Happy Birthday, Hattie McDaniel!

Today would have been Hattie McDaniel's 131st birthday. She died back in 1952, but she was born on June 10, 1893. Hattie McDaniel starred in one of my favorite movies, 1939's Gone With the Wind. Although this movie is a favorite of many, it is not without controversy. And, Ms. McDaniel, the daughter of former slaves, found herself in the thick of it.

If you are not familiar with Hattie McDaniel, here are some highlights from Wikipedia:

Hattie McDaniel was an American actress, singer-songwriter, and comedienne. For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939), she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first African American to win an Oscar. 

The competition to win the part of Mammy in Gone with the Wind was almost as fierce as that for Scarlett O'Hara. First Lady 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 had earned her reputation as a comic actress. One source claimed that Clark Gable recommended that the role be given to McDaniel; in any case, she went to her audition dressed in an authentic maid's uniform and won the part.

Loew's Grand Theater on Peachtree Street in Atlanta was selected by the studio as the site for the Friday, December 15, 1939, premiere of Gone with the Wind. Studio head David O. Selznick asked that McDaniel be permitted to attend, but MGM advised him not to, because of Georgia's segregation laws. Clark Gable threatened to boycott the Atlanta premiere unless McDaniel were allowed to attend, but McDaniel convinced him to attend anyway.

Most of Atlanta's 300,000 citizens crowded the route of the seven-mile (11 km) motorcade that carried the film's other stars and executives from the airport to the Georgian Terrace Hotel, where they stayed. While Jim Crow laws kept McDaniel from the Atlanta premiere, she did attend the film's Hollywood debut on December 28, 1939. Upon Selznick's insistence, her picture was also featured prominently in the program.

For her performance as the house servant who repeatedly scolds her owner's daughter, Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh), and scoffs at Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), McDaniel won the 1939 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first Black actor to have been nominated and win an Oscar. "I loved Mammy", McDaniel said when speaking to the white press about the character. "I think I understood her because my own grandmother worked on a plantation not unlike Tara". Her role in Gone with the Wind had alarmed some whites in the South; there were complaints that in the film she had been too "familiar" with her white owners.

While many Black people were happy over McDaniel's personal victory, they also viewed it as bittersweet. They believed Gone With the Wind celebrated the slave system and condemned the forces that destroyed it. For them, the unique accolade McDaniel had won suggested that only those who did not protest Hollywood's systemic use of racial stereotypes could find work and success there.

Ms. McDaniel received criticism from the black community during her lifetime for playing maids, but she said she 'd rather play a maid for $700 a week, than be one for $7 a week.  

The 12th Academy Awards took place at Coconut Grove Restaurant of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was preceded by a banquet in the same room. 

McDaniel received a plaque-style Oscar, approximately 5.5 in (14 cm) by 6 in (15 cm), the type awarded to all Best Supporting Actors and Actresses at that time. She and her escort were required to sit at a segregated table for two at the far wall of the room; her white agent, William Meiklejohn, sat at the same table. The hotel had a strict no-Blacks policy but allowed McDaniel in as a favor. The discrimination continued after the award ceremony as well; her white co-stars went to a "no-Blacks" club, where McDaniel was also denied entry.

For more information on the life of Hattie McDaniel, click here.

Despite the various controversies, Ms. McDaniel's outstanding performance as Mammy will never be forgotten!

Have you ever seen Gone With the Wind? Thanks for visiting and have a great week!