Hattie McDaniel, the first Black Oscar winner, finally comes home

It was there until the late 1960s or early 1970s, when it mysteriously went missing. Was it thrown away? Misplaced? Stolen during a period of student unrest?

Last October, representatives from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Howard with a replacement Oscar for McDaniel.

“It was as if she was there with us,” said Phylicia Rashad, the dean of the university’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at the time.

Since her ground-breaking performance that made her the first Black person to be nominated for and win an Oscar, McDaniel’s legacy has been profound and complicated.

Critics called her character the only sensible and likable person in the entire epic film.

But the accolades didn’t bring about star treatment. An article in The Hollywood Reporter recalled the evening:

McDaniel arrived for the 12th Academy Awards, held at the famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub in The Ambassador Hotel, in a rhinestone-studded turquoise gown with white gardenias in her hair. She was escorted, not to the “Gone With the Wind” table — where Selznick sat with Olivia de Havilland, who was the other supporting actress nominee, and his two Oscar-nominated leads, Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable — but to a small table set against a far wall, where she took a seat with her escort, F.P. Yober, and her white agent, William Meiklejohn. With the hotel’s strict no-Blacks policy, Selznick had to call in a special favor just to have McDaniel allowed into the building.

McDaniel was born on June 10, 1895, in Wichita, Kansas, to former enslaved people. She left school in 1910 to become a performer in several traveling minstrel groups.

During the Great Depression there was little work to be found for minstrel or vaudeville players, so she took a job as a bathroom attendant at Sam Pick’s club in Milwaukee. Although the club as a rule hired only white performers, some of its patrons became aware of McDaniel’s vocal talents and encouraged the owner to make an exception.

McDaniel performed at the club for more than a year until she left for Los Angeles, where she found a small role on a local radio show, “The Optimistic Do-Nuts.” Known as Hi-Hat Hattie, she became the show’s main attraction.

Movies came next, but she was constantly relegated to servant-type roles. During the 1930s she played a maid or a cook in nearly 40 films, which brought criticism from Black groups.

“Why should I complain about making $700 a week playing a maid?” McDaniel asked. “If I didn’t, I’d be making $7 a week actually being one!”

.

After World War II, the NAACP and other liberal Black groups lobbied Hollywood for an end to the stereotyped roles in which McDaniel had become typecast. Her Hollywood opportunities declined.

In 1947, McDaniel became the first African American to star in a weekly radio program aimed at a general audience when she agreed to play a maid on “The Beulah Show.”

In 1951, while filming a television version of the popular “Beulah” show, McDaniel had a heart attack. She recovered sufficiently to tape a number of radio shows in 1952 but died soon thereafter of breast cancer.

BLACK OSCAR WINNERS

In the history of the Academy Awards, only 22 performances by Black actors or actresses won Oscars.

Here is the complete list of past winners:

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

Best actor

Best actress

Best supporting actor

Best supporting actress

ABOUT THIS SERIES

The AJC’s Black History Month series focuses on the role of African Americans and the Arts and the overwhelming influence it has had on American culture. These daily offerings appear throughout the paper. More subscriber exclusives on the African American people, places and organizations that have changed the world are available at ajc.com/news/atlanta-black-history