1940 : McDaniel wins Oscar
On February 29, 1940, Gone with the Wind is honored with eight Oscars
by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. An epic
Southern romance set during the hard times of the Civil War, the movie
swept the prestigious Best Picture, Director, Screenplay,
Cinematography, Art Direction, Film Editing, and Actress categories.
However, the most momentous award that night undoubtedly went to
Hattie McDaniel for her portrayal of "Mammy," a housemaid and former
slave. McDaniel, who won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award,
was the first African American actress or actor ever to be honored
with an Oscar.
Born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1895, McDaniel demonstrated her talents as
a singer and actress while growing up in Denver, Colorado. She left
school while a teenager to become a performer in several traveling
minstrel groups and in 1924 became one of the first African American
women to sing on U.S. radio. With the onset of the Great Depression,
she was forced to take work as a ladies' washroom attendant in a
Milwaukee club. The club, which hired only white performers,
eventually made an exception and let her sing, and she performed there
for a year before setting her sights on Hollywood.
In Los Angeles, she won a small role on a local radio show called The
Optimistic Do-Nuts and before long had become the program's main
attraction. In 1932, she made her film debut as a Southern house
servant in The Golden West. In American movies at the time, African
American actors and actresses were generally limited to house servant
roles, and McDaniel apparently embraced this stereotype, playing the
role of maid or cook in nearly 40 films in the 1930s. Responding to
criticism by groups such as the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) that she was perpetuating
stereotypes, McDaniel responded that she would rather play a maid on
the screen than be one in real life. Furthermore, she often subverted
the stereotype by turning her maids into sassy, independent-minded
characters who sometimes made white audiences shift uncomfortably in
their seats.
Her most famous role was as Mammy in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.
Directed by Victor Fleming and based on the best-selling Margaret
Mitchell novel of the same name, the movie remains the
highest-grossing movie of all time when inflation is taken into
account. Although she was honored with an Oscar, liberal African
Americans sharply criticized McDaniel for accepting a role in which
her character, a former slave, spoke nostalgically about the Old
South.
McDaniel's film career declined in the late 1940s, and in 1947 she
returned to radio as the star of the nationally broadcast The Beulah
Show. In the program, she again portrayed an effervescent Southern
maid but in a markedly un-stereotypical manner that won praise from
the NAACP. In 1951, while filming the first episodes of a television
version of the popular show, she had a heart attack. She recovered to
do a few more radio programs but in 1952 died of breast cancer at the
age of 57.
history.com/tdih.do
General Interest
1940 : McDaniel wins Oscar
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihVideoCategory&id=6822
1704 : Deerfield razed in Queen Anne's War
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4798
1736 : Shaker founder born
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4799
1968 : Kerner Commission Report released
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4800
#########################################
On February 29, 1940, Gone with the Wind is honored with eight Oscars
by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. An epic
Southern romance set during the hard times of the Civil War, the movie
swept the prestigious Best Picture, Director, Screenplay,
Cinematography, Art Direction, Film Editing, and Actress categories.
However, the most momentous award that night undoubtedly went to
Hattie McDaniel for her portrayal of "Mammy," a housemaid and former
slave. McDaniel, who won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award,
was the first African American actress or actor ever to be honored
with an Oscar.
Born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1895, McDaniel demonstrated her talents as
a singer and actress while growing up in Denver, Colorado. She left
school while a teenager to become a performer in several traveling
minstrel groups and in 1924 became one of the first African American
women to sing on U.S. radio. With the onset of the Great Depression,
she was forced to take work as a ladies' washroom attendant in a
Milwaukee club. The club, which hired only white performers,
eventually made an exception and let her sing, and she performed there
for a year before setting her sights on Hollywood.
In Los Angeles, she won a small role on a local radio show called The
Optimistic Do-Nuts and before long had become the program's main
attraction. In 1932, she made her film debut as a Southern house
servant in The Golden West. In American movies at the time, African
American actors and actresses were generally limited to house servant
roles, and McDaniel apparently embraced this stereotype, playing the
role of maid or cook in nearly 40 films in the 1930s. Responding to
criticism by groups such as the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) that she was perpetuating
stereotypes, McDaniel responded that she would rather play a maid on
the screen than be one in real life. Furthermore, she often subverted
the stereotype by turning her maids into sassy, independent-minded
characters who sometimes made white audiences shift uncomfortably in
their seats.
Her most famous role was as Mammy in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.
Directed by Victor Fleming and based on the best-selling Margaret
Mitchell novel of the same name, the movie remains the
highest-grossing movie of all time when inflation is taken into
account. Although she was honored with an Oscar, liberal African
Americans sharply criticized McDaniel for accepting a role in which
her character, a former slave, spoke nostalgically about the Old
South.
McDaniel's film career declined in the late 1940s, and in 1947 she
returned to radio as the star of the nationally broadcast The Beulah
Show. In the program, she again portrayed an effervescent Southern
maid but in a markedly un-stereotypical manner that won praise from
the NAACP. In 1951, while filming the first episodes of a television
version of the popular show, she had a heart attack. She recovered to
do a few more radio programs but in 1952 died of breast cancer at the
age of 57.
history.com/tdih.do
General Interest
1940 : McDaniel wins Oscar
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihVideoCategory&id=6822
1704 : Deerfield razed in Queen Anne's War
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4798
1736 : Shaker founder born
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4799
1968 : Kerner Commission Report released
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=4800
#########################################
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