Classics: A Tribute to Hattie McDaniel By Lauren Ennis

Actress, singer-songwriter, and dancer Hattie McDaniel was a triple threat the likes of which Hollywood has rarely seen. Although she is best known for her Oscar winning turn as Mammy in 1939's Gone With the Wind, she was a dynamic performer who successfully conquered the stage, screen, and airwaves over the course of her thirty-eight year career. Her rags to riches success story is the stuff that the American dream is made of and her philanthropic efforts serve as an apt reminder of the difference that one person can make in the world. In honor of her birthday on June 10, I'll be turning the spotlight on her life, career, and legacy.

"I did my best, and God did the rest"-Hattie McDaniel

Born the youngest of thirteen children of former slaves, Hattie McDaniel's beginnings were far from the 'typical' Hollywood success story. In order to escape both racial prejudice and grinding poverty her family moved from Wichita, Kansas to Denver, Colorado when she was five years old. Even in the relatively egalitarian west, however, the family still found themselves struggling to survive as the injuries that her father had suffered while serving in the Civil War significantly limited his employment opportunities.  At the mere age of eight McDaniel and her brother took to the stage in an effort to supplement their parents' meager incomes. After nearly ten years of treading the boards in vaudeville she became determined to pursue performing full-time and quit school at age seventeen. She then appeared in a traveling minstrel show where she developed her skills as a singer-songwriter as well as a performer. While touring with the show she began to attain the status of a local celebrity, particularly after a much discussed performance in which she daringly subverted racial stereotypes by performing in "white-face" in what was ordinarily a role performed by white actors in "black-face".  In another trailblazing moment she became one of the first African American women to perform with an orchestra on the then cutting edge medium of radio. She even performed under the direction of famed Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld for a brief period until financial constraints forced him to lay her and her cast mates off.

Despite her artistic successes, from the 1910s through the 1930's McDaniel continued to struggle financially. Throughout this period, she continued to work a 'day job' in a series of domestic service positions as a powder room attendant, a laundress, and a maid in order to support herself. In an attempt to supplement her income she joined her siblings in Los Angeles in hopes of obtaining work as an extra in Hollywood while continuing to pursue her stage career. She landed her first major role in 1934 when she sang an on-screen duet with Will Rogers in John Ford's Judge Priest and quickly followed it up with the role of Mom Beck opposite Shirley Temple and Lionel Barrymore in 1935's The Little Colonel. Her portrayal of Queenie in 1936's Showboat brought her to the attention of several prominent directors and lead to her obtaining steady work in a series of roles throughout the remainder of the 1930's.

"Putting a little time aside for clean fun and good humor is very necessary to relieve the tensions of our time"-Hattie McDaniel

By 1939 McDaniel was known for her work throughout Hollywood, but in 1939 she was cast in the role that would ultimately lead to her becoming a cinematic legend. On the recommendation of star (and close personal friend), Clark Gable, she was cast in the coveted role of Mammy in Gone With the Wind. Drawing upon her own personal experiences in domestic work she created a multi-faceted and believable character in her performance. Even before the film's debut, however, she was subject to scrutiny from the NAACP, who claimed that in her numerous roles as domestic workers she played caricatures rather than characters and reinforced racial stereotypes. Gone With the Wind proved to be an instant classic, and led to McDaniel becoming the first African American to win an Oscar. This honor proved bittersweet, however, when she was prohibited from attending the film's premiere in then-segregated Atlanta, and later forced to sit apart from her cast mates at a table in the back of the venue during the Academy Awards Ceremony. Although her win was a cultural as well as personal milestone she continued to be plagued by criticism from African American audiences and even received hate mail from black servicemen during World War II. Little did her critics know, however, that throughout filming she pressured the film's directors (several directors were assigned to the project throughout filming) to rewrite her lines, which were written in dialect, and refused to utter the racial slurs which were included in the original script. When asked by Hollywood Reporter about the polarizing effect of her performance she replied, "I have never apologized for the roles I play. I have been told that I kept alive the stereotype of the Negro servant in the minds of theatergoers. I believe my critics think the public more naive than it actually is".

The criticism of the black community eventually led to a decline in the domestic roles that had formed the basis of McDaniel's film career. Rather than accept defeat she instead reinvented herself once again and starred in the radio comedy Beulah, becoming the first African American woman to star in a radio series. The series, which featured McDaniel portraying a sassy maid, was subject to the same criticism that had followed her throughout her film career. When the NAACP again accused her of reinforcing stereotypes she reminded her critics that the role drew upon her own personal experience and declared, "I'd rather make seven-hundred dollars a week playing a maid than seven dollars a week being one!".

Unbeknownst to many of her critics, McDaniel was devoted to philanthropic efforts within the black community throughout her life. During World War II she organized entertainment for African American troops and acted as chairwoman of the Negro Division of the Hollywood Victory Committee. She also founded her own philanthropic society, les Femmes D'Aujourd'hui, and joined Sigma Gamma Rho, a sorority for women of color devoted to philanthropy and the advancement of equality. She also played a pivotal role  in outlawing restrictive racial covenants (which were used to segregate neighborhoods) by organizing her neighbors in West Adams Heights to advocate for change and acting as one of the named defendants in the legal case Tollhurst v. Venerable. She continued to advocate for equality to the end of her days when she requested to be buried at the then segregated Hollywood Forever Cemetery shortly before she died of breast cancer at age 57 in 1952. While her request was denied and she was instead buried in the Rosedale Cemetery a marble memorial was erected in her honor in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in 1999.

In a paraphrase of her Academy Awards acceptance speech her gravestone reads "Aunt Hattie, you are a credit to your craft, your race, and to your family", and truer words were rarely written. Today her name appears on two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; a fitting tribute to a star who shined both on screen and off. Over the course of her all too brief life Hattie McDaniel not only overcame poverty and prejudice, but also helped others to do the same. She approached praise and criticism with equal grace and remained true to herself every step of the way. In short, she is exactly the sort of woman whom Rhett Butler would have described as a "great lady".

Hattie McDaniel accepting the 1940 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

Monique's touching tribute to McDaniel when she accepted her 2010 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress