Hattie McDaniel
Encyclopedia
Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American actress to win an Academy Award
. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress
for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind
(1939
).
In addition to having acted in many films, McDaniel was a professional singer-songwriter, comedian, 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
.
, to former slaves. She was the youngest of 13 children. Her father, Henry McDaniel, fought in the Civil War
with the 122nd USCT and her mother, Susan Holbert, was a singer of religious music. In 1900, the family moved to Colorado
, living first in Fort Collins and then in Denver, where Hattie graduated from Denver East High School. Her brother, Sam McDaniel
(1886–1962), played the butler in the 1948 Three Stooges
’ short film Heavenly Daze
. Another acting sibling of Hattie and Sam was actress Etta McDaniel
.
In addition to performing, Hattie was also a songwriter, a skill she honed while working with her brother's minstrel show. After the death of her brother Otis in 1916, the troupe began to lose money, and it wasn't until 1920 that Hattie received another big opportunity. During 1920–25, she appeared with Professor George Morrison's Melody Hounds, a touring black ensemble, and in the mid-1920s she embarked on a radio career, singing with the Melody Hounds on station KOA
in Denver. In 1926–1929 she also recorded many of her songs on Okeh Records
and Paramount Records
in Chicago. In total, McDaniel recorded 7 sessions; 1 in summer of 1926 for the rare Kansas City label Meritt, 4 sessions in Chicago for OKeh (late 1926-late 1927) - of the 10 sides, only 4 were issued, and 2 sessions in Chicago for Paramount (both in March, 1929).
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 and 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
(1933), as one of the plump black maids West camped it up with backstage. She received several other uncredited film roles in the early 1930s, often singing in choruses.
In 1934, McDaniel joined the Screen Actors Guild
(SAG). She 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 played 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.
In 1935 McDaniel had prominent roles with her performance as a slovenly maid in RKO Pictures
' Alice Adams
, a comic part as Jean Harlow
's maid/traveling companion in MGM's China Seas
, the latter her first film with Clark Gable
, and as Isabella the maid in Murder by Television
, with Béla Lugosi
.
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 Dunne, 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
. She had a very minor role in the Carole Lombard/Frederic March vehicle Nothing Sacred
(1937), in which she appeared as the wife of a shoeshine man (Troy Brown) masquerading as a sultan.
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 last two 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 became best known for, the sassy, independently minded, and opinionated maid.
(1939) 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; when she went to her audition dressed in an authentic maid's uniform, she won the part.
The Loew's Grand Theater 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 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 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 1939
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 alarmed some in the Southern audience; there were complaints that in the film she had been too familiar with her white employer.
, an American gossip columnist, wrote about Oscar night, February 29, 1940:
Gone with the Wind was awarded ten Academy Awards
, a record that stood for years, and has been named by the American Film Institute (AFI) as number four among the top 100 American films of all time.
, recalled how McDaniel thought some of her friends looked down on her for playing a maid. McDaniel said; "Why should I complain about making $700 a week playing a maid? If I didn't, I'd be making $7 a week being one.".
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
.
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 minority homeowners in their restrictive covenant case. In 1944, he had 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 house 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.
, 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 was also a member of American Women's Voluntary Services
.
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 devastating floods. Within the black community, she gained a reputation for generous giving, often feeding and lending money to friends and stranger alike without question.
, McDaniel happily informed gossip columnist Hedda Hopper
in 1945 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."
McDaniel died at age 57 from breast cancer
, 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 McDaniel
, a film actor. Thousands of mourners turned out to remember her life and accomplishments. 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 Hollywood Cemetery
on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood was the resting place of movie stars such as Douglas Fairbanks
, Rudolph Valentino
, and others. The owner, Jules Roth, refused to allow her to be buried there, because they did not take black people. 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 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 instead 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.
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 posthumously into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame
.
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. 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 Hattie McDaniel was celebrated when American Movie Classics (AMC) portrayed 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 showed the struggles and triumphs as McDaniel, in spite of racism and adversity, knocked down the doors of segregation in 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 when she accepted her Academy Award in 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.
In her acceptance speech for best supporting actress in the film Precious
at the 82nd Academy awards, Mo'Nique stated, "I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to." Mo'Nique was dressed in a blue dress, with gardenias in her hair, in homage to McDaniel, who wore the same thing to the award ceremony in 1940. In November 2009, she announced that she owned the rights to McDaniel's life story, in which she would play the starring role.
After Mo'Nique won her Oscar, questions rose about whatever became of Hattie McDaniel's Oscar upon her death. It was later reported by the Washington Post that McDaniel's Oscar was donated to Howard University
's Drama Department to be displayed for future generations of students; McDaniel had been honored by the students of Howard University with a luncheon after winning her Oscar. The statue may have disappeared during racial unrest on the Washington, D.C., campus in the late 1960s.
August 16, 2011, was officially declared “Hattie McDaniel Day” on the Frank Decaro Show on Sirius OUTQ 108
, Denver, Melony Hounds (1926)
Station KNX
, Los Angeles
, The Optimistic Do-Nut Hour (1931)
CBS Network, The Beulah Show
(1947)
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
(1939
1939 in film
The year 1939 in motion pictures can be justified as being called the most outstanding one ever, when it comes to the high quality and high attendance at the large set of the best films that premiered in the year .- Events :Motion picture historians and film often rate...
).
In addition to having acted in many films, McDaniel was a professional singer-songwriter, comedian, 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
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
show business community with her generosity, elegance, and charm.
