Tom's Two Cents : Hattie McDaniel, by Jill Watts

As part of my preparation for my Gone With the Wind seminar at the Library next month, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking about Scarlett O’Hara and her “crew,” and that of course also brings fond memories of the great Selznick film of 1939, starring Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, and of course the great Hattie McDaniel, the first of her race to win an Academy Award for her supporting performance.  I say “supporting” in name only, for absolutely no one could have given a more definitive interpretation of the character that Margaret Mitchell created—she was truly MAMMY, not only the person, but the symbol, of a type of individual who once existed in the South, now denigrated more than recognized, as an integral, yet separate, part of many Southern families of the past.

Hattie was the youngest child in a family of six, her mother having borne thirteen children, seven of whom died in infancy. Her father, Henry, an ex-slave, settled in his native state of Tennessee after serving on the Union side during the Civil War, but finding survival there practically impossible during Reconstruction, he moved to Wichita, Kansas, where Hattie was born. Ultimately the family settled in Denver in an up and coming (relatively speaking) Black Community. The center of that community was the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), which formed the foundation of many Black families’ lives during those extremely difficult times. All of her life McDaniel remained a devout member and Christian, giving much of her time, talent, and later money to the Church and charitable causes.

Also born of a talented family, she made a stage debut by the age of five and became a seasoned vaudevillian by the age of eighteen, often performing with one or more of her siblings, singing, dancing, and later even writing for the stage, before she went to Hollywood, ultimately appearing in dozens of roles between 1932 and 1949, usually as a domestic—more often than not, the only type of role open then to Black women. She was forty-five, screen testing with Vivien Leigh herself, when she was picked to play Mammy, one of the roles of a lifetime, and she played it to the hilt, even though some of her own people protested what they interpreted as a Black stereo-type presentation.

Jill Watts has written a carefully researched biography not only of McDaniel herself, but of the difficult times in which she grew up, chronicling as she goes the complicated and often terribly unfair life of the African American in show business during the first half of the 20th century. Tenacity, faith, extreme perseverance, and an enormous work ethic were required to succeed against the heaviest of odds. Hattie McDaniel had them all, in spades!