Know Your History: Hattie McDaniel

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 received screen credits for only 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.

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 $7000 a week than be one for $7.”
In the 1942 Warner Bros. film In This Our Life, starring Bette Davis and directed by John Huston, she once again played a domestic, but one who 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 its review of the film, Time listed McDaniel was one of the points of relief in an otherwise “grim study,” saying, “Hattie McDaniel, whose bubbling, blaring good humor more than redeems the roaring bad taste of a Harlem number called Ice Cold Katie.”

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 in Mickey (1948) and Family Honeymoon (1949). She was still quite active on radio and television in her final years, 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.

Sources
^ MTV: Hattie McDaniel Biography
^ Jackson, Carlton. Hattie: The Life of Hattie McDaniel, Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1990. ISBN 1568330049
^ “Hattie McDaniel, First African American To Win An Academy Award, Featured On New 39-Cent Postage Stamp”, Press Release for US Postal Service, January 25, 2006.
^ Time Review: Thank Your Lucky Stars (Warner), Monday, October 4, 1943
^ Three of McDaniel’s episodes are readily available on videocassette and can be found by checking sources on the internet.