McDaniel has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
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
Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame
The Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Inc. , was founded in 1973, Oakland, California. It supports and promotes black filmmaking, and preserves the contributions by African American artists both before and behind the camera...
and in 2006 became the first black Oscar winner honored with a US postage stamp
Postage stamps and postal history of the United States of America
This is a general historical outline of postage stamps and postal history of the United States of America. The page rarely covers the subjects or topical aspects of individual Postage stamps issues at any length, and only when it is relevant to the issuance of the postage, as some events are solely...
.
Background and early acting career
Hattie McDaniel was born June 10, 1895, in Wichita, KansasWichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
, to former slaves. She was the youngest of 13 children. Her father, Henry McDaniel, fought in the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
with the 122nd USCT and her mother, Susan Holbert, was a singer of religious music. In 1900, the family moved to Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, living first in Fort Collins and then in Denver, where Hattie graduated from Denver East High School. Her brother, Sam McDaniel
Sam McDaniel
Sam McDaniel was an African American actor who appeared in over 210 television shows and films between 1929 and 1950. He was the older brother of actresses Hattie McDaniel and Etta McDaniel. born in Wichita, Kansas, to former slaves. He was one of 13 children...
(1886–1962), played the butler in the 1948 Three Stooges
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...
’ short film Heavenly Daze
Heavenly Daze
Heavenly Daze is the 109th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.-Plot:...
. Another acting sibling of Hattie and Sam was actress Etta McDaniel
Etta McDaniel
Etta McDaniel was an African American actress who appeared in over 60 films between 1933 and 1946. She is the sister of actor Sam McDaniel and actress and Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel....
.
In addition to performing, Hattie was also a songwriter, a skill she honed while working with her brother's minstrel show. After the death of her brother Otis in 1916, the troupe began to lose money, and it wasn't until 1920 that Hattie received another big opportunity. During 1920–25, she appeared with Professor George Morrison's Melody Hounds, a touring black ensemble, and in the mid-1920s she embarked on a radio career, singing with the Melody Hounds on station KOA
KOA (AM)
KOA is a clear channel, news/talk radio station serving the Denver-Boulder and Colorado Springs, Colorado markets. It is owned by Clear Channel Communications and is nicknamed "the Blowtorch of the West" for its 50,000 watt signal.KOA was originally owned by General Electric and began...
in Denver. In 1926–1929 she also recorded many of her songs on Okeh Records
Okeh Records
Okeh Records began as an independent record label based in the United States of America in 1918. From 1926 on, it was a subsidiary of Columbia Records.-History:...
and Paramount Records
Paramount Records
Paramount Records was an American record label, best known for its recordings of African-American jazz and blues in the 1920s and early 1930s, including such artists as Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson.-Early years:...
in Chicago. In total, McDaniel recorded 7 sessions; 1 in summer of 1926 for the rare Kansas City label Meritt, 4 sessions in Chicago for OKeh (late 1926-late 1927) - of the 10 sides, only 4 were issued, and 2 sessions in Chicago for Paramount (both in March, 1929).
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
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
to join her brother Sam and sisters Etta and Orlena. When she could not get film work, she took jobs as a maid or cook. Sam was working on KNX
KNX (AM)
KNX is an all-news radio station in Los Angeles, California, USA. The station operates on a clear channel and is owned by CBS Radio. KNX broadcasts from facilities shared with sister stations KFWB, KCBS-FM, KTWV, and KAMP on Los Angeles' Miracle Mile...
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
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
film I'm No Angel
I'm No Angel
I'm No Angel is Mae West's third motion picture. West received sole story and screenplay credit. A young Cary Grant plays her leading man for the second time. Being Pre-Code, this was one of the few Mae West movies that was not subjected to heavy censorship...
(1933), as one of the plump black maids West camped it up with backstage. She received several other uncredited film roles in the early 1930s, often singing in choruses.
In 1934, McDaniel joined the Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
(SAG). She 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
The Little Colonel
The Little Colonel is a 1935 American comedy drama film directed by David Butler. The screenplay by William M. Conselman was adapted from a novel of the same name by Annie Fellows Johnston, and focuses on the reconciliation of an estranged father and daughter in the years following the American...
(1935), with Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...
.
Judge Priest
Judge Priest
Judge Priest is a 1934 American comedy film. The film was based on humorist Irvin S. Cobb's character Judge Priest. The film was directed by John Ford and produced by Sol M. Wurtzel in association with Fox Film...
(1934), directed by John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
and starring Will Rogers
Will Rogers
William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....
, was the first film in which she played 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.
In 1935 McDaniel had prominent roles with her performance as a slovenly maid in RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
' Alice Adams
Alice Adams (film)
Alice Adams, also known as Booth Tarkington's Alice Adams, is a 1935 romantic film made by RKO. It was directed by George Stevens and produced by Pandro S. Berman from a screenplay by Dorothy Yost, Mortimer Offner adapted by Jane Murfin from the novel, Alice Adams, by Booth Tarkington...
, a comic part as Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
's maid/traveling companion in MGM's China Seas
China Seas (film)
China Seas is a 1935 adventure film starring Clark Gable as a brave sea captain, Jean Harlow as his brassy paramour, and Wallace Beery as an extremely suspicious-looking character...
, the latter her first film with Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
, and as Isabella the maid in Murder by Television
Murder by Television
Murder by Television is an American mystery film starring Bela Lugosi, June Collyer, and Huntley Gordon. The film is also known as The Houghland Murder Case...
, with Béla Lugosi
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
.
She had a featured role as Queenie in Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
' 1936 version of Show Boat
Show Boat (1936 film)
Show Boat is a 1936 film based on the musical play by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II , which the team adapted from the novel by Edna Ferber....
starring Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
, and sang a verse of Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man
Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man
"Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" with music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, is one of the most famous songs from their classic 1927 musical play Show Boat, adapted from Edna Ferber's novel.-Context:...
with Dunne, Helen Morgan
Helen Morgan
Helen Morgan was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s...
, Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, and the African-American chorus. Later in the film she and Robeson sang I Still Suits Me, a song written especially by Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
and Hammerstein
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
for the film.
After Show Boat she had major roles in MGM's Saratoga
Saratoga (film)
Saratoga is a 1937 film written by Anita Loos and directed by Jack Conway. The movie stars Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in their sixth and final film collaboration....
(1937), starring Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
and Clark Gable, The Shopworn Angel
The Shopworn Angel
The Shopworn Angel is a 1938 American drama film directed by H.C. Potter. The MGM release featured the second screen pairing of Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart following their successful teaming in the Universal Pictures production Next Time We Love two years earlier...
(1938) with Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday...
, and The Mad Miss Manton (1938), starring Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
and Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
. She had a very minor role in the Carole Lombard/Frederic March vehicle Nothing Sacred
Nothing Sacred (film)
Nothing Sacred is a 1937 Technicolor screwball comedy film made by Selznick International Pictures and distributed by United Artists. It was directed by William A. Wellman and produced by David O. Selznick, from a screenplay credited to Ben Hecht, based on a story by James H. Street...
(1937), in which she appeared as the wife of a shoeshine man (Troy Brown) masquerading as a sultan.
McDaniel had befriended several of Hollywood's most popular stars, including Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
, Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was an award-winning American actress of the stage and screen, talk-show host, and bonne vivante...
, Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
, Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
, Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
, Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland
Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...
and Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
, with the last two of whom she would star in Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
.
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
Old South
Geographically, Old South is a subregion of the American South, differentiated from the "Deep South" as being the Southern States represented in the original thirteen American colonies, as well as a way of describing the former lifestyle in the Southern United States. Culturally, the term can be...
. Ironically, McDaniel's portrayal of Malena in RKO Pictures' Alice Adams
Alice Adams (film)
Alice Adams, also known as Booth Tarkington's Alice Adams, is a 1935 romantic film made by RKO. It was directed by George Stevens and produced by Pandro S. Berman from a screenplay by Dorothy Yost, Mortimer Offner adapted by Jane Murfin from the novel, Alice Adams, by Booth Tarkington...
angered white Southern audiences. She managed to steal several scenes away from the film's star, Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
. This was the type of role she became best known for, the sassy, independently minded, and opinionated maid.
Gone with the Wind
The competition to play Mammy in Gone with the WindGone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
(1939) had been almost as stiff as that for Scarlett O'Hara
Scarlett O'Hara
Scarlett O' Hara is the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and in the later film of the same name...
. Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
wrote to film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick was an American film producer. He is best known for having produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca , both of which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture.-Early years:...
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
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
recommended the role go to McDaniel; when she went to her audition dressed in an authentic maid's uniform, she won the part.
The Loew's Grand Theater on Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
, was selected as the theater for the premiere of Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
, 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 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
Georgian Terrace Hotel
The Georgian Terrace Hotel in Midtown Atlanta, part of the Fox Theatre Historic District, was designed by architect William Lee Stoddart in a Beaux-Arts style that was intended to evoke the architecture of Paris. Construction commenced on July 21, 1910, and ended on September 8, 1911, and the hotel...
, where they stayed. While the Jim Crow laws
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
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 the South.)
It was her role as the sassy servant who repeatedly scolds her mistress, Scarlett O'Hara
Scarlett O'Hara
Scarlett O' Hara is the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and in the later film of the same name...
(Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
), and scoffs at Rhett Butler
Rhett Butler
Rhett Butler is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.-Role:In the beginning of the novel, we first meet Rhett at the Twelve Oaks Plantation barbecue, the home of John Wilkes and his son Ashley and daughters Honey and India Wilkes...
(Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
), that won McDaniel the 1939
11th Academy Awards
The 11th Academy Awards were held on February 23, 1939 at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. It was the first Academy Awards show without any official host, as well as the first to have a foreign language film nominated for Best Picture.This was the first of only two times in Oscar...
Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
, 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
Tara Plantation
Tara, the fictional plantation found in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind, was located near Jonesborough , Georgia...
." Her role in Gone with the Wind had alarmed some in the Southern audience; there were complaints that in the film she had been too familiar with her white employer.
Oscar night
Louella ParsonsLouella Parsons
Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...
, an American gossip columnist, wrote about Oscar night, February 29, 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 BainterFay BainterFay Okell Bainter was an American film and stage actress.-Early life:She was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Charles F. Bainter and Mary Okell. In 1910, she was a traveling stage actress...
, 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
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
, a record that stood 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. McDaniel's Gone with the Wind co-star, Ann RutherfordAnn Rutherford
Ann Rutherford is a Canadian-American actress in film, radio, and television. She has had a long career starring and co-starring in films, playing Polly Benedict on the big screen of the 1930s and 1940s in the Andy Hardy series, and on The Bob Newhart Show as Newhart's character's...
, recalled how McDaniel thought some of her friends looked down on her for playing a maid. McDaniel said; "Why should I complain about making $700 a week playing a maid? If I didn't, I'd be making $7 a week being one.".
In the 1942 Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
film In This Our Life
In This Our Life
In This Our Life is a 1942 American drama film, the second to be directed by John Huston. The screenplay by Howard Koch is based on the 1941 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Ellen Glasgow. The cast included the established stars Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland as sisters and...
, starring Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
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
Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943 film)
Thank Your Lucky Stars is a film made by Warner Brothers as a World War II fundraiser. It was directed by David Butler and starred Eddie Cantor, Dennis Morgan, Joan Leslie, Edward Everett Horton and S. Z...
