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Hattie McDaniel
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Hattie McDaniel (June 10, 1895 – October 26, 1952) was an
American actress and the first black performer to win an Academy Award. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939).
McDaniel was also a professional singer-songwriter, comedienne, stage actress, radio performer, and television star. Hattie McDaniel was in fact the first black woman to sing on the radio in America. Over the course of her career, McDaniel appeared in over 300 films, although she only received screen credits for about 80.
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Encyclopedia
Hattie McDaniel (June 10, 1895 – October 26, 1952) was an
American actress and the first black performer to win an Academy Award. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939).
McDaniel was also a professional singer-songwriter, comedienne, stage actress, radio performer, and television star. Hattie McDaniel was in fact the first black woman to sing on the radio in America. Over the course of her career, McDaniel appeared in over 300 films, although she only received screen credits for about 80. She gained the respect of the African American show business community with her generosity, elegance, and charm.
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. In 1975, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and in 2006 became the first black Oscar winner honored with a US postage stamp.
Background and early acting career
Hattie McDaniel was born June 10, 1895, in Wichita, Kansas, to former slaves and Civil War soldier Henry McDaniel and Susan Holbert, a singer of religious music. She was the youngest of thirteen children. In 1900, the family moved to Colorado, living first in Fort Collins and then in Denver, where Hattie grew up. McDaniel dropped out of Denver East High School after her sophomore year to enter show business. She toured with her father's own Henry McDaniel Minstrel show, which costarred her two brothers, Sam and Otis. In 1910, she was the only African American participant in a Women's Christian Temperance Union event, in which she won a gold medal for reciting a poem entitled Convict Joe. Winning the award was what started and sparked her dream of becoming a performer.
In addition to performing, Hattie was also a songwriter, a skill she honed while working with her father's minstrel show. After the death of her brother, Otis, in 1916, the troupe began to lose profits, and it wasn't until 1920 that Hattie received another big opportunity. During 1920–25, she appeared with Professor George Morrison's Melony Hounds, a touring black ensemble, and in the mid-1920s she embarked on a radio career, singing with the Melony Hounds on station KOA in Denver. In 1927–1929 she also recorded many of her songs on Okeh Records, and with Paramount Records in Chicago.
When the stock market crashed in 1929, the only work McDaniel could find was as a washroom attendant and waitress at Club Madrid in Milwaukee. 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, sisters Etta and Orlena. When she could not get film work, she took jobs as a maid or cook. Sam was working on KNX radio program called The Optimistic Do-Nut Hour, and he was able to get his sister a spot. She appeared on radio as 'Hi-Hat Hattie', a bossy maid who often "forgets her place". Her show became extremely popular, but her salary was so low that she had to continue working as a maid. Her first film appearance was in The Golden West (1932), as a maid, her second, was in the highly successful Mae West film, I'm No Angel, as one of the plump black maids West camped it up with backstage at West's circus performances. In the early years of the 1930s she received roles in several films, often singing in choruses. In 1934, McDaniel joined the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and began to attract attention and finally landed larger film roles that began to win her screen credits. Fox Film Corporation put her under contract to appear in The Little Colonel (1935), with Shirley Temple, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Lionel Barrymore.
Judge Priest (1934), directed by John Ford and starring Will Rogers, was the first film in which she would receive a major role. She had a leading part in the film and demonstrated her singing talent, including a duet with Rogers. McDaniel and Rogers became friends during filming. McDaniel had prominent roles in 1935 with her classic performance as a slovenly maid in RKO Pictures' Alice Adams, and a delightfully comic part as Jean Harlow's maid/traveling companion in MGM's China Seas, the latter her first film with Clark Gable. She had a featured role as Queenie in Universal Pictures' 1936 version of Show Boat starring Irene Dunne, and sang a verse of Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man with Helen Morgan, Paul Robeson, and the African-American chorus. Later in the film she and Robeson sang I Still Suits Me, a song written especially by Kern and Hammerstein for the film. After Show Boat she had major roles in MGM's Saratoga (1937), starring Jean Harlow and Clark Gable, The Shopworn Angel (1938) with Margaret Sullavan, and The Mad Miss Manton (1938), starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda.
McDaniel had befriended several of Hollywood's most popular stars, including Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, Bette Davis, Shirley Temple, Henry Fonda, Ronald Reagan, Olivia de Havilland and Clark Gable, with the two last-named of 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. The Little Colonel (1935) depicted black servants longing for a return to the Old South. Ironically, McDaniel's portrayal of Malena in RKO Pictures' Alice Adams angered white Southern audiences. She managed to steal several scenes away from the film's star, Katharine Hepburn. This was the type of role she would be best known for, the sassy, independently minded, and opinionated maid.
