After working as early as the 1910s as a band vocalist, Hattie McDaniel debuted as a maid in The Golden West. Her maid-mammy characters became steadily more assertive, showing up first in Judge Priest and becoming pronounced in Alice Adams. In this one, directed by George Stevens and aided and abetted by star Katharine Hepburn, she makes it clear she has little use for her employers' pretentious status seeking. By The Mad Miss Manton she actually tells off her socialite employer Barbara Stanwyck and her snooty friends. This path extends into the greatest role of her career, Mammy in Gone with the Wind. Here she is, in a number of ways, superior to most of the white folk surrounding her. From that point here roles unfortunately descended, with her characters becoming more and more menial. She played on the "Amos and Andy" and Eddie Cantor radio shows in the 1930s and 1940s; the title in her own radio show "Beulah" (1947-51), and the same part on TV (Beulah). Her part in "Gone With The Wind" won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, the first black to win an Academy Award.
Gone with the Wind (1939): $1,000 a week

Arguably the first African-American woman to sing on radio (1915, with Professor George Morrison's Negro Orchestra, Denver, CO); first African-American to be buried in Los Angeles' Rosedale Cemetery McDaniel's marriages were all troublesome. Her first husband was shot and killed shortly after the wedding, her second lasted less than a year, and her fourth lasted four months. The human "Mammy" character in the Tom+Jerry Cartoons was based on her. This human supporting character was best remembered for shouting "THOMAS" very loudly. Was the first African-American to win an Academy Award. She won as Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind. She became the first African-American to attend the Academy Awards as a guest, not a servant. Weighed 200 pounds. 47 years after her death, has been memorialized by a pink-and-gray granite monument at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Her wish to be buried in Hollywood at her death in 1952 was denied amid the racism of the era. [1999] Sister of Sam McDaniel. Sister of actress Etta McDaniel. She willed her Oscar to Howard University, but the Oscar was lost during the race riots at Howard during the 1960s. It has never been found. Her father was a slave, who was eventually freed. When the date of the Atlanta premiere of Gone with the Wind approached, McDaniel told director Victor Fleming she would not be able to make it, when in actuality she did not want to cause trouble due to the virulent racism that was rampant in Atlanta at the time. Despite the fact Clark Gable played a joke on her during the filming of Gone with the Wind (he put real brandy in the decanter instead of iced tea during the Bonnie Blue birth celebration scene), McDaniel and Gable were actually good friends. Gable later threatened to boycott the premiere in Atlanta because McDaniel was not invited, but later relented when she convinced him to go. Is a honorary member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Incorporated Lived in a middle class African American section of Los Angeles coined "Sugar Hill". Pictured on a USA 39¢ commemorative postage stamp in the Black Heritage series, issued 25 January 2006. Despite her substantial salaries for her various roles, her estate was valued at less than $10,000 when her will was made public. She left her last husband, Larry Williams, only $1. Her Academy Award was presented by Fay Bainter.