, with Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
and Bette Davis. In its review of the film, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
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
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
' The Male Animal
The Male Animal
The Male Animal is a Warner Brothers film starring Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Leslie.The film was based on a hit 1940 Broadway play of the same name written by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent. The screenplay was written by Stephen Morehouse Avery, Julius J. Epstein, and Philip G....
(1942) and United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
' Since You Went Away
Since You Went Away
Since You Went Away is a 1944 film distributed by United Artists, a big-budget epic about the American home front during World War II. It was directed by John Cromwell and adapted and produced by David O. Selznick from the novel Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret...
(1944), but her feistiness was toned down.
She made her last film appearances in Mickey
Mickey (1948 film)
Mickey is a 1948 drama film starring Lois Butler, Bill Goodwin, and Academy Award-winning actress Hattie McDaniel. The film was based on the novel Clementine by Peggy Goodin.-Synopsis:...
(1948) and Family Honeymoon
Family Honeymoon
Family Honeymoon is a 1949 domestic comedy film made by Universal International Pictures, directed by Claude Binyon, and written by Dane Lussier, based on novel by Homer Croy...
(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
Beulah (series)
The Beulah Show is an American situation-comedy series that ran on CBS radio from 1945 to 1954, and on ABC television from 1950 to 1952. The show is notable for being the first sitcom to star an African American actress.-Radio:...
. She starred in the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television version, taking over for Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...
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
Louise Beavers
Louise Beavers was an African-American film and television actress. Beavers appeared in dozens of films from the 1920s to the 1930s, most often in the role of a maid, servant, or slave. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Beavers was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, one of the four African-American...
.
Legal case: Victory on "Sugar Hill"
Time magazine, December 17, 1945:- Spacious, well-kept West AdamsWest Adams, Los Angeles, CaliforniaWest Adams, also known as Historic West Adams, is a large district located in the center of Los Angeles, California, southwest of Downtown and west of USC...
Heights still had the complacent look of the days when most of Los Angeles' aristocracy lived there. In the Los Angeles courtroom of Superior Judge Thurmond Clarke last week some 250 of West Adams' residents stood at swords' points.
- Their story was as old as it was ugly. In 1938, Negroes, willing and able to pay $15,000 and up for Heights property, had begun moving into the old eclectic mansions. Many were movie folk—Actresses Louise BeaversLouise BeaversLouise Beavers was an African-American film and television actress. Beavers appeared in dozens of films from the 1920s to the 1930s, most often in the role of a maid, servant, or slave. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Beavers was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, one of the four African-American...
, Hattie McDaniel, Ethel WatersEthel WatersEthel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...
, 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 referred to the original racial restriction covenantRestrictive covenantA restrictive covenant is a type of real covenant, a legal obligation imposed in a deed by the seller upon the buyer of real estate to do or not to do something. Such restrictions frequently "run with the land" and are enforceable on subsequent buyers of the property...
that came with the development of West Adams Heights back in 1902 which restricted "Non-caucasians" from owning property. For seven years they had tried to enforce it, but failed. Then they went to court ...
- Superior Judge Thurmond ClarkeThurmond ClarkeThurmond Clarke was a United States federal judge.Born in Santa Paula, California, Clarke received an LL.B. from the University of Southern California Law School in 1927. He was a Deputy district attorney of Los Angeles County, California from 1927 to 1929. He was a Deputy city attorney of City of...
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 AmendmentFourteenth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
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
Loren Miller (judge)
Loren Miller , was an American, California Superior Court Justice, County of Los Angeles, appointed by former governor Edmund G. Brown in 1964, serving until 1967...
, a local attorney and owner/publisher of the California Eagle
California Eagle
The California Eagle was one of the oldest and longest-running African American newspapers in Los Angeles, California and the West. It started in 1879, founded by John J. Neimore, who had escaped slavery in Missouri...
newspaper represented the minority homeowners in their restrictive covenant case. In 1944, he had won the case Fairchild v Rainers, a decision for a black Pasadena, California
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
, family that had bought a non-restricted lot but was sued by white neighbors anyway.
McDaniel had purchased her white two-story, seventeen-room house 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
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
, would be faithfully present at all of McDaniel's Movieland parties.
Community service
McDaniel was also a member of Sigma Gamma RhoSigma Gamma Rho
Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. was founded on the campus of Butler University on November 12, 1922, by seven school teachers in Indianapolis, Indiana...
, one of four African-American Greek letter sororities in the United States. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, McDaniel was the Chairman of the Negro Division of the Hollywood Victory Committee
Hollywood Victory Committee
The Hollywood Victory Committee was an organization founded on December 10, 1941 during World War II to provide a means so that for stage, screen, television and radio performers that were not in military service could contribute to the war effort through bond drives and improving morale for...
, providing entertainment for soldiers stationed at military bases. She also put in numerous personal appearances to hospitals, threw parties, performed at United Service Organizations
United Service Organizations
The United Service Organizations Inc. is a private, nonprofit organization that provides morale and recreational services to members of the U.S. military, with programs in 160 centers worldwide. Since 1941, it has worked in partnership with the Department of Defense , and has provided support and...
(USO) shows and war bond rallies, to raise funds to support the war, on behalf of the Victory Committee. Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
also performed for black regiments as the only white member of an acting troupe formed by Hattie McDaniel, that also included Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
and Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...
. She was also a member of American Women's Voluntary Services
American Women's Voluntary Services
American Women's Voluntary Services was the largest American women's service organization in the United States during World War II...
.
