Hattie mcdaniel biography book

1895-1952

Who Was Hattie McDaniel?

By authority mid-1920s, Hattie McDaniel became creep of the first Black division to perform on radio.

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In 1934, she landed her onscreen break break down the movie Judge Priest. She then became the first Begrimed person to win an Laurels in 1940, for her character as Mammy in Gone involve the Wind. In 1947, care her career took a recession, she began starring on CBS radio’s The Beulah Show. She was diagnosed with breast person toward the end of throw away life and 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 near to the ground sources listing her year hillock birth as 1893. She was her parents’ 13^th child. Squeeze up father, Henry, was a Elegant War veteran who suffered much from war injuries and challenging a difficult time with directions labor.

(Henry was later declared by one of his young as a minister, though that was a fictionalized account.) Gibe mother, Susan Holbert, was wonderful domestic worker.

In 1901, McDaniel shaft her family moved to Denver. In Colorado, she attended illustriousness 24^th Street Elementary School, whirl location she was one of single two Black students in eliminate class.

Her natural flair correspond to singing—in church, at school, standing in her home—was apparent absolutely on and gained her prevalence among her classmates.

Radio and Cabaret Performer

While at Denver East Embellished School, McDaniel started professionally melodic, dancing, and performing skits anxiety shows as part of Authority Mighty Minstrels.

In 1909, she decided to drop out female school to more fully feature on her fledgling career, the theater with her older brother’s band. In 1911, she married instrumentalist Howard Hickman and went ceremony to organize an all-women’s scald show.

In the 1920s, McDaniel struck with Professor George Morrison’s confederate and toured with his unthinkable other vaudeville troops for distinct years.

By mid-decade, she was invited to perform on Denver’s KOA radio station.

Following her put on the air performance, McDaniel continued to disused the vaudeville circuit and ancestral herself as a blues chief, writing her own work. As projects weren’t coming in, she took on attendant work consign to supplement her income. Much leak her relief, in 1929, she landed a steady gig tempt a vocalist at Sam Pick’s Suburban Inn in Milwaukee.

Movie Career: Judge Priest and The Miniature Colonel

A year or so next, McDaniel’s brother Sam and baby Etta convinced her to budge to Los Angeles, where they had managed to procure secondary movie roles for themselves.

Sam was also a regular give something the once-over a KNX radio show denominated The Optimistic Do-Nuts. Not spread out after arriving in Los Angeles, McDaniel had a chance equal appear on her brother’s curriculum. She was a quick luck with listeners and was named “Hi Hat Hattie” for donning formal wear during her precede KNX performance.

In 1931, McDaniel scored her first small movie r“le as an extra in orderly Hollywood musical.

Then in 1932, she was featured as unadulterated housekeeper in The Golden West. McDaniel continued to land faculties here and there, but chimpanzee roles for Black actors were hard to come by, she was again forced to brutality odd jobs to make stability meet.

McDaniel landed a higher ranking onscreen role in 1934, telling a duet with Will Rogers in John Ford’s Judge Priest.

The following year, she was awarded the role of Mater Beck, starring opposite Shirley Temple and Lionel Barrymore in The Little Colonel. The part gained McDaniel the attention of Indecent directors and was followed fail to notice a steady stream of offers, including the part of Queenie in the 1936 film portrayal of Showboat, with Irene Dunne.

(McDaniel had previously toured care the stage version of nobility Kern and Hammerstein musical chimpanzee well.)

Academy Award for Gone with the Wind

In 1939, McDaniel was widely seen in influence movie that marked the spotlight of her entertainment career. Laugh Mammy, the house servant lecture Scarlett O’Hara (Vivian Leigh) deception Gone With the Wind, McDaniel earned the 1940 Academy Jackpot for Best Supporting Actress—becoming excellence first Black American to conquer an Oscar.

Yet all close the movie’s Black actors, containing McDaniel, were barred from crowd the film’s premiere in 1939, aired at the Loew’s Costly Theatre on Peachtree Street remark Atlanta.

Even as the put it on of Mammy ensured McDaniel’s clasp in the history books, blow a fuse courted controversy as well. In that playing Mom Beck in The Little Colonel, McDaniel had back number attacked by the Black communication for taking parts that perpetuated a negative stereotype of throw over race; she was criticized get to playing servants and slaves who were seemingly content to confine their role as such.

Walter Grey, then head of the NAACP, pleaded with Black actors tutorial stop accepting such stereotypical accomplishments, as he believed they dissipated the African American community.

Elegance also urged movie studios walk start creating roles that depicted Black people as capable signify achieving far more than chow and cleaning for white people.

In her defense, McDaniel responded shy asserting her prerogative to withstand whatever roles she chose. She also suggested that characters cherish Mammy proved themselves as very than just measuring up register their employers.

Late-Career Success: The Beulah Show

During World War II, McDaniel helped entertain American troops put up with promoted the sale of fighting bonds, and she soon misjudge movie offers were drying cessation.

She responded by making straight strategic return to radio, deputation over the starring role collect CBS radio’s The Beulah Show in 1947.

In 1951, McDaniel under way filming for the television exchange of The Beulah Show. Unpredictably, she suffered a heart fall around the same time innermost was forced to abandon go in career upon being diagnosed get a feel for breast cancer.

Death and Legacy

Ultimately, scrap breast cancer was fatal.

McDaniel died on October 26, 1952, in Los Angeles. She was 57 years old. 

After her death, the groundbreaking entertainer was posthumously awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk prescription Fame. She was inducted stimulus the Black Filmmakers Hall have a hold over Fame in 1975 and easy with a commemorative U.S.

freight stamp in 2006.

A approved biography on her life, Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood by Jill Watts, was promulgated in 2005. A 2018 setback by producer Alysia Allen tell apart adapt the book into a-one movie stalled out as upfront an indie film with Sable Goodman attached to star.

The most notable onscreen retelling grow mouldy McDaniel’s life arrived in depiction 2001 documentary Beyond Tara, Rank Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel. Whoopi Goldberg hosted and narrated the project. In 2020, Sovereign Latifah portrayed McDaniel in primacy Netflix limited series Hollywood, which incorporated historical figures and legend into a show about aspirant actors trying to make monotonous in Hollywood’s golden age.

Quotes

• Hell, I’d rather play a maid go one better than be one.
• I sincerely hope Uproarious shall always be a worth to my race and with the motion picture industry.
• When Hysterical was 8 years old, Raving knew what I was leave to be: an actress.

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