“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.”
Hattie McDaniel said this during a time when she was criticized—especially by the NAACP—for taking roles that showed Black people in stereotypical, servant-like ways. But Hattie stood by her choices. She said she did her best with the roles she was given and wasn’t just working for herself, but also hoping to pave the way for future generations of Black actors. Still, it hurt her deeply to be judged for the roles she couldn’t get and to feel like the NAACP pushed the image of Lena Horne over her, instead of recognizing what she had to go through in Hollywood.
When Black actors in Los Angeles couldn’t find a hotel or a place to stay because of racism, Hattie opened up her home to them.
There was a lot of competition for the role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939)—almost as much as for the lead role of Scarlett O’Hara. Even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote to the film’s producer, David O. Selznick, asking if her own maid, Elizabeth McDuffie, could be cast. Hattie didn’t think she had a shot, since she was mostly known for her comedy. Some say actor Clark Gable recommended her for the part. Either way, she showed up to the audition wearing a real maid’s uniform—and she got the role.
Though Gable once played a prank on her during filming by replacing fake tea with real brandy in a scene, they were actually close friends. Gable was so upset when he found out Hattie wasn’t invited to the movie’s Atlanta premiere that he threatened not to go—but Hattie convinced him to attend.
Her performance earned her the 1939 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress—making her the first Black actor to be nominated for and win an Academy Award. When asked about the character, she said, “I loved Mammy. I think I understood her because my grandmother worked on a plantation like Tara.”
Still, not everyone approved of her role. Some white audiences in the South felt Mammy acted too comfortably around her white employers. One writer pointed out that the film, like the book it was based on, gave Mammy no backstory—no real name, no children or family, no personal dreams beyond serving the O’Haras. Scarlett, who was much younger, often spoke to Mammy in ways that would have been seen as very disrespectful in that time period—if Mammy had been white and older. And Mammy never talked back to Scarlett’s mother, the more senior white woman in the home.
Some critics felt Hattie didn’t just take on these roles, but also accepted the way Hollywood portrayed Black people, and that her public comments made things harder for those fighting for civil rights. Later, when she tried to take her Mammy character on tour, Black audiences didn’t respond the way she had hoped.
(Source: IMDb/Wikipedia)
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