She joined Clarence Muse
Clarence Muse
Clarence Muse was an actor, screenwriter, director, composer, and lawyer. He was inducted in the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1973. Muse was the first African American to "star" in a film. He acted for more than sixty years, and appeared in more than 150 movies.-Life and career:Born in...
for an NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
radio broadcast to raise funds for Red Cross relief programs for Americans, many of them black, who had been displaced by devastating floods. Within the black community, she gained a reputation for generous giving, often feeding and lending money to friends and stranger alike without question.
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. According to the book Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, by Donald BogleDonald Bogle
Donald Bogle is a film historian and author of six books concerning African Americans in film and on television. He is an instructor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and at the University of Pennsylvania.-Early years:...
, McDaniel happily informed gossip columnist Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...
in 1945 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
Yuma, Arizona
Yuma is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of the state, and the population of the city was 77,515 at the 2000 census, with a 2008 Census Bureau estimated population of 90,041....
, 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
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
, in the hospital on the grounds of the Motion Picture House
Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
The Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital is a retirement community, with individual cottages, and a fully licensed, acute-care hospital, located at 23388 Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills, California...
in Woodland Hills, on October 26, 1952. She was survived by her brother, Sam McDaniel
Sam McDaniel
Sam McDaniel was an African American actor who appeared in over 210 television shows and films between 1929 and 1950. He was the older brother of actresses Hattie McDaniel and Etta McDaniel. born in Wichita, Kansas, to former slaves. He was one of 13 children...
, a film actor. Thousands of mourners turned out to remember her life and accomplishments. 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 Hollywood Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, originally called Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles, California. It is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in the Hollywood...
on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood was the resting place of movie stars such as Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
, Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
, and others. The owner, Jules Roth, refused to allow her to be buried there, because they did not take black people. 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
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, originally called Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles, California. It is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in the Hollywood...
, wanted to right the wrong and have 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 instead built a large cenotaph
Cenotaph
A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion...
memorial on the lawn overlooking the lake in honor of McDaniel. It is one of the most popular sites for visitors.
Will
The last will filed for probate disposed of less than $10,000 ($ as of ), to a few relatives and friends, her estate having been eroded by medical costs. She left $1 ($ as of ), to her last husband, Larry C. Williams.Legacy and recognition
McDaniel has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of FameHollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
in Hollywood: one for her contributions to radio
Radio programming
Radio programming is the Broadcast programming of a Radio format or content that is organized for Commercial broadcasting and Public broadcasting radio stations....
at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard
-Revitalization:In recent years successful efforts have been made at cleaning up Hollywood Blvd., as the street had gained a reputation for crime and seediness. Central to these efforts was the construction of the Hollywood and Highland shopping center and adjacent Kodak Theatre in 2001...
, and one for motion pictures at 1719 Vine Street. In 1975, she was inducted posthumously into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame
Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame
The Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Inc. , was founded in 1973, Oakland, California. It supports and promotes black filmmaking, and preserves the contributions by African American artists both before and behind the camera...
.
In 1994, actress and singer Karla Burns
Karla Burns
Karla Burns is an American operatic mezzo-soprano and actress who has performed nationally and internationally in opera houses, theatres, and on television...
launched her one-woman show Hi-Hat-Hattie (written by Larry Parr), which examines the life of McDaniel. She went on to perform the role in several other cities through 2002 including Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
in New York and the Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre in California.
In 2002, the legacy of Hattie McDaniel was celebrated when American Movie Classics (AMC) portrayed 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
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...
. The one-hour special showed the struggles and triumphs as McDaniel, in spite of racism and adversity, knocked down the doors of segregation in Hollywood and made her presence known. The film won the 2001–2002 Daytime Emmy Award
Daytime Emmy Award
The Daytime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American daytime television programming...
, 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
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
. 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 when she accepted her Academy Award in 1940. The ceremony took place at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
, where the Hattie McDaniel collection includes photographs of McDaniel and other family members, as well as scripts and other documents.
In her acceptance speech for best supporting actress in the film Precious
Precious (film)
Precious , is a 2009 American drama film directed by Lee Daniels. Precious is an adaptation by Geoffrey S. Fletcher of the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire. The film stars Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, and Paula Patton...
at the 82nd Academy awards, Mo'Nique stated, "I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to." Mo'Nique was dressed in a blue dress, with gardenias in her hair, in homage to McDaniel, who wore the same thing to the award ceremony in 1940. In November 2009, she announced that she owned the rights to McDaniel's life story, in which she would play the starring role.
After Mo'Nique won her Oscar, questions rose about whatever became of Hattie McDaniel's Oscar upon her death. It was later reported by the Washington Post that McDaniel's Oscar was donated to Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
's Drama Department to be displayed for future generations of students; McDaniel had been honored by the students of Howard University with a luncheon after winning her Oscar. The statue may have disappeared during racial unrest on the Washington, D.C., campus in the late 1960s.
August 16, 2011, was officially declared “Hattie McDaniel Day” on the Frank Decaro Show on Sirius OUTQ 108
Features
- The Golden West (19321932 in film-Events:*Cary Grant's film career begins*Katharine Hepburn's film career begins*Shirley Temple's film career begins*Disney released Flowers and Trees, the first cartoon in three-strip Technicolor film.*Santa, first sound film made in Mexico released....
) - Love Bound (1932)
- Impatient MaidenImpatient MaidenImpatient Maiden is a drama film directed by James Whale, starring Lew Ayres and Mae Clarke, and released by Universal Pictures. The screenplay was written by Richard Schayer and Winifred Dunn, based on the novel The Impatient Virgin by Donald Henderson Clarke.-Cast:*Lew Ayres as Dr...
