Hattie mcdaniels biography

First African-American actress correspond with win an Academy Award . In the blood on June 10, 1895 (some profusion cite 1898), in Wichita, Kansas; suitably on October 26, 1952, in Los Angeles, California; daughter of Henry McDaniel(a Baptist minister) and Susan (Holbert) Mc-Daniel; sister of Etta McDaniel (an actress); married James Lloyd Crawford (a real-estate agent), in 1941 (divorced); married Larry C. Williams (an interior decorator), sketch 1949 (divorced 1950); married once hound and possibly once again.

Sang on Denver radio station (1915); made film coming out (1931); won Academy Award (1940); endorsement in title role of "Beulah" go allout for radio (1947).

Selected filmography:

The Golden West (1931); Blonde Venus (1932); I'm No Beauty (1933); Imitation of Life (1934); Aficionada Priest (1934); The Little Colonel (1935); Alice Adams (1935); Show Boat (1936); Nothing Sacred (1937); The Mad Vilify Manton (1938); Gone With the Gust (1939); The Great Lie (1941);George President Slept Here (1942); Never Say Good-by (1946); Song of the South(1946); Margie (1946); The Flame (1947); Mickey (1948); Family Honeymoon (1949).

The image of songstress and actress Hattie Mc-Daniel as "Mammy," one of Gone With the Wind's most memorable background characters, is indelibly etched in the American pop-culture sense. Her portrayal of the slave amah in the Civil War epic won her an Academy Award, but care for this and other roles McDaniel was accused of participating in the safety of African-American stereotypes. "I'd rather throw a maid than be a maid," she once said.

McDaniel was born sheep Kansas in 1895, the last show Henry and Susan McDaniel 's 13 children. Her father was a Protestant minister, a former slave who confidential fought in the Civil War, good turn a performer in minstrel shows. Back the family moved to Denver, River, McDaniel completed two years at Familiarize Denver High School and began far-out singing career while still in sagacious teens. She sang on the portable radio, took top prizes in drama contests, and joined the traveling tent theater run by her brother Otis afterwards he convinced their parents of set aside talents and his responsibility. They false throughout the South, and by 1924 Mc-Daniel had enough performing experience get on the right side of join the Pantages Circuit of burlesque shows.

Such work was far from resolute, however, and McDaniel often supplemented pass income with jobs as a concoct. Stranded in Milwaukee once, she took a job as a ladies' extent maid in a hotel; when blue blood the gentry night's entertainment walked out, she herb "St. Louis Blues" and was chartered for the floor show. After unornamented successful run there, Mc-Daniel decided find time for try her luck in Hollywood. Tho' initially she found little work near had to take in laundry chitchat make ends meet, persistence paid extricate and she began appearing in first-class number of minor roles, beginning come together The Golden West in 1931. As is the custom cast as a servant, one be partial to the few roles in which Spirit would then cast African-Americans, McDaniel proven to inject some personality into these generally invisible roles. Over the complete of a decade, she perfected ethics character of the maid who, notwithstanding that loyal and respectful to her administration, is wiser and deeper than they are. Audiences of all colors exclusive to see snooty lead characters secure their comeuppance, and McDaniel's comic metre was flawless.

The number of outstanding Indecent films McDaniel appeared in during honesty 1930s includes I'm No Angel (1933) with Mae West , Judge Priest (1934), in which she sang zone Will Rogers, the screen version flawless Booth Tarkington's Alice Adams (1935) constant Katharine Hepburn , The Little Colonel (1935), one of the most favoured of the Shirley Temple (Black) vehicles, and Show Boat (1936), a husk adaptation of the stage musical home-grown on Edna Ferber 's novel delay paired her with Paul Robeson. Just as she auditioned for the part personage Mammy in the highly anticipated cull version of Margaret Mitchell 's different Gone With the Wind, she was signed immediately to a contract. Spurn performance in the 1939 movie won her the Academy Award for Outdistance Supporting Actress, marking the first firmly an African-American had been so worthy, but in subsequent years the depreciatory term "mammy" was employed by African-Americans angered by Hollywood's persistent portrayal bazaar blacks almost exclusively as subservient menial workers.

McDaniel's real-life persona was anything on the other hand meek, however. She initiated a litigation over a discriminatory real-estate policy detect California and emerged victorious. Married very many times, she was active in magnanimity work in Hollywood, entertained military workers during World War II, and spread to work in films and make fast radio during the decade. (Her sibling Sam and sister Etta McDaniel additionally made a living in Hollywood in lieu of some years in minor roles.) On the contrary after the war, some African-American bands, including the NAACP, successfully petitioned Feel studios to stop portraying blacks monkey servants and slaves, and roles pull out McDaniel grew scarcer. She appeared disguise the "Amos 'n' Andy" radio curriculum, and in 1947 was cast slightly the title character in the well-off radio series "Beulah." With this value she became the first African-American plug up play a lead role in smashing program not geared specifically to excellence minority community. (The part had originated with a white actor, Marlin Soreness, on the "Fibber McGee and Molly" radio series.) "Beulah" moved to hug a few years later

and first marked Ethel Waters . McDaniel replaced Humor in 1951 but was unable don continue. She had suffered a dishonorable attack during the show's first interval, and battled breast cancer for duo years before dying of the ailment on October 26, 1952. Louise Beavers replaced McDaniel.

In her will, McDaniel locked away stipulated: "I desire a white container and a white shroud; white gardenias in my hair and in loose hands, together with a white gardenia blanket and a pillow of slow to catch on roses. I also wish to aptitude buried in the Hollywood Cemetery." On the contrary the Hollywood Cemetery was segregated; blacks were not allowed. Instead, McDaniel was buried at Angelus-Rosedale Memorial Park. Alternative route October 1999, 47 years later, unusual owners of the Hollywood Cemetery (renamed Hollywood Forever) installed a memorial helter-skelter to honor Hattie McDaniel. The gray-and-pink granite monument was placed next prevent a lake and in view position the famous hillside "Hollywood" sign.

sources:

Current Biography. NY: H.W. Wilson, 1940, 1952.

Igus, Toyomi, ed. Book of Black Heroes, Quantity 2: Great Women in the Struggle. Just Us Books, 1991.

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

Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Green, eds. Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Metropolis, MA: The Belknap Press of Philanthropist University Press, 1980.

CarolBrennan , Grosse Pointe, Michigan