October 26, 1952 - Hattie McDaniel - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

Hollywood’s first black Oscar-winner, Hattie McDaniel, dies. Very few African American actresses have been nominated for Academy Awards, even today. The second black woman to win an Oscar was Whoopi Goldberg in 1990 for her supporting role in the movie Ghost. The first was Hattie McDaniel, who was born June 10, 1895 in Wichita, Kansas. She began her career by working beside other blacks in the limited roles that tent shows and vaudeville allowed. After a stint as a radio singer, she moved to Hollywood to build an impressive movie career. Even though movie producers withheld prime roles from blacks at the time, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People saw fit to criticize McDaniel for playing characters that perpetuated black stereotypes. Ironically, it was her role as Mammy in the legendary 1939 movie Gone with the Wind that made her the first African American woman to win an Academy Award. Despite her prominent place in history, McDaniel faced discrimination for the color of her skin. During the Academy Awards ceremony at the Coconut Grove night club in the famous Ambassador Hotel, officials made McDaniel sit at the back alone. Before her death from breast cancer on October 26, 1952, she’d racked up 100 movie credits to her name. Her desire to be buried in the Hollywood Cemetery with other movie stars was denied by the owner Jules Roth, because she was black. In 1999, the new owner of the cemetery, Tyler Cassidy, offered to move her remains, but her family declined. Instead Tyler honoured McDaniel with a large cenotaph which overlooks the lake.

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