(1932) - Are You Listening?Are You Listening? (film)Are You Listening? is a 1932 drama film starring William Haines, Madge Evans and Anita Page. The film was directed by Harry Beaumont. It was Haines' final film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.-Plot:...
(1932) - The Washington Masquerade (1932)
- The Boiling Point (1932)
- Crooner (1932)
- Blonde VenusBlonde VenusBlonde Venus is a 1932 is a Pre-Code drama film starring Marlene Dietrich and Cary Grant. The movie was produced and directed for Paramount Pictures by Josef von Sternberg with a screenplay by Jules Furthman and S. K. Lauren adapted from a story by Furthman and von Sternberg. The music score was by W...
(1932) - Hypnotized (1932)
- Hello, Sister (19331933 in film-Events:* March 2 - King Kong premieres in New York City.* June 6 - The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey.* British Film Institute founded....
) - I'm No AngelI'm No AngelI'm No Angel is Mae West's third motion picture. West received sole story and screenplay credit. A young Cary Grant plays her leading man for the second time. Being Pre-Code, this was one of the few Mae West movies that was not subjected to heavy censorship...
(1933) - Merry Wives of Reno (19341934 in film-Events:*January 26 - Samuel Goldwyn purchases the film rights to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the L. Frank Baum estate for $40,000.*February 19 - Bob Hope marries Dolores Reade...
) - Operator 13 (1934)
- King Kelly of the U.S.A. (1934)
- Judge PriestJudge PriestJudge Priest is a 1934 American comedy film. The film was based on humorist Irvin S. Cobb's character Judge Priest. The film was directed by John Ford and produced by Sol M. Wurtzel in association with Fox Film...
(1934) - Flirtation (1934)
- Lost in the Stratosphere (1934)
- BabbittBabbitt (novel)Babbitt, first published in 1922, is a novel by Sinclair Lewis. Largely a satire of American culture, society, and behavior, it critiques the vacuity of middle-class American life and its pressure on individuals toward conformity....
(1934) - Little Men (1934)
- The Little ColonelThe Little ColonelThe Little Colonel is a 1935 American comedy drama film directed by David Butler. The screenplay by William M. Conselman was adapted from a novel of the same name by Annie Fellows Johnston, and focuses on the reconciliation of an estranged father and daughter in the years following the American...
(19351935 in film-Events:*Judy Garland signs a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .*Seven year old Shirley Temple wins a special Academy Award.*The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment started in order to educate the Bantu peoples.-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:...
)
- Transient Lady (1935)
- Traveling Saleslady (1935)
- China SeasChina Seas (film)China Seas is a 1935 adventure film starring Clark Gable as a brave sea captain, Jean Harlow as his brassy paramour, and Wallace Beery as an extremely suspicious-looking character...
(1935) - Alice AdamsAlice Adams (film)Alice Adams, also known as Booth Tarkington's Alice Adams, is a 1935 romantic film made by RKO. It was directed by George Stevens and produced by Pandro S. Berman from a screenplay by Dorothy Yost, Mortimer Offner adapted by Jane Murfin from the novel, Alice Adams, by Booth Tarkington...
(1935) - Murder by TelevisionMurder by TelevisionMurder by Television is an American mystery film starring Bela Lugosi, June Collyer, and Huntley Gordon. The film is also known as The Houghland Murder Case...
(1935) - Harmony Lane (1935)
- Music Is MagicMusic Is MagicMusic Is Magic is a 1935 Fox musical film directed by George Marshall. The movie stars Alice Faye and Bebe Daniels and is based on a play by Jesse Lasky Jr. and Gladys Unger. The movie was Daniels' last American screen appearance.-Plot:...
(1935) - Another Face (1935)
- We're Only Human (1935)
- Can This Be Dixie? (19361936 in filmThe year 1936 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 29 - Fritz Lang's first Hollywood film Fury, starring Spencer Tracy and Bruce Cabot, is released.*November 6 - first Porky Pig animated cartoon...
) - Next Time We LoveNext Time We LoveNext Time We Love is a 1936 melodrama film directed by Edward H. Griffith and starring Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart and Ray Milland. It was written by Melville Baker with Preston Sturges and Doris Anderson, who were both uncredited, based on Ursula Parrott's 1935 novel Next Time We Live, which...
(1936) - The First Baby (1936)
- The Singing Kid (1936)
- Gentle Julia (1936)
- Show BoatShow Boat (1936 film)Show Boat is a 1936 film based on the musical play by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II , which the team adapted from the novel by Edna Ferber....
(1936) - High Tension (1936)
- The Bride Walks Out (1936)
- Postal Inspector (1936)
- Star for a Night (1936)
- Valiant Is the Word for CarrieValiant Is the Word for CarrieValiant is the word for Carrie is a 1936 film starring Gladys George, Arline Judge, John Howard, Dudley Digges, Harry Carey, Isabel Jewell, and Hattie McDaniel. The movie was adapted by Claude Binyon from the novel of the same name by Barry Benefield...
(1936) - Libeled LadyLibeled LadyLibeled Lady is a 1936 screwball comedy film starring Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy, written by George Oppenheimer, Howard Emmett Rogers, Wallace Sullivan and Maurine Dallas Watkins, and directed by Jack Conway....
(1936) - Reunion (1936)
- Mississippi Moods (19371937 in filmThe year 1937 in film involved some significant events, including the Walt Disney production of the first full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.- Events :*April 16 - Way Out West premieres in the US....
)
- Racing Lady (1937)
- Don't Tell the Wife (1937)
- The Crime Nobody Saw (1937)
- The Wildcatter (1937)
- SaratogaSaratoga (film)Saratoga is a 1937 film written by Anita Loos and directed by Jack Conway. The movie stars Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in their sixth and final film collaboration....