The competition in Gone with the Wind (1939) to play 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, Elizabeth McDuffie, be given the part. McDaniel did not think she would be chosen, because she was known for being a comic actress. Clark Gable recommended the role go to McDaniel, and when she went to her audition dressed in an authentic maid's uniform, Selznick knew he had found Mammy. Gable was delighted to be working again with McDaniel.
The Loew's Grand Theatre on Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia, was selected as the theater for the premiere of Gone with the Wind, Friday, December 15, 1939. When the date of the Atlanta premiere approached, all the black actors were barred from attending, and excluded from being in the souvenir program. David Selznick had at least attempted to bring Hattie McDaniel, but MGM advised him not to because of Georgia's segregationist laws, which would have required McDaniel to stay in a segregated "blacks-only" hotel, and prevented her from sitting in the theater with her white peers. Clark Gable angrily threatened to boycott the Atlanta premiere unless McDaniel was allowed to attend, but McDaniel convinced him to attend anyway. Most of Atlanta's 300,000 citizens crowded the route of the seven-mile motorcade that carried the film's other stars and executives from the airport to the Georgian Terrace Hotel, where they stayed. While the Jim Crow laws kept McDaniel from the Atlanta premiere, she did attend the Hollywood debut on December 28, 1939. This time, upon Selznick's insistence, her picture was featured prominently in the program. (It would also be included in programs for all areas outside of the South.)
It was her role as the sassy servant who repeatedly scolds her mistress, Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh), and scoffs at Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), that won McDaniel the 1940 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, making her the first African American to win an Oscar. She was also the first African American ever to be nominated. "I loved Mammy," McDaniel said. "I think I understood her because my own grandmother worked on a plantation not unlike Tara". Her role in Gone with the Wind had scared her Southern audience and in the South, there were complaints that in the film she had been too familiar with her white employer.
Oscar night
Louella Parsons, an American gossip columnist, wrote about Oscar night of 1940: "Hattie McDaniel earned that gold Oscar, by her fine performance of "Mammy" in Gone with the Wind. If you had seen her face when she walked up to the platform and took the gold trophy, you would have had the choke in your voice that all of us had when Hattie, hair trimmed with gardenias, face alight, and dress up to the queen's taste, accepted the honor in one of the finest speeches ever given on the Academy floor. She put her heart right into those words and expressed not only for herself, but for every member of her race, the gratitude she felt that she had been given recognition by the Academy. Fay Bainter, with voice trembling, introduced Hattie and spoke of the happiness she felt in bestowing upon the beaming actress Hollywood's greatest honor. Her proudest possession is the red silk petticoat that David Selznick gave her when she finished Gone with the Wind".
Gone with the Wind was awarded ten Academy Awards, a record that would stand for years, and has been named by the American Film Institute (AFI) as number four among the top 100 American films of all time.
Later acting career
As the 1940s progressed, the servant roles McDaniel and other African American performers had so frequently played were subjected to increasingly strong criticism by groups such as the NAACP. In response to the NAACP's criticism, McDaniel replied, "I'd rather play a maid and make $700 a week than be one for $7."
In 1942's Warner Bros., In This Our Life, she once again played a domestic, starring Bette Davis and directed by John Huston; character confronts racial issues as her law student son is wrongly accused of manslaughter. The following year, McDaniel was in Warner Bros., Thank Your Lucky Stars, with Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis. In 1943, Time wrote about McDaniel, "Hattie McDaniel, whose bubbling, blaring good humor more than redeems the roaring bad taste of a Harlem number called "Ice Cold Katie" [musical number by Dinah Shore]. Hattie McDaniel continued to play maids during the war years, in Warner Bros., The Male Animal (1942), and United Artists, Since You Went Away (1944), but her feistiness was toned down.
She made her last film appearances, Mickey and Family Honeymoon (1949), but was still quite active in her final years on radio and television, becoming the first major African American radio star with her comedy series Beulah. She starred in the ABC television version, taking over for Ethel Waters after the first season. It was a hit, earning McDaniel $2,000 a week. After filming a handful of episodes, however, McDaniel learned she had breast cancer. By the spring of 1952, she was too ill to work and was replaced by Louise Beavers.
Off-camera
Legal case: Victory on "Sugar Hill"
Time magazine, December 17, 1945:
Their story was as old as it was ugly. In 1938, Negroes, willing and able to pay $15,000 and up for West Adams, Los Angeles, California, Heights property, had begun moving into the old colonial mansions. Many were movie folk—Actresses Louise Beavers, Hattie McDaniel, Ethel Waters, etc. They improved their holdings, kept their well-defined ways, quickly won more than tolerance from most of their white neighbors. But some whites, refusing to be comforted, had drawn up a racial restrictive covenant among themselves. For seven years they had tried to sell it to the other whites, but failed. Then they went to court. Superior Judge Thurmond Clarke decided to visit the disputed ground—popularly known as "Sugar Hill." Next morning, Judge Clarke threw the case out of court. His reason: "It is time that members of the Negro race are accorded, without reservations or evasions, the full rights guaranteed them under the 14th Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Judges have been avoiding the real issue too long." Said Hattie McDaniel, of West Adams Heights: "Words cannot express my appreciation."
It was McDaniel, the most famous of the black homeowners, who helped to organize the black West Adams residents that saved their homes. Loren Miller, a local attorney and owner/publisher of the California Eagle newspaper represented the homeowners in their restrictive covenant case. In 1944, he won the case Fairchild v Rainers, a decision for a black Pasadena, California family that had bought a non restricted lot but was sued by white neighbors anyway.
McDaniel had purchased her white two-story, seventeen-room mansion in 1942. The house included a large living room, dining room, drawing room, den, butler's pantry, kitchen, service porch, library, four bedrooms, and a basement. McDaniel had a yearly Hollywood party. Everyone knew that the king of Hollywood, Clark Gable, would be faithfully present at all of McDaniel's Movieland parties.
Community service
McDaniel was also a member of Sigma Gamma Rho, one of four African-American Greek letter sororities in the United States. During World War II, McDaniel was the Chairman of the Negro Division of the Hollywood Victory Committee, providing entertainment for soldiers stationed at military bases. She also put in numerous personal appearances to hospitals, threw parties, performed at United Service Organizations (USO) shows and war bond rallies, to raise funds to support the war, on behalf of the Victory Committee. Bette Davis also performed for black regiments as the only white member of an acting troupe formed by Hattie McDaniel, that also included Lena Horne and Ethel Waters.
She joined Clarence Muse for an NBC radio broadcast to raise funds for Red Cross relief programs for Americans, many of them black, who had been displaced by the year's devastating floods. Within the black community, she gained a reputation for generous giving, often without question feeding and lending money to friends and stranger alike.
Marriages
While her career was advancing in the 1920s, her husband, George Langford, died soon after she married him in 1922, and her father died the same year. She married Howard Hickman in 1938 but divorced him later the same year. In 1941, she married James Lloyd Crawford, real estate salesman. In the book Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, by Donald Bogle, it is referenced that in 1945, McDaniel happily informed gossip columnist Hedda Hopper that she was pregnant. McDaniel began buying baby clothes and setting up a nursery. Her plans were shattered when the doctor informed her she had a false pregnancy; McDaniel fell into a depression. She divorced Crawford in 1945, after four and a half years of marriage. She said he was jealous of her career and once threatened to kill her.
In Yuma, Arizona, on June 11, 1949, she married Larry Williams, interior decorator. She divorced him in 1950, after testifying that their five months together had been marred by "arguing and fussing." Ms. McDaniel broke down in tears when she testified that her husband tried to create dissension among the cast of her radio show and otherwise interfered with her work. "I haven't got over it yet," she said. "I got so I couldn't sleep. I couldn't concentrate on my lines."
Death
McDaniel died at age 57, in the hospital on the grounds of the Motion Picture House in Woodland Hills, on October 26, 1952. She was survived by her brother, Sam "Deacon" McDaniel, a film actor. Thousands of mourners turned out to remember her life and accomplishments. It was her wish to be buried in the Hollywood Cemetery on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, along with her fellow movie stars, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, and others. McDaniel wrote: "I desire a white casket and a white shroud; white gardenias in my hair and in my hands, together with a white gardenia blanket and a pillow of red roses" I also wish to be buried in the Hollywood Cemetery".
The owner, Jules 'Jack' Roth, refused to allow her to be interred there, because they did not take blacks. Her second choice was Rosedale Cemetery, where she lies today.
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 Cemetery 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.
Will
The Oscar that Hattie won was placed in the keeping of Howard University in Washington, D.C. The statue disappeared during racial unrest on the Washington, D.C., campus in the late 1960s. The last will filed for probate disposed of less than $10,000 to a few relatives and friends, her estate had been eroded by medical costs. She left 1 cent to her former husband, Larry C. Williams.
Legacy and recognition
Hattie 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. In 1975, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame posthumously.
In 1994, actress and singer Karla Burns launched her one-woman show Hi-Hat-Hattie (written by Larry Parr) which examines the life of McDaniel. Burns' life has some striking similarities with McDaniel's life. She was the first black person to win the coveted Laurence Olivier Award, which is reminiscent of the success that McDaniel had with her Oscar win. Both Burns and McDaniel were born in Wichita, played Queenie in Show Boat, and share a similar physicality. Burn's first performance of Hi-Hat-Hattie was in Wichita in 1994. She went on to perform the role in several other cities through 2002 including Off-Broadway in New York and the Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre in California.
In 2002, the legacy of pioneering actress Hattie McDaniel is recalled when American Movie Classics (AMC) delves into her life in the film Beyond Tara, The Extraordinary Life Of Hattie McDaniel (2001), produced and directed by Madison D. Lacy, Ph.D., and hosted by Whoopi Goldberg. The one-hour special shows the struggles and triumphs of how McDaniel, in spite of racism and adversity, knocked down the doors of Hollywood and made her presence known. The film won the 2001–2002 Daytime Emmy Award, presented on May 17, 2002, for Outstanding Special Class Special.
McDaniel was featured as the 29th inductee on the Black Heritage Series by the United States Postal Service. She was the first black Oscar winner honored with a stamp. The 39-cent stamp was released on January 29, 2006. This stamp features a 1941 photograph of McDaniel in the dress she wore on January 25, 1940.
The ceremony took place at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where the Hattie McDaniel collection includes photographs of McDaniel and other family members, as well as scripts and other documents. "She was a most special lady," McDaniel's Gone with the Wind co-star Ann Rutherford told AP Television News. Rutherford recalled how McDaniel thought some of her friends looked down on her for playing a maid "But (McDaniel) said, I'd rather play a maid than be a maid", Rutherford said.
Filmography
Features
The Golden West (1932)Love Bound (1932)Impatient Maiden (1932)Are You Listening? (1932)The Washington Masquerade (1932)The Boiling Point (1932)Crooner (1932)Blonde Venus (1932)Hypnotized (1932)Hello, Sister (1933)I'm No Angel (1933)Merry Wives of Reno (1934)Operator 13 (1934)King Kelly of the U.S.A. (1934)Judge Priest (1934)Flirtation (1934)Lost in the Stratosphere (1934)Babbitt (1934)Little Men (1934)The Little Colonel (1935)
Transient Lady (1935)Traveling Saleslady (1935)China Seas (1935)Alice Adams (1935)Murder by Television (1935)Harmony Lane (1935)Music Is Magic (1935)Another Face (1935)We're Only Human (1935)Can This Be Dixie? (1936)Next Time We Love (1936)The First Baby (1936)The Singing Kid (1936)Gentle Julia (1936)Show Boat (1936)High Tension (1936)The Bride Walks Out (1936)Postal Inspector (1936)Star for a Night (1936)Valiant Is the Word for Carrie (1936)Libeled Lady (1936)Reunion (1936)Mississippi Moods (1937)Racing Lady (1937)Don't Tell the Wife (1937)The Crime Nobody Saw (1937)The Wildcatter (1937)Saratoga (1937)Stella Dallas (1937)Sky Racket (1937)Over the Goal (1937)Merry Go Round of 1938 (1937)Nothing Sacred (1937)45 Fathers (1937)Quick Money (1937)True Confession (1937)Battle of Broadway (1938)Vivacious Lady (1938)The Shopworn Angel (1938)Carefree (1938)The Mad Miss Manton (1938)The Shining Hour (1938)Everybody's Baby (1939)Zenobia (1939)Gone with the Wind (1939)Maryland (1940)The Great Lie (1941)Affectionately Yours (1941)They Died with Their Boots On (1941)The Male Animal (1942)In This Our Life (1942)George Washington Slept Here (1942)Johnny Come Lately (1943)Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943)Since You Went Away (1944)Janie (1944)Three Is a Family (1944)Hi, Beautiful (1944)Janie Gets Married (1946)Margie (1946)Never Say Goodbye (1946)Song of the South (1946)The Flame (1947)Mickey (1948)Family Honeymoon (1949)The Big Wheel (1949)
Short subjects
Mickey's Rescue (1934)Fate's Fathead (1934)The Chases of Pimple Street (1934)Anniversary Trouble (1935)Okay Toots! (1935)Wig-Wag (1935)The Four Star Boarder (1935)Arbor Day (1936)
Radio
Station KOA, Denver, Melony Hounds (1926)
Station KNX, Los Angeles, The Optimistic Do-Nut Hour (1931)
CBS Network, The Beulah Show (1947)
See also
- List of African American firsts
- List of black Academy Award winners and nominees
Footnotes
External links
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