As the first black woman to win an Oscar but was not allowed to accept it due to racial discrimination, the actress who played the female slave in “Gone with the Wind” had a sad and haunting life.

Hattie – an unfortunate black girl who faked pregnancy because she wanted to be a mother

Hattie McDaniel was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 on June 10, 1895 in Wichita, Kansas, in Africa, into a family of 13 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren who all had a passion for art.

Hattie McDaniel

Her father Henry McDanie was a military man who loved the arts and her mother Susan Holbert was a church singer.

In addition to her parents’ encouragement, Hattie was also guided into acting by her older brother Sam McDaniel and older sister Etta McDaniel.

McDaniel followed his brother Sam to Hollywood to audition for a singing career and attended hundreds of auditions.

When Sam got his own radio show, Ms. McDaneil joined the program, becoming the first black woman to appear on radio.

At the age of 25, Hattie became a radio announcer and stayed in this job for nearly 10 years. But due to the economic crisis, she had to switch to working as a cleaner and village waitress.

Life was so difficult that Hattie McDaniel had to act in films at the age of 37. Her roles were mainly maid roles such as in  The Golden West (1932), No No Angel (1933) and especially Gone with the Wind (1939).

In the movie, Hattie plays a maid, but in real life, she is also a real maid.

Despite her difficult career, even after receiving an Oscar, Hattie McDaniel’s film and daily life were always a tragedy.

Hattie McDaniel was married four times but she never had a happy marriage.

Hattie’s first marriage was to Howard Hickman when she was 16, but Hickman died four years later. Hattie remarried in 1922 to George Langford.

Life had barely stabilized when Langford died in 1925 of a gunshot wound. And even after two marriages, Hattie had no 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren.

In 1941, Hattie remarried her third husband, James Lloyd Crawford, a real estate agent, when she was 46.

Tragedy struck, Hattie fell into depression because she wanted to have a 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 so much, she faked a pregnancy and used a lot of 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦 products. After her husband found out, Hattie broke up with him.

The actress was once threatened to be 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ed by her husband, and because she wanted to have a 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 so much, she faked being pregnant.

Hattie once shared about her married life with her third husband, she said Crawford was jealous of his wife’s career and once threatened to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 her.

Hattie then married for the fourth time to Larry Williams, an interior designer in 1949. But just one year later, they divorced due to “personality differences and frequent quarrels”.

Racism and the sad ending of a talented female artist’s life

Hattie McDaniel made history when she became the first African-American actress to win an Oscar at the 12th Academy Awards in 1939. She is considered an icon of racial issues in Hollywood.

Hattie McDaniel was the first African American to receive an Oscar. She was presented with the award by actress Fay Bainter.

While some famous Hollywood artists called for a boycott of the Oscars because the nominees in the main categories were all white, the race issue has never been so hot in the film capital.

At the 1940 Oscars, powerful figures in the organizing committee had to personally guarantee with the hotel staff that Hattie could enter the auditorium to attend the awards ceremony.

Her acceptance speech was a pitifully humble 67 seconds long. Hattie tearfully said, “I really wish I could be recognized in the film industry for my own skin color and race.”

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Hattie then ran off the stage, sobbing. She was greeted at the back of the auditorium, far from her white colleagues who had never welcomed her.

75 years ago, Hattie McDaniel received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the slave Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939).

After receiving the prestigious golden statue, Hattie McDaniel’s life did not witness any positive changes because at this time, America was experiencing a period of racial discrimination at its peak.

At the time of Gone with the Wind’s release, Hattie was unable to appear at the film’s premiere in Atlanta, where racial segregation was still rampant.

At that time, Clark Gable himself was the first to announce that he would not attend the premiere because of Hattie.

Hattie and her black co-stars celebrated separately elsewhere on opening night.

More severely, the film’s producers had to redesign the poster, removing all the faces of black actors when the film was shown in cities in the Southern United States.

At that time, Gone with the Wind producer David O. Selznick was very upset when black actress Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, was not invited to attend the film’s premiere in Atlanta on December 15, 1939.

Leaving behind the halo of the golden statue, Hattie often had to increase her income by working as a waitress in real-life restaurants and hotels – places where her white colleagues often visited.

Hattie once responded to critics of her acting roles: “Why should I complain when I can make $700 a week playing a maid? If I didn’t act, I would only make $7 a week as a real maid.”

To this day, what the press still records about Hattie is very little, because at that time, people only “pampered” white actors, while actors like Hattie were shunned.

At the end of her life, Hattie died alone of breast cancer at the age of 57.

The last wish was cruelly rejected by the management. On the day of the funeral, not a single mourner, only a white actor appeared to say goodbye.

She bequeathed her Oscar to Howard University in Washington DC.

However, that last wish was also denied when the Internal Revenue Service seized all of her assets worth $10,000 to pay off her tax debt. Her Oscar award is stored at Howards University, Washington (USA).

Years later, for her great contributions to American cinema and recording, Hattie McDaniel was honored with two stars on the Walk of Fame and a star dedicated to her film career at 1719 Vine Street.

In 2006, Hattie became the first black actress to be featured on a US postage stamp, and to this day she remains a role model for other black actresses entering the entertainment industry.