(1937) - Stella DallasStella Dallas (1937 film)Stella Dallas is a 1937 film based on the Olive Higgins Prouty novel of the same name. It was directed by King Vidor, and stars Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, and Anne Shirley. Stanwyck was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and Shirley for Best Actress in a Supporting Role...
(1937) - Sky Racket (1937)
- Over the Goal (1937)
- Merry Go Round of 1938 (1937)
- Nothing SacredNothing Sacred (film)Nothing Sacred is a 1937 Technicolor screwball comedy film made by Selznick International Pictures and distributed by United Artists. It was directed by William A. Wellman and produced by David O. Selznick, from a screenplay credited to Ben Hecht, based on a story by James H. Street...
(1937) - 45 Fathers (1937)
- Quick Money (1937)
- True ConfessionTrue ConfessionTrue Confession is a 1937 screwball comedy film starring Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray, and John Barrymore. It was directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the play Mon Crime, written by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil.-Plot:...
(1937) - Battle of Broadway (19381938 in filmThe year 1938 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*January — MGM announces that Judy Garland would be cast in the role of "Dorothy" in the upcoming Wizard of Oz motion picture. Ray Bolger is cast as the "Tinman" and Buddy Ebsen is cast as the "Scarecrow". At Bolger's insistence,...
) - Vivacious LadyVivacious LadyVivacious Lady is a 1938 American black-and-white romantic comedy film starring Ginger Rogers and James Stewart, produced and directed by George Stevens, and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The screenplay was written by P.J. Wolfson and Ernest Pagano and adapted from a short story by I. A. R. Wylie...
(1938) - The Shopworn AngelThe Shopworn AngelThe Shopworn Angel is a 1938 American drama film directed by H.C. Potter. The MGM release featured the second screen pairing of Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart following their successful teaming in the Universal Pictures production Next Time We Love two years earlier...
(1938) - CarefreeCarefree (film)Carefree is a 1938 musical film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. With a plot similar to screwball comedies of the period, Carefree is the shortest of the Astaire-Rogers films, featuring only four musical numbers...
(1938) - The Mad Miss MantonThe Mad Miss MantonThe Mad Miss Manton is a 1938 screwball comedy and mystery film starring Barbara Stanwyck as fun-loving socialite Melsa Manton and Henry Fonda as newspaper editor Peter Ames. Melsa and her debutante friends hunt for a murderer while eating bonbons, flirting with Ames, and otherwise behaving like...
(1938) - The Shining HourThe Shining HourThe Shining Hour is a 1938 MGM film, based on a 1934 play by Keith Winter. The film starred Joan Crawford, Margaret Sullavan, Robert Young, Melvyn Douglas, and Fay Bainter.-Plot summary:...
(1938) - Everybody's Baby (19391939 in filmThe year 1939 in motion pictures can be justified as being called the most outstanding one ever, when it comes to the high quality and high attendance at the large set of the best films that premiered in the year .- Events :Motion picture historians and film often rate...
) - ZenobiaZenobia (film)Zenobia is a 1939 comedy film starring Oliver Hardy, Harry Langdon, Billie Burke, Alice Brady, James Ellison, Jean Parker, June Lang, Stepin Fetchit, and Hattie McDaniel...
(1939) - Gone with the WindGone with the Wind (film)Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
(1939) - Maryland (19401940 in filmThe year 1940 in film involved some significant events, including the premieres of the Walt Disney classics Pinocchio and Fantasia.-Events:*February 7 - Walt Disney's animated film Pinocchio is released....
) - The Great LieThe Great LieThe Great Lie is a 1941 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Bette Davis, George Brent, and Mary Astor. The screenplay by Lenore J...
(19411941 in filmThe year 1941 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Citizen Kane, consistently rated as one of the greatest films of all time, was released in 1941.-Top grossing films :-Academy Awards:...
) - Affectionately Yours (1941)
- They Died with Their Boots OnThey Died with Their Boots OnThey Died with Their Boots On is a 1941 western film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Despite being rife with historical inaccuracies, the film was one of the top-grossing films of the year, being the last of eight Flynn–de Havilland collaborations.Like...
(1941) - The Male AnimalThe Male AnimalThe Male Animal is a Warner Brothers film starring Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Leslie.The film was based on a hit 1940 Broadway play of the same name written by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent. The screenplay was written by Stephen Morehouse Avery, Julius J. Epstein, and Philip G....
(19421942 in filmThe year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Casablanca.-Events:...
) - In This Our LifeIn This Our LifeIn This Our Life is a 1942 American drama film, the second to be directed by John Huston. The screenplay by Howard Koch is based on the 1941 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Ellen Glasgow. The cast included the established stars Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland as sisters and...
(1942) - George Washington Slept HereGeorge Washington Slept HereGeorge Washington Slept Here is a 1942 comedy film starring Jack Benny and Ann Sheridan. It was based on the 1940 play of the same name by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, adapted by Everett Freeman, and was directed by William Keighley...
(1942) - Johnny Come Lately (19431943 in filmThe year 1943 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 3 - 1st missing persons telecast * February 20 - American film studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor films....
) - Thank Your Lucky StarsThank Your Lucky Stars (1943 film)Thank Your Lucky Stars is a film made by Warner Brothers as a World War II fundraiser. It was directed by David Butler and starred Eddie Cantor, Dennis Morgan, Joan Leslie, Edward Everett Horton and S. Z...
(1943) - Since You Went AwaySince You Went AwaySince You Went Away is a 1944 film distributed by United Artists, a big-budget epic about the American home front during World War II. It was directed by John Cromwell and adapted and produced by David O. Selznick from the novel Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret...
