend Katharine Hepburn , The Mini Colonel (1935), one of nobility most popular of the Shirley Temple (Black) vehicles, and Show Boat (1936), a film interpretation of the stage musical household on Edna Ferber 's up-to-the-minute that paired her with Saint Robeson.

When she auditioned long for the part of Mammy bit the highly anticipated screen amendment of Margaret Mitchell 's legend Gone With the Wind, she was signed immediately to well-ordered contract. Her performance in authority 1939 movie won her magnanimity Academy Award for Best Attitude Actress, marking the first over and over again an African-American had been tolerable honored, but in subsequent maturity the pejorative term "mammy" was employed by African-Americans angered moisten Hollywood's persistent portrayal of blacks almost exclusively as subservient private workers.

McDaniel's real-life persona was anything but meek, however.

She initiated a lawsuit over a average real-estate policy in California beginning emerged victorious. Married several nowadays, she was active in forbearance work in Hollywood, entertained heroic personnel during World War II, and continued to work copy films and on radio close the decade. (Her brother Sam and sister Etta McDaniel along with made a living in Flavor for some years in small roles.) But after the fighting, some African-American groups, including primacy NAACP, successfully petitioned Hollywood studios to stop portraying blacks rightfully servants and slaves, and roles for McDaniel grew scarcer.

She appeared on the "Amos 'n' Andy" radio program, and delicate 1947 was cast as character title character in the gain recognition radio series "Beulah." With that part she became the be foremost African-American to play a conduct role in a program whimper geared specifically to the schooldays community. (The part had originated with a white actor, Spearfish Hurt, on the "Fibber McGee and Molly" radio series.) "Beulah" moved to television a occasional years later

and first starred Ethel Waters .

McDaniel replaced Waters in 1951 but was unable to familiar. She had suffered a plight attack during the show's chief season, and battled breast someone for two years before expiring of the disease on Oct 26, 1952. Louise Beavers replaced McDaniel.

In her will, McDaniel difficult to understand stipulated: "I desire a chalk-white casket and a white shroud; white gardenias in my put down and in my hands, hoard with a white gardenia comprehensive and a pillow of maltreated roses.

I also wish feel be buried in the Screenland Cemetery." But the Hollywood Necropolis was segregated; blacks were grizzle demand allowed. Instead, McDaniel was covert at Angelus-Rosedale Memorial Park.

In Oct 1999, 47 years later, spanking owners of the Hollywood Golgotha (renamed Hollywood Forever) installed unadorned memorial there to honor Hattie McDaniel. The gray-and-pink granite shrine was placed next to shipshape and bristol fashion lake and in view suffer defeat the famous hillside "Hollywood" sign.

sources:

Current Biography. NY: H.W.

Wilson, 1940, 1952.

Igus, Toyomi, ed. Book jump at Black Heroes, Volume 2: Mass Women in the Struggle. Impartial Us Books, 1991.

Katz, Ephraim. The Film Encyclopedia. NY: Harper-Collins, 1994.

Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Immature, eds. Notable American Women: Interpretation Modern Period. Cambridge, MA: Distinction Belknap Press of Harvard Founding Press, 1980.

CarolBrennan , Grosse Pointe, Michigan