(19441944 in filmThe year 1944 in film involved some significant events, including the wholesome, award-winning Going My Way plus popular murder mysteries such as Double Indemnity, Gaslight and Laura.-Events:*July 20 - Since You Went Away is released....
) - Janie (1944)
- Three Is a FamilyThree Is a FamilyThree Is a Family is a 1944 comedy film directed by Edward Ludwig. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Sound Recording .-Cast:* Marjorie Reynolds as Kitty Mitchell* Charles Ruggles as Sam Whitaker...
(1944) - Hi, Beautiful (1944)
- Janie Gets Married (19461946 in filmThe year 1946 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*November 21 - William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives premieres in New York featuring an ensemble cast including Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, and Harold Russell.*December 20 - Frank Capra's It's a...
) - Margie (1946)
- Never Say GoodbyeNever Say Goodbye (1946 film)Never Say Goodbye is a 1946 romantic comedy film about a divorcing couple and the daughter who works to bring them back together.-Cast:* Errol Flynn as Phil Gayley* Eleanor Parker as Ellen Gayley* Lucile Watson as Mrs. Hamilton* S. Z...
(1946) - Song of the SouthSong of the SouthSong of the South is a 1946 American musical film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film is based on the Uncle Remus cycle of stories by Joel Chandler Harris. The live actors provide a sentimental frame story, in which Uncle Remus relates the folk tales of the...
(1946) - The Flame (19471947 in filmThe year 1947 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 22 - Great Expectations is premiered in New York.*November 24 : The United States House of Representatives of the 80th Congress voted 346 to 17 to approve citations for contempt of Congress against the "Hollywood Ten".*November 25...
) - MickeyMickey (1948 film)Mickey is a 1948 drama film starring Lois Butler, Bill Goodwin, and Academy Award-winning actress Hattie McDaniel. The film was based on the novel Clementine by Peggy Goodin.-Synopsis:...
(19481948 in filmThe year 1948 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Laurence Olivier's Hamlet becomes the first British film to win the American Academy Award for Best Picture.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :...
) - Family HoneymoonFamily HoneymoonFamily Honeymoon is a 1949 domestic comedy film made by Universal International Pictures, directed by Claude Binyon, and written by Dane Lussier, based on novel by Homer Croy...
(19491949 in filmThe year 1949 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello...
) - The Big WheelThe Big Wheel (film)The Big Wheel is a 1949 film starring Mickey Rooney and Thomas Mitchell.-Plot:Rooney plays Billy Coy, a young man determined to follow in his father's footsteps as a race car driver. Despite the fact that his father, "Cannonball" Coy, was killed in a fiery crash during the Indianapolis 500, Billy...
(1949)
Short subjects
- Mickey's RescueMickey's RescueMickey's Rescue is a 1934 talkie short film in Larry Darmour's Mickey McGuire series starring a young Mickey Rooney. Directed by Jesse Duffy, the two-reel short was released to theaters on March 23, 1934 by Columbia Pictures.-Plot:...
(19341934 in film-Events:*January 26 - Samuel Goldwyn purchases the film rights to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the L. Frank Baum estate for $40,000.*February 19 - Bob Hope marries Dolores Reade...
) - Fate's Fathead (1934)
- The Chases of Pimple Street (1934)
- Anniversary TroubleAnniversary TroubleAnniversary Trouble is a 1935 Our Gang short comedy film directed by Gus Meins. It was the 134th Our Gang short that was released.-Plot:...
(19351935 in film-Events:*Judy Garland signs a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .*Seven year old Shirley Temple wins a special Academy Award.*The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment started in order to educate the Bantu peoples.-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:...
) - Okay Toots! (1935)
- Wig-Wag (1935)
- The Four Star Boarder (1935)
- Arbor DayArbor Day (film)Arbor Day is a 1936 Our Gang short comedy film directed by Fred C. Newmeyer. It was the 145th Our Gang short that was released.-Plot:...
(19361936 in filmThe year 1936 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 29 - Fritz Lang's first Hollywood film Fury, starring Spencer Tracy and Bruce Cabot, is released.*November 6 - first Porky Pig animated cartoon...
) - Termites of 1938Termites of 1938Termites of 1938 is the 28th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.-Plot:...
(19381938 in filmThe year 1938 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*January — MGM announces that Judy Garland would be cast in the role of "Dorothy" in the upcoming Wizard of Oz motion picture. Ray Bolger is cast as the "Tinman" and Buddy Ebsen is cast as the "Scarecrow". At Bolger's insistence,...
)
Radio
Station KOAKOA (AM)
KOA is a clear channel, news/talk radio station serving the Denver-Boulder and Colorado Springs, Colorado markets. It is owned by Clear Channel Communications and is nicknamed "the Blowtorch of the West" for its 50,000 watt signal.KOA was originally owned by General Electric and began...
, Denver, Melony Hounds (1926)
Station KNX
KNX (AM)
KNX is an all-news radio station in Los Angeles, California, USA. The station operates on a clear channel and is owned by CBS Radio. KNX broadcasts from facilities shared with sister stations KFWB, KCBS-FM, KTWV, and KAMP on Los Angeles' Miracle Mile...
, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, The Optimistic Do-Nut Hour (1931)
CBS Network, The Beulah Show
Beulah (series)
The Beulah Show is an American situation-comedy series that ran on CBS radio from 1945 to 1954, and on ABC television from 1950 to 1952. The show is notable for being the first sitcom to star an African American actress.-Radio:...
(1947)
See also
- List of African American firsts
- List of black Academy Award